As I'm watching the replay there are some guys that stood out to me.

[MetEdDawg]

Obviously Preston Smith is one. He looked great and was beating his man all night. Monster night for him.

Benny Brown was very good Saturday night. He was all over the place and I really think he's gonna be a stud.

Justin Senior. Except for the time he tripped and fell backwards on his ass on the opening drive of the 2nd half I thought he held up pretty well. He did good Saturday

Nelson Adams. He looks more mobile and looks like he's gonna play a part on defense this year. Very surprised by his play but he was definitely doing some disruptive things.

Ryan Brown. He was very active early and was doing some really good things early. If he can be disruptive on the other side of Preston we will be even tougher to deal with than we already are.

Just a few guys that have stood out to me watching the replay. There were obviously more but those are a few that have stood out as doing some really good stuff to me.

[Schultzy]

Big Ryan fan, I think he could blow up this year.

[msstate7]

Christian Holmes stood out to me. He played ok. I was just shocked at how much he played

[Political Hack]

Holmes was active for sure. That'll be a huge plus for the season considering how strong we are there.

P Smith made me feel sorry for that poor OL he ran over on the blocked FG. Absolutely blew that guy up.

[defiantdog]

The team looked completely different Saturday night compared to last year. The safeties looked like linebackers, the linebackers looked like DL's (McKinney is a massive man now) and the DL aren't human. I think Rick Court has done a great job with these guys. The entire team looked bigger.

[ShotgunDawg]

IMO, The most intriguing guy on the field the other night was Fred Ross. I believe everyone else is sort of a known quantity. We know what Dak, Robinson, Bear, Jameon, and the defense are capable of, but if Fred Ross becomes a legit, down field reciever, maybe a similar or lesser form of Moncreif, our offense can go to another level. Some of the ball skills that Ross displayed the other night were indicative of a player that had tht type of potential.

[Coach34]

The first TD to Ross was a gimme off of a CB blitz- Dakota just raised up and hit him before the safety could get there. Auburn did the same thing to UPig. CB blitz is the worst call in defensive football. Ross didnt really do anything but catch it

Now the 2nd Ross TD catch was a very good play- he just shielded the CB off and imposed his will to catch the TD pass. CB was overmatched

[ShotgunDawg]

The first TD to Ross was a gimme off of a CB blitz- Dakota just raised up and hit him before the safety could get there. Auburn did the same thing to UPig. CB blitz is the worst call in defensive football. Ross didnt really do anything but catch it

Now the 2nd Ross TD catch was a very good play- he just shielded the CB off and imposed his will to catch the TD pass. CB was overmatched

Agree

I'm not saying that Ross is all work yet. Just pointing out that if he makes that leap and becomes a receiver that can shield DBS, then that adds a new demension to our offense.

[MetEdDawg]

The thing that impressed me was the ease with which we caught passes. Didn't look tough, didn't look unsure. Fred Ross on the 2nd TD catch was as pure of a catch as you will see. Fred Brown, Bear, Jameon, they all caught passes well. Out in front, nothing against the body, good body position when catching and adjusting for passes, and fairly decisive after the catch. I really liked what I saw from these guys Saturday.

Obviously it will get tougher when we play SEC defenses, but that was some of the best fundamental WR catching of the ball I've ever seen us have.

[thf24]

CB blitz is the worst call in defensive football.

It's astounding to me that in the modern era of advanced statistics, every DC out there hasn't realized what a horrible play it is. I'm sure the thinking is that they'll throw one in there occasionally to catch the offense off guard, but the expected value of even that has got to be so astronomically low that I don't see how it even crosses a coach's mind to try.

[archdog]

No one mentioned this but Morrow had a solid night. On top of that our WR had some good blocks to add some yards. Great night.

