sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Not the best turnout for the tailgate but TM was in midseason form on the grill and a good time was had by all. Good to see everyone and talk about the recent program changing major events.
Small crowd, maybe 30K actually there. But the people that came were loud. The crowd appeared to rattle the Rockets in the 2nd half. Toledo did not bring many fans...I counted 24. But Mark thought it was 40 and I value his judgement.
What a wild game. I thought Toledo had a great game plan on offense. Nice mix of draws, screens, short sideline passes and drag routes over the middle. We could use Fluellen...impressive player.
As was WR Page, who dominated the game at times and was every bit as good as advertised. That kid will play on Sundays. We tried to cover him with an LB, a DB, zones...nothing really worked.
The defense seemed to get better as the game went on. Shafer made his typical effective changes at halftime, we shut down the run and maybe got a little more pressure on the QB and their WRs. I think we ended up gutting them down as well as OSU or Boise did, which portends well for the future.
We obviously had some injury issues. No Shamarko, no Chandler (though both dressed). No fisher, Lyn and Anderson played but were clearly not 100%. Thought Phil did a fine job filling in at SS and Wilkes had a tough day starting at FS. We were forced to use Anene at Okie. Not pretty but somehow the guys got it done.
Lots of PT for Diet Tab...thought he did okay. For missing dozens of tackles, and a couple blown assignments, it was a heck of an effort. Liking what I see from Googins and Ball. Those 2 are really coming on. Lynch is another emerging player. Vaughn might be the best tackler on the team.
On offense, thought Nassib had another big game. Sure, he missed a couple of guys open for possible TDs. Had a couple bad throws too. He was not perfect. However, he made a number of clutch throws, was at his best again when we needed him most and is showing me a lot with his audibles and ability to rescue broken plays. The TD to Lemon in the face of a blitz was just beautiful to see.
Thought Bailey played fine but he is getting pressed hard by Gulley, who has the makings of a special player. Thought his great first down on a second and long down ten in the first half was one of the biggest plays in the game. Competition is a good thing.
The gameplan on offense seemed good in the first half (when SU could get their mitts on the ball). Toledo was blitzing up the middle a lot, especially in the second half and it looked like we tried to take advantage, with some success, with delayed runs. Kind of surprised that with so many players on or near the LOS we didn't throw it more, as we had people open a lot. I suspect a lot of that was because of respect for the Toledo pass rush. That big DT was a force out there.
Good to see Foster and West get more snaps and good to see West take advantage with a couple of big plays.
Thought special teams, while not special, were okay. We knew Page was a first team AA at KOR and he showed why. Our KO coverage team needs a lot of work. On the positive side, I liked what we did with our KOR team, at least for the most part. We had good blocking on our punting team, good coverage there too. Fisher was kind of up and down, as frosh punters tend to me, but he can get the ball a lot higher in the air than Raupers, which really helps the coverage team. Couldn't really tell what was happening with Krautman and the bad kicks. Some of the snaps looked suspect. Some did not.
The SUMB appears to have reworked its version of the Star Spangled Banner. I thought it was nice. Speaking of the band, only 8 tubas there today...one tuba had urgent family business and could not attend. They unveiled an ambitious new show today that was pretty crazy. Included snippets of around 20 songs, ranging across the board. Just about every music genre was represented, from Motown, to Country, to pop, to rock, climaxing with a version of Hey Jude highlighted by the SUMB singing the song itself. Bold, aggressive, visionary. This is the kind of thing that would someday lead to us getting in the ACC. Oh wait. Anyway, I enjoyed it very much.
Was mad when DM did not go for it on 4th with 7 minutes or so to go in the game but he again proved me and many other fans wrong but punting and having his confidence in his defense rewarded with a quick out. I can't say how much I enjoy watching DM teams play late in games, seeng how confident they are and how they seem to play better the later the game gets. It is so good to have confidence as a fan that not only can we win close games, but to feel almost certain we are going to win any close game we might play in.
It is great to continue to win these types of games, and to gain confidence, because I suspect we are going to see a lot more of them down the road. This was a big game towards getting bowl eligible.
Even though Rutgers is a bad team, they need to be taken seriously. It is their last chance to play their daddy, and they will be sky high to try and pull an upset. This is the biggest game any of their players will ever play and I think we all know it is Schiano's Last Stand. Let's hope they will make a game of it.
