The Preacher's Points: Game 1 edition

[preachermatt83]

These are simply some personal observations. Feel free to disagree but just some things I noticed...I have not had time to read through all the threads so im sure some of this has already been discussed.

Positives:
1) Our Defense is SICKENING
2) The Depth we have on defense is unreal
3) We have two very very good rb's. Josh was great but Nick was very impressive as well. Hopefully shump will be what we think he can be also
4) Bear Wilson is a FREAK
5) Preston Smith is an NFL DE
6) Nick James looked better than I expected
7) CJ did CJ things
8) Hughes is back and better than ever. Anyone who doubted that before, shouldn't now
9) Fred Brown looked very good
10) Dak was solid, not electrifying but certainly solid for game 1
11) Turtle Holmes was very impressive tonight
12) We used Holloway like he should be used(For the most part...see #4 below).. Very little inside stuff

Negatives:
1) Our O-Line had a tough time tonight primarily on Pass protection. Run blocking was pretty good besides the second drive allowing us to be stuffed on the goal line but pass pro was awful early. It did improve a bit as the game went on. Malone and Senior looked like the best two to me. Beckwith needs to be benched and give Claybourn that job. Day has to be better than he was tonight.
2) We still don't have a FG kicker.. Thankfully we didn't miss an XP though
3) Our Best punter is not Bell. Logan cooke was kicking bombs in pregame. he and bell were punting at the same time for a while and Logan was out kicking him by 15 yards with just as much hang time
4) Dan still does some things at times that leaves me scratching my head. Having Holloway in the backfield inside the redzone is just odd
5) We were never really able to get Jameon involved as much as I'd like

ALL in all... A VERY GOOD PERFORMANCE. The Positives FAR outweigh the Negatives.

[missouridawg]

These are simply some personal observations. Feel free to disagree but just some things I noticed...I have not had time to read through all the threads so im sure some of this has already been discussed.

Positives:
1) Our Defense is SICKENING
2) The Depth we have on defense is unreal
3) We have two very very good rb's. Josh was great but Nick was very impressive as well. Hopefully shump will be what we think he can be also
4) Bear Wilson is a FREAK
5) Preston Smith is an NFL DE
6) Nick James looked better than I expected
7) CJ did CJ things
8) Hughes is back and better than ever. Anyone who doubted that before, shouldn't now
9) Fred Brown looked very good
10) Dak was solid, not electrifying but certainly solid for game 1
11) Turtle Holmes was very impressive tonight
12) We used Holloway like he should be used(For the most part...see #4 below).. Very little inside stuff

Negatives:
1) Our O-Line had a tough time tonight primarily on Pass protection. Run blocking was pretty good besides the second drive allowing us to be stuffed on the goal line but pass pro was awful early. It did improve a bit as the game went on. Malone and Senior looked like the best two to me. Beckwith needs to be benched and give Claybourn that job. Day has to be better than he was tonight.
2) We still don't have a FG kicker.. Thankfully we didn't miss an XP though
3) Our Best punter is not Bell. Logan cooke was kicking bombs in pregame. he and bell were punting at the same time for a while and Logan was out kicking him by 15 yards with just as much hang time
4) Dan still does some things at times that leaves me scratching my head. Having Holloway in the backfield inside the redzone is just odd
5) We were never really able to get Jameon involved as much as I'd like

ALL in all... A VERY GOOD PERFORMANCE. The Positives FAR outweigh the Negatives.

Our second team secondary struggled some, in my opinion. Dak made a few bonehead choices and the OLine underwhelmed me.... outside of that, we did very well.

And Devon Bell has a huge leg. I'm sure Cooke warmed up well, but Bell has been an excellent punter for us.

If we lose Dak, we are in trouble. Damian isn't ready to drive the sleigh yet.

[CadaverDawg]

Good post, Preach. I pray, no pun intended, that Holloway only got that many RB reps bc Shump was out. If Holloway gets many RB opportunities come SEC play, there will be TV's getting smashed weekly across MS.

[Dogchomp]

I agree. Defense made me happy and sad. Happy bc we have them, sad bc we can't have them forever.

