Sunday Morning QB- We Won Edition

[Coach34]

1. We won by 18 points last night on the road and it should have been more than 18. So there's that. We played an improved Nasty Bunch team. They wont be conference champs by any stretch of the imagination- but that team is improved from last year. No doubt about it. They threw the kitchen sink at us. It was their Egg Bowl- and we took their best shot. Got to be happy about the way we stayed calm and handled it all. We scored 34 points and everybody is pissed. Think about that for a second.

2. The Shumpert fumble, the misplayed punt, and corresponding onside kick allowed the Nasty Bunch to run 30 plays to our 4 to begin the game. That wears on your D and hampers the rhythm of your offense. It totally changed the momentum of the game. We will obviously be working more on rugby style punts and onside kick coverage this week.

3. Fred Ross cant drop passes like he did last night. He had a rough start to the season between those and the misplayed punt. Things happen but he has got to play big if he is the player people expect him to be. The drop off the Prescott scramble cost us points. Tighten up Fred.

4. Dan Mullen and his bullshit gameplan. 1st half consisted on 14 passes and 8 runs. We run the spread option offense- run the GD spread option. Prescott had 1 carry in the 1st half. Thats not our offense. You dont run him to death- but the QB has to run the ball a few times to take pressure off the TB. Thats what the entire run game is based on. #RTGDF

5. Prescott was off obviously. Ball sailed on him a few times causing him to miss some open WR's or get the ball in the window it needed to be in. He has to be better this Saturday. No two ways around it. It was like he hasnt practiced enough and was rusty. Not the way we should have started the season.

6. Why did it take until the 4th Q to get the ball to Wilson? Thats just poor playcalling right there. Shirley this was to "hide" things from LSU and not just stupidity. Wilson has gone against the best CB's in the country- so it damn sure wasnt a case of the Nasty Bunch taking him out of the game. Get the ball to your best offensive players Dan- things will turn out better for you.

7. Shump was ok last night but that fumble cant happen. Changed the whole complexion of the game. 7-0 out the chute and that ballgame goes differently. Stepping out of bounds and not being able to control his body to get another 1st down in the 3rd was big too. Got to be better this Saturday. No excuse in Williams and Lee not playing until the last minute of the 4th Q. None at all. Shump goes down- we have to have guys ready to play. And I dont mean Holloway.

8. O-Line was decent last night. We averaged 7.3 per carry. Wasnt alot of pressure on Dakota- but he did get sacked once. Rufus let the guy get leverage on him and the DE bulled him back. Tighten up Rufus- it doesnt get anything but tougher next week. We allowed penetration at times and we had good holes at times. Part of our problem is the QB making the corret read. When you run the read option and you make the wrong read- the TB is gonna get blown up. Thats why Dakota cant just run the ball once in the 1st half. You cant just decide to hand it off no matter what. It doesnt work like that.

9. Our DL was the bright spot. Jones and James were what I expected them to be. So were Ry and AJ. The back-up DL got alot of work in and played solid football. Great goalline stand- I knew they werent running it in on us. Jones was the player he is supposed to be last night. Nothing but excitement for this group. But they better get crunk, be hyped, or be bout it bout it next Saturday. For real doe

10. LB play was decent. Richie needs to tackle better but he was on the spot alot. They didnt do a very good job of getting in the passing lanes for the QB. But not real worried about this group either. We only gave up 16 points on D and 3 of it was gifted. And we played a ton of plays in the 1st quarter.

11. Secondary needs to get better. Cleveland aint Calhoun but he is what we got. Jiles played ok- glad he is back. We played the safeties deep as hell all night. Please tell this isnt our plan for the season. We allowed the Nasty Bunch to throw that intermediate middle slant all night. Safety needs to get a piece of that instead of getting there after the catch. Was a very vanilla look for their QB. Again, I cant believe we will play this way vs LSU.

12. Graves looked good kicking the ball. Thank you. We are 14-16 on FG's since the beginning of last season.

13. Overall, we just didnt play with alot of juice. The Nasty Bunch did. And we still won by 18 on the road. We had drops, fumbles, stupid penalties to keep their drives going (lined up offsides twice- seriously????)- just alot of things we have to clean up. Should be alot more focus this Saturday and a much better performance. Should be alot more getting the ball to Wilson, should be more Prescott runs, should be less drops, should be more of #RTGDF, should be 11 people knocking #7's ass off. Should be. Will we? Six more days to find out.

[HailState39110]

Agree with most all your points. We didn't play a 'clean game'. Some of it had to do with us such as the drop by Ross, Dak over throwing simple screen passes, Cleveland with a dumb personal foul, etc.

We also need to realize that USM had something to do with it . They ran a double reverse pass, a flea flicker, 2 onside kicks, their punter aiming at our players backs with low line drive punts , etc to cause us to look a little unorganized . Our defense also said USM came out this year in different formations than what they had practiced all week and caused some confusion .

We won by 18 on the road to a team playing their biggest game of the year . A team hosting the biggest opponent to play their in about 10 years. I wasn't expecting a game like last year and thought the game would play out exactly like it did .

Most of the mistakes we saw can be corrected. My biggest concern is how wide open some of the USM recievers were last night . I hope Calhoun coming back helps our secondary and some of the younger safeties such as Bryant and Peters grow up quickly . Good to see Graves kick 2 good looking FGs.