Small crowd, maybe 30K actually there. But the people that came were loud. The crowd appeared to rattle the Rockets in the 2nd half. Toledo did not bring many fans...I counted 24. But Mark thought it was 40 and I value his judgement.
What a wild game. I thought Toledo had a great game plan on offense. Nice mix of draws, screens, short sideline passes and drag routes over the middle. We could use Fluellen...impressive player.
As was WR Page, who dominated the game at times and was every bit as good as advertised. That kid will play on Sundays. We tried to cover him with an LB, a DB, zones...nothing really worked.
The defense seemed to get better as the game went on. Shafer made his typical effective changes at halftime, we shut down the run and maybe got a little more pressure on the QB and their WRs. I think we ended up gutting them down as well as OSU or Boise did, which portends well for the future.
We obviously had some injury issues. No Shamarko, no Chandler (though both dressed). No fisher, Lyn and Anderson played but were clearly not 100%. Thought Phil did a fine job filling in at SS and Wilkes had a tough day starting at FS. We were forced to use Anene at Okie. Not pretty but somehow the guys got it done.
Lots of PT for Diet Tab...thought he did okay. For missing dozens of tackles, and a couple blown assignments, it was a heck of an effort. Liking what I see from Googins and Ball. Those 2 are really coming on. Lynch is another emerging player. Vaughn might be the best tackler on the team.
On offense, thought Nassib had another big game. Sure, he missed a couple of guys open for possible TDs. Had a couple bad throws too. He was not perfect. However, he made a number of clutch throws, was at his best again when we needed him most and is showing me a lot with his audibles and ability to rescue broken plays. The TD to Lemon in the face of a blitz was just beautiful to see.
Thought Bailey played fine but he is getting pressed hard by Gulley, who has the makings of a special player. Thought his great first down on a second and long down ten in the first half was one of the biggest plays in the game. Competition is a good thing.
The gameplan on offense seemed good in the first half (when SU could get their mitts on the ball). Toledo was blitzing up the middle a lot, especially in the second half and it looked like we tried to take advantage, with some success, with delayed runs. Kind of surprised that with so many players on or near the LOS we didn't throw it more, as we had people open a lot. I suspect a lot of that was because of respect for the Toledo pass rush. That big DT was a force out there.
Good to see Foster and West get more snaps and good to see West take advantage with a couple of big plays.
Thought special teams, while not special, were okay. We knew Page was a first team AA at KOR and he showed why. Our KO coverage team needs a lot of work. On the positive side, I liked what we did with our KOR team, at least for the most part. We had good blocking on our punting team, good coverage there too. Fisher was kind of up and down, as frosh punters tend to me, but he can get the ball a lot higher in the air than Raupers, which really helps the coverage team. Couldn't really tell what was happening with Krautman and the bad kicks. Some of the snaps looked suspect. Some did not.
The SUMB appears to have reworked its version of the Star Spangled Banner. I thought it was nice. Speaking of the band, only 8 tubas there today...one tuba had urgent family business and could not attend. They unveiled an ambitious new show today that was pretty crazy. Included snippets of around 20 songs, ranging across the board. Just about every music genre was represented, from Motown, to Country, to pop, to rock, climaxing with a version of Hey Jude highlighted by the SUMB singing the song itself. Bold, aggressive, visionary. This is the kind of thing that would someday lead to us getting in the ACC. Oh wait. Anyway, I enjoyed it very much.
Was mad when DM did not go for it on 4th with 7 minutes or so to go in the game but he again proved me and many other fans wrong but punting and having his confidence in his defense rewarded with a quick out. I can't say how much I enjoy watching DM teams play late in games, seeng how confident they are and how they seem to play better the later the game gets. It is so good to have confidence as a fan that not only can we win close games, but to feel almost certain we are going to win any close game we might play in.
It is great to continue to win these types of games, and to gain confidence, because I suspect we are going to see a lot more of them down the road. This was a big game towards getting bowl eligible.
Even though Rutgers is a bad team, they need to be taken seriously. It is their last chance to play their daddy, and they will be sky high to try and pull an upset. This is the biggest game any of their players will ever play and I think we all know it is Schiano's Last Stand. Let's hope they will make a game of it.
