Still smarting from Friday night's game.
What an awful performance and what a let down.
I'm trying to be rational and get my head around this one as to what it means for the future. If one puts a lot and too much stock in this one game then the future looks bleak. But that's too reductionistic and simplistic as some things need to play out before this can be fairly assessed. This program (other than vs elite teams) seems to more time then not play to its level of competition. And I want to believe that Nova will be good, real good going forward with a lot of w's.
That said this game was oh so frustrating to watch and other than the W I didn't come out with many positives. Tough to get too excited having to go to OT to beat an FCS team. And not to sound like the old man on the porch...
That dome environment is now like a Crunch game and an absolute non stop assault on the senses with noise (I guess some call it "music"), ads, and oh yeah a football game. Theres no break in the assault. It's really not that much fun anymore to sit there subjected to this. If the performance is good it's easier to overlook. With this performance it gets like torture to sit there knowing generally whats going to transpire. That last drive they had before the missed FG was brutal and so predictable that I left as soon as they got the ball.
I could take no satisfaction in the result, win included as the negatives at this point so overshadowed that. To not put a spy on that qb is beyond the pale to me. To not scheme better to stop the kid or at least adjust to slow him down a bit is beyond belief. To not be able to punch it in with MULTIPLE chances from the one against an FCS team is mind boggling.
They mean to tell me they no longer have a package with two or three backs in the back field overloading power to one side, vs relying on staying with one back and putting that pressure on the OL who clearly are in flux, injured and a work in progress. And then sticking with having the qb stay in shotgun. Gotta be kidding me. Not getting more vertical with the playcalling when your back up shows enough in drive one to be competent. The Keystone cop nature of the general offensive system when you don't have the skill and personnel for it just begs for errors, mistakes and underperformance as the original post alludes too.
And then when they score or finally make a good play all the stupid gyrating, posturing, primping and celebrating, this over an FCS team?! Really? Hard to watch. Just get it done celebrate a little in a class fashion and move on. This shows no team discipline compounded and evidenced further by not staying in lanes on the punt return, or with the D ends all too many time taking the inside track letting the qb outside so often and all this was compounded by Hunts lack of judgement. I hope Shaffer is erring on the side of being a tough taskmaster and not too much of a players coach, and seeing this all lack of discipline is concerning that he's erring on the wrong side of this.
And those God awful uniforms. Again old man on the porch but it gets harder and harder to keep identifying the history associated with this program when it feels less and less like "yours" which is the end effect of all this. So that's a lot of negatives on the one side. Ones that I fear will set the stage for still another season of flirting with only .500 at best when I hoped (irrationally so I presume) we might be beyond this.
The Upsides? Wow the crowd and students were great and here's hoping they stick around (which the casual fan just may do seeing the type of game it was enjoying it for what it was not knowing the nuances involved). As for the game itself it's only game one of a season where we had to replace so many, with injuries too this within a program just getting back up on it's feet over the last five years. Shaffer has shown the ability to refocus the troops, bounce back from poor performances, has improved recruiting and was clearly upset in the presser recognizing what the magnitude of the problems and what need be done despite the coach speak platitudes coming out of his mouth.
We can only try to keep the glass half full with hopes for improvements I guess which gets increasingly harder after performances and experiences like this. And as the OP topic suggests we really don't know what to think from this so we go on with hope, cross the fingers the Nova game is an aberration and see what happens.
Did I mention how God awful those unis were...
