FWIW... Last 3 Egg WTF losses all have one thing in common.

[RougeDawg]

Can anyone answer what our team has done differently in our three head scratching losses? Humans are animals first and creatures of habit. Change the habits and you get different results. It's fairly simple and simple to see why we have looked to so lethargic in each of our losses.

ETA. Even Sean Peyton changed up the Saints bye week schedule, giving the players the entire week off. What do the saints do yesterday? Have their worst offensive performance in over a decade and failed to score a TD for first time in 10-11 seasons. Changed the habits and got worse results, from a less focused team.

[Taog Redloh]

Their DL wrecked our OL, with minimal blitzing. You could probably say that in all 4 Freeze vs. Mullen Egg Bowls.

However, the difference between us winning and losing has been our defense. Although this year, I don't think it was as bad as 2012 and 2014. Early turnovers put us in a hole.

[Dawg61]

Can anyone answer what our team has done differently in our three head scratching losses?

Your headline says "all have one thing in common" and then your very next sentence says "what our team has done DIFFERENTLY". Which is it? Common and different are not the same thing.

[Statefan]

Dak fumble
Peter's missed interception
Dak pick 6


All of these happened in the first quarter and doomed us. We all know Dak was hyperfocused, he just didn't protect the ball and made a terrible throw.

Peters was not too busy eating turkey at his Thanksgiving dinner to know what was going on and jumping the route on Treadwell -- he just didn't catch what could have been a pick 6

[maroonmania]

Need to figure out something. 3 of the last 4 Egg Bowls have not just been losses but blowout losses. We actually won the only competitive Egg Bowl of the last 4 years.

[RougeDawg]

Your headline says "all have one thing in common" and then your very next sentence says "what our team has done DIFFERENTLY". Which is it? Common and different are not the same thing.

Played on Saturday and been allowed to have the Thursday to go home and lose focus. We did the same thing "common item" which is "different" from a normal game week.

[Dawg61]

Biggest issue I had with our offense on Saturday was a lack of stretching the field vertically by Dan & Dak. Checkdown Dan & Checkdown Charlie always seem to show up when we don't want them to. MGK skull****ed us though. He had the ball out very quickly or tucked and ran with it very quickly. We didn't put a spy on him till they already had 28. Dan & Diaz seem to go very vanilla defensively to see how the other team wants to attack and then they adjust the D. They need to come out with the defense keying in on taking away something first and then adjust when the opponent adjusts.

[Dawg61]

Played on Saturday and been allowed to have the Thursday to go home and lose focus. We did the same thing "common item" which is "different" from a normal game week.

Only people losing focus seems to be our coaches not the players.

[RougeDawg]

Only people losing focus seems to be our coaches not the players.

Could be right. Coaches are responsible for keeping the players sharp and focused. Either way we have looked completely lost in the 3 losses. Only one we were focused was the one we needed for bowl eligibility. Makes me think we give up when we have nothing to really play for.

[Dawg61]

Could be right. Coaches are responsible for keeping the players sharp and focused. Either way we have looked completely lost in the 3 losses. Only one we were focused was the one we needed for bowl eligibility. Makes me think we give up when we have nothing to really play for.

It's not that we are lost its just how Dan coaches in big games. He tees off with the 2iron till the 8th hole.

[Johnson85]

Can anyone answer what our team has done differently in our three head scratching losses? Humans are animals first and creatures of habit. Change the habits and you get different results. It's fairly simple and simple to see why we have looked to so lethargic in each of our losses.

ETA. Even Sean Peyton changed up the Saints bye week schedule, giving the players the entire week off. What do the saints do yesterday? Have their worst offensive performance in over a decade and failed to score a TD for first time in 10-11 seasons. Changed the habits and got worse results, from a less focused team.

None of the three were really the same.

In 2012, Wilson was not a capable DC and on top of that the staff was basically feuding at that point. That said, our offense didn't do its job either. Had several turnovers we didn't take advantage of. Their DL got to our QB and blew up run plays.

In 2014, our DC had checked out. He was tired of Mullen chewing his ass and was mentally already in football. That said, our offense didn't do its job either. Their DL got to our QB and blew up run plays.

In 2015, I don't know what the hell happened. Our defensive and offensive game plan looked like shit. We were down our best CB and our most savvy safety. Our OL was weak to begin with and then had some injuries where we couldn't afford it.

I think one thing that is clear is that Werner seems to have Mullen figured out. Yes, we've had OL problems, but not to the extent that would justify how we've been blown up in those three losses. 2012 can be chalked up to having a pocket passing qb without a sufficient receiving corp. But 2014 and 2015 it looks like Werner learned something (supposedly from Va Tech's staff) that Mullen has not adjusted to yet. It may be hard to learn lessons from this year b/c the OL was so shitty, but he needs to do some serious studying this off season to figure out Werner is doing that is giving him so much trouble. Werner is obviously not the best at in game adjustments either, so if Mullen could figure it out, it would probably be good for an entire game.

[bulldawg28]

Their defense has been the difference. They've caused tons of pressure on our Qb and caused turnovers. Also, they stopped our running game those years. Any year that we could run the ball against them we've won. Any year we've been a passing team...we've lost. That's why Relf was the #1 Bear Slayer.