Think the A&M game will be very telling as to what the remainder of our season will look like.
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Think the A&M game will be very telling as to what the remainder of our season will look like.
A&M is good on D and well-coached on D. Their DC has played Leach well the last 2 years. They will play solidly on D
A&M is going to run the ball, try to make a few throws, and force a close game.
We have to score on O then stop the run defensively and force Johnson to beat us in 3rd and long situations.
Thats what the game will come down to. I'm expecting a 23-20 type of game
This is, for me, a wait and see game. Wait and see which team comes out.
Here are the two scenarios I see.
1. We come out and execute. We play with a little more tempo, be very conscience of when we are subbing in and make their defense go base zone on us. Chip away, line up quickly and get the ball out. We need to push tempo when we get a first down. It puts the defense in a bind and we can catch them out of position or starting to jump routes. Big plays need to be made when they are there to be made.
2. We come out and play slow. We mix in too many runs that are taking us out of our rhythm like the LSU game. We drop passes. More or less, let the defense literally dictate and limit our offense. OL gets blasted once every three plays. We disappear for 1.5 quarters in the middle of the game. Defense plays well enough to win, but just gets tired. We lose the lead at the 12 minute mark of the 4th. We don?t have enough balls to get them out of the two deep safeties, not the arm strength to rocket one down the field to beat the two high deep safeties.
In my opinion, if we don?t pick up the pace just a little bit once we get our first first down of the drive, we are allowing the defense to dictate too much. I want their defense looking like ours did against LSU at the end of the 1st half. On their heels and confused after the 5th play in a row.
It?s important for our morale bc it?s you have to hold serve at home with five teams in the West being equal plus our fan base is so fragile and thinks we?re better than we really are. It looks to me like it will come down to just a few plays in 5 of our remaining conference games.
Take the under 21-17 either way
Our fan base is "Not Fragile" (thanks BTO). In fact some of the toughest in the SEC for hanging in there, but getting tired of high expectations and a mediocre return like last year. Losing to OM and then Texas Tech at a minor bowl gets old. High expectations because we were more more experienced and returned more starters than anyone in the SEC plus Leach breaks out in year 3, then LSU. Show us starting Saturday that more experienced doesn't just mean a year older. I so far have seen many of the same issues as last year. Start a continued winning streak and we can have the season most expected. Hail State!
I have done more thinking about this year three thing. I think we need to slow that roll Texas tech he went from 7-6 7-6 to 9-5 Washington state he went 3-9 his third year. It was his fourth year where he went 9-4.
I think the whole third year thing needs to chill.
What we need is consistency. His teams at state have yet to play consistent ball. They do that it should be a really good season.
I will be really disappointed if our defense doesn?t play well. A&M?s offense is statistically the worst in the league and they just lost their best receiver. They?re averaging like 18 points a game against FBS opponents and that?s with a fluky defensive TD baked in.
I can forgive the LSU loss in BR at night against a team that is physical and very underrated. I still think LSU is the 4th best team in the SEC behind UGA, Bama and UT. Also, I am not the kind of fan that has extremely high expectations and thinks we should win 10 games this year. That being said, this team has enough talent and experience to beat aTm, Ark, Aub and Ole Miss. Those are 4 games I expect to win and will be extremely disappointed if we do not. aTm has a terrible offense, Ark has a bad pass defense. Auburn is just all around bad offensively and average on defense. We have to beat Ole Miss because we can’t lose to them 3 years in a row. If we pull an upset over UK, Bama or UGA that is icing on the cake, but we have to beat the other 4 SEC teams on our schedule. The season will be a disappointment if we do not do so and Leach should feel pressure if we lose to any of those teams.
This is it for me personally. It's not that I bought into the Air Raid year 3 thing. It's that it's year 3 in general and we have a veteran team. For any coach, if you're going to win at MSU, this is when you do it. Highly unlikely we'll ever be a consistent 10 win type of team, but every few years we aught to be able to make a run at such things. If we can't win 8+ games every few years, then we've got the wrong guy.
I understood from the moment our schedule came out that it's one of those that could make us look worse even though we could be improved. Personally, I think we make it out of Oct winning 3 out of the 4 with a chance to be 4-0. What I am looking for as a fan is to be in every game and win more of those types of games than last year.
So far, we have what we should but not win that close one.