[Percho]

The first TD to Ross was a gimme off of a CB blitz- Dakota just raised up and hit him before the safety could get there. Auburn did the same thing to UPig. CB blitz is the worst call in defensive football. Ross didnt really do anything but catch it

Now the 2nd Ross TD catch was a very good play- he just shielded the CB off and imposed his will to catch the TD pass. CB was overmatched

If you are going to CB blitz the safety better be cheating.

[Percho]

I though Morrow looked really fast.

[War Machine Dawg]

I though Morrow looked really fast.

Speed has never been the problem with Stonehands. It's been catching the damn ball and being soft. That said, I meant to congratulate him on a good night in Armchair QB and totally forgot. He definitely had a good game. The problem for him is I don't know who he passes on the depth chart. RoJo is our best blocking WR and the Freds both looked damn good. He's not passing Bear, either.

[DudyDawg]

The first TD to Ross was a gimme off of a CB blitz- Dakota just raised up and hit him before the safety could get there. Auburn did the same thing to UPig. CB blitz is the worst call in defensive football. Ross didnt really do anything but catch it

Now the 2nd Ross TD catch was a very good play- he just shielded the CB off and imposed his will to catch the TD pass. CB was overmatched

That was an easy catch, yes, but he still threw the tackler to the ground like a child on his way in. He really impressed me too.

Someone mentioned turtle holmes, and I agree, he was very active. He didn't necessarily blow me away with anything in particular, but it just seemed like he was crawling out of every pile. Just kept appearing near the ball. I thought all our linebackers and safeties were tremendous, especially with tackling.

[chef dixon]

Ross is just simply more polished than any of our other receivers coming from big time Texas high school football, you can just tell by his rout running and ball skills. We just gotta get him involved.

We don't have a weakness in the linebacker core between Wells, McKinney, and the Browns. I liked Skinner, but he just wasn't as solid. The LB crew is a big difference in our D now and that of 2 years ago that couldn't seem to tackle anyone. I know Cam Lawrence was a great dawg, but the talent just wasn't quite there and he didn't have much help outside of a learning on the job McKinney and Wells.

[drunkernhelldawg]

Agree

I'm not saying that Ross is all work yet. Just pointing out that if he makes that leap and becomes a receiver that can shield DBS, then that adds a new demension to our offense.

Excellent observation. I loved that second touchdown play. Squeezing the ball with great confidence.

[Reason2succeed]

What stood out to me was the lack of penalties. Yes, we had some but we played a pretty clean football game. Continue this and along with playmaking and we will have the INSANE OFFENSE to go along with our PSYCHO DEFENSE.

[CadaverDawg]

Did you guys notice that Calhoun was going to intercept the pass in the endzone if Hughes hadn't intercepted it first? I think our secondary is going to pick off a lot of passes this year. Cox and Hughes may not have the pop that Nickoe had, but they have more speed and have experienced corners in Love and Calhoun to work with, so they will be more free to roam back there.

Our CB's are to our Safeties, what our DL is to our LB'ers....in other words, the more push we get from our DL, the better our LB'ers will be. And the more our CB's can cover one on one, the more effective our Safeties will be.

[Todd4State]

If you are going to CB blitz the safety better be cheating.

Exactly. Or be extremely elite- like Rod Woodson.

Other than that, yeah- I'm in the boat on the CB blitz being the worst call in football. Let's take one of our best cover guys who probably doesn't like to tackle all that much and make him go after the QB. It just doesn't make sense.

[ShotgunDawg]

Has anyone figured out what happened the play where Bear and our other receiver ran into each other and the ref?

Whose fault was it? We should never have two players in the same area.

[DistrictDawg92]

Has anyone figured out what happened the play where Bear and our other receiver ran into each other and the ref?

Whose fault was it? We should never have two players in the same area.

Jameon and bear both were running flys and were both open, bear was running to the right of Jameon and Dak threw it to bear, and it would have been a perfect throw to him, but Jameon obviously wasn't aware of where bear was and turned to his other shoulder to go meet the ball and smashed into bear, unfortunately for the ref, he got caught right in the middle of it all