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Message: [QUOTE="RF2044, post: 72998, member: 40"] Good post, Tom. Like you, I am confident about where recruiting's headed--although clearly we need to do a better job at the skilled positions. I've also tried to maintain perspective on just how far the program had sunk, how long it would take to infuse better athletes into the pipeline, and replenish depth. But this year has been pretty discouraging. The optimist in me believes that we are only a couple of plays away from being 7-3 right now; if we hadn't got that roughing the kicker penalty against Rutgers, if we hadn't thrown that late INT against UConn... Ifs and buts, I know. But the pessimist in me concurs that I'm very disappointed in what we've seen from all three phases of the game this season. I'm not too worried about defense; Shafer is a bad ass, we lost a ton of experience last season so there was bound to be a dropoff, and I really like the depth / talent we'll be bringing back next year on that side of the ball. But offense / ST scare me. ST's poor performance was easy to chalk up initially [justifiably, I believe] to lack of depth, and just not having enough warm bodies / quality athletes to use on ST. Then, it appeared that Casullo might be a bit of a problem. But not having a ST coach this year has resulted in demonstrably poor play in that phase, and I'm concerned that Marrone [like GRob before him] is too ingrained in the NFL view of ST, that it is throw away instead of prospectively game-changing. I don't know what to say about offense. I've believed for several years that we're severely limited by the play of the OL. I've also believed that the lack of skilled playmakers [especially at WR] has forced the coaches to use an offense that isn't "THE offense." But now I just don't know. I'm tired of being inept on offense--I just want the team to move the ball and score some ing points. I'd love for other teams to be afraid to come play our offense, as opposed to teeing off against us and taking their chances because they know that we CAN'T make them pay for over-committing to teeing off on us. [/QUOTE]

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