[Coach34]

FYI-

Jenkins and Carter played- Rankin did not
Leo did not dress and appears to be redshirting

[Saltydog]

kill LSU and marked it up as an automatic W. Those expectations may be somewhat tempered now and I remain "cautiously optimistic". We'll have to play our best to beat them.

[Coach34]

We also held them to 2.8 ypc even with the 40 yard run they had last night.

[shoeless joe]

Was disappointed by the secondary...if last nite was a preview of the year in that area then we will lose at least 4 games.

Dak was off but he wasn't helped out any...Ross and bear both dropped passes that woulda made everything look better, including the score.

D line is filthy.

I also woulda like to have seen the younger RBs get some more touches.

Bottom line: win next week and no one cares one bit about how last nite looked.

[maroonmania]

kill LSU and marked it up as an automatic W. Those expectations may be somewhat tempered now and I remain "cautiously optimistic". We'll have to play our best to beat them.

Right now, if I'm being honest, I'm not even optimistic.

[Coach34]

Right now, if I'm being honest, I'm not even optimistic.

why not? Our run D looked good

[7dawg]

Did we just do situational subs or all out 1a/1b subs. I didn't catch it if we did the all out subs.

[chef dixon]

Where was yalls boy Donald Gray last night?

We played some strange personnel last night. J Johnson looked like a pro for a true freshman last night.

[NCDawg]

Agree about our secondary. Harris almost pulled out the LSU game last year by burning our secondary. I'm sure he's licking his chops after seeing our secondary's performance last night.

[SDDawg]

That USM back had a lot of burst through our D-line on plays that should have been stopped more easily. It was clear on some of those calls they were running up the middle, still managed to get 3+ yards on plays I would have liked to see no yardage on. I think we looked best than most of our fans would admit to, but I still felt like it was the old "bend but don't break" D rather than really attacking the QB. D-line showed up though, won't be surprised at all to see AJ Jefferson getting a few SEC defensive player of the week nods this year.

[Coach34]

Did we just do situational subs or all out 1a/1b subs. I didn't catch it if we did the all out subs.

1B is dead

[HoopsDawg]

why not? Our run D looked good

4 yards per carry against USM (when you take out the sack yards) is not stellar. LB's weren't really plugging the holes either.

[Jacksondevildog]

Im not so sure about that. We will continue to make hockey style subs vs the coonasses and it will cost us.

1B is dead

[defiantdog]

I saw a lot of rusty mistakes and first game errors last night. But my biggest concern is that we didn't have a RB step up and take control. If Shump is our best, he needs to knock off the cobwebs and take control. Our offense is only as good as its running game. I like how Dak trimmed up..... he's picked up some quickness in the pocket. But again, Holloway led our team in rushing with 51 yards. Shump had 8 carries for 38 yards..... that's not gonna hack it.

Fred Ross made some key mistakes yesterday, but he ended the night with 5 catches for 75 yards. Bear had 1 catch for 42 yards, and it was off his bread and butter route..... the one-on-one deep slot. Nobody can cover him on that route.

As of punting, Cooke is something special. He would have hit the giant monitor at Dallas Stadium with that one punt our team forgot to look at..... he's got a hell of a leg.

But to put it best, we were out of sync. Our defense was on the field too much, our offense seemed like they were still on the practice field at times, and we didn't #RTGDF enough. 28 rushes to 38 passes! Dak had 38 pass attempts, yet he barely had the ball for 20 minutes. That is unacceptable. If we are to win more games, we need to control the line of scrimmage by running the ball. Hopefully, Dear will grasp the playbook as the season progresses. We need him desperately on those option sweeps. We need a back that can make cuts and square his shoulders. Shump still runs like a safety who intercepted the ball. He needs to learn to use both hands, square his shoulders, and dive for yards instead of standing up each hit. But again, he's our best option right now.

As for our secondary, we're in trouble. And it's not with assignments or coverage. It's with communication. Our safeties are too quiet. The Brown's, Redmond, and Cleveland were the only one's assessing coverage and lane assignments. Our safeties were stone cold quiet last night. Coman and Market need to grab the reigns and dictate more pre snap. Market isn't the only undersized safety to play big boy football. A lot of you probably don't remember, but Iowa used to have a converted running back turned safety that was 5'8" and about 190lbs. This guy was all over the field and smashed heads every game. He later got drafted by the Colts, and Bob Sanders became one of their best safeties ever. Market has potential and the will to succeed. He needs to get that damn chip off of his shoulder and start knocking some heads. We don't need to play it safe anymore. We need the opposing receivers to fear crossing through the middle of our defense. Bend don't break? Screw that..... we need to break the opposing team.

[1bigdawg]

The was no excuse for Shumpert's fumble. He was not holding it high and tight, making it easy to strip. A Junior......?

[HoopsDawg]

FYI-

Jenkins and Carter played- Rankin did not
Leo did not dress and appears to be redshirting

The only true freshman that played were: Justin Johnson, Malik Dear, and Jamal Peters (special teams)

[defiantdog]

The only true freshman that played were: Justin Johnson, Malik Dear, and Jamal Peters (special teams)

McLaurin won't redshirt either. He may not have played, but he will be on the field this year.

[Saltydog]

use Shump for pass blocking and special teams.........