Offense is going to have to run the passing game through play action set up by downhill running. We don't have a good enough O-line for mainly drop back passing.

[thf24]

We don't know anything about negative #2 from this game. The only field goal attempt was missed due to a bad snap. I'm not try to pump sunshine and say we should just assume the our kickers are fine now, but neither can we assume they're still ass from one miss resulting from a bad snap.

Agreed on everything else.

[Dawg61]

No Fred Ross love? Ross was impressive. 2 tds

[msstate7]

3 (positives). Nick is really slow. I guess it should be expected after injuries.

[sleepy dawg]

We don't know anything about negative #2 from this game. The only field goal attempt was missed due to a bad snap. I'm not try to pump sunshine and say we should just assume the our kickers are fine now, but neither can we assume they're still ass from one miss resulting from a bad snap.

Agreed on everything else.

We damn near missed an extra point too though... 10 yards further back, and it would've missed.

To me, we played about as bad as we could have, and we beat the ever living sh*t out of those guys. If we would've been clicking early on, and were dicks like the old Steve Spurrier and the old USC, we could've dropped 75 on them. We've got the potential to be great.
I'm glad we started off with an easy game, unlike last year. It's always good to give yourself a week to get those kinks worked out.

[sleepy dawg]

3 (positives). Nick is really slow. I guess it should be expected after injuries.

What happened to him at the end of that drive? He did look really slow, but still managed to run well (5.6 yards/carry). I thought he was hurt at first b/c he just laid on the ground a while. Was he just winded or something? If he gets winded that easy, we won't be able to leave him in long at a time at all.

Overall though, our backfield is going to be tough to deal with. Holloway will likely stay 4th on the depth chart, and he has major explosiveness. To think of the guys who back up Robinson makes me feel very, very good about our RB situation.

[Reason2succeed]

We don't know anything about negative #2 from this game. The only field goal attempt was missed due to a bad snap. I'm not try to pump sunshine and say we should just assume the our kickers are fine now, but neither can we assume they're still ass from one miss resulting from a bad snap.

Agreed on everything else.

As I stated earlier the problem with our FG kicking CAN'T be the kickers themselves. It must be the amount of practice/holder/snapper because the likelihood of EVERY kicker sucking is slim. Maybe that's another reason why Michigan kid transferred. He may have realized that we don't put enough priority on kicking. Regardless of whose fault it is, we missed ANOTHER FG. If we don't fix this it WILL bite us in the butt.

[shoeless joe]

I think the graves kid will be the kicker. He just looks better when they warm up. And his first ever attempt was a 40+ harder with a bumbled snap and he still just missed it. Not saying our woes are over but I'm not down on kicking game yet.

[ShotgunDawg]

Maybe that's another reason why Michigan kid transferred. He may have realized that we don't put enough priority on kicking.

Do you really believe this?

[1bigdawg]

6) Nick James looked better than I expected


You saw a different player than I did. He got knocked off the ball every play I watched and I made it a pint to focus on him while he was in the game.

He did hustle the whole play, which is good, but you cannot have a Defensive Tackle get knocked backwards at the beginning of every play.

Hopefully he will learn that he has to toughen up.

Random stat: We have 34 players who made plays to get into the defensive stat book (tackles, pass break ups, etc). Nick James was not one of them.

[aerodawg]

I think some people did what I did and had him confused with Virges. Virges played pretty well and was number 98. James looked unimpressive and was number 88. It took a little bit for me to realize my mistake in thinking that 98 was James.

[hailmari]

Nick did fine, IMO. He got knocked back a time or two toward the end of that drive but he was obviously gassed. He did his share of disrupting though.

[hailmari]

Griff did look slow. He also looked to be huffing and puffing too. Maybe it was just adrenaline from finally getting quality snaps again...that might be a stretch, I don't know.

[preachermatt83]

Nick did fine, IMO. He got knocked back a time or two toward the end of that drive but he was obviously gassed. He did his share of disrupting though.

exactly.. when he and cj were in the same time, Cj was double teamed, otherwise the only times I say nick get blown off the ball was when he was in with Virges or PJ and Nick was double teamed.