My thoughts on our game

[Todd4State]

QB- Dak was Dak. I loved seeing Staley and Fitz compete with each other and throw bombs to one up each other.

ATH- Dear is the real deal and he needs more touches.

RB- Lee outrushed Shumpert on half of the carries and had a ridiculous average. Williams looked OK, but statistically Shumpert was better. I think Shumpert still has a lot of value to us but we just need to use him differently- like in two back sets where he is the FB and use Lee and Williams more going forward.

WR/TE- Welcome to Starkville Donald Gray! I still think he profiles better in the slot and would be hell for a safety or LB to try to cover. I like Ross, but I think Gabe Myles should get some touches too. My question about Gabe was him catching the ball downfield, and he looked good doing that today.

OL- I thought they played well and I think they are growing up. Definitely an easier test today than LSU or even USM, but they performed and that is the important thing. I saw Rankin dressed out, but not sure if he played.

DL- Strength of our team and dominated as I thought.

LB- Yikes Richie! Wrap up. Beniquez is a beast. And when you have a guy like Gerri Green getting a penalty because he hit a "defenseless player" too hard- well, that's my kind of guy. JT Gray looked great too. We need to see more JT and Gerru and Richie needs to have better days going forward.

CB- Redmond and Calhoun are elite.

S- I've been pretty vocal about getting Peters on the field. Now y'all see why. I've also been pretty vocal about Coman not playing as much. I want to see us mix and match Peters, Coman, Market, Bryant, and McLaurin. If we do that, we should be OK. The freshmen are going to make some mistakes- but they'll make some plays too. Plus, it's not like the upperclassmen aren't making mistakes themselves.

K- Graves- not much to say didn't kick a field goal and the missed extra point was a bad hold I believe from where I sat in the stands. Cooke was solid the few times he punted. Bell had a good day and good to see him shake off missing the field goal last week.

KR/PR- Holloway and Myles are the best KR tandem we have had since Dan has been here IMO. They're solid. Ross fumbled a punt and I'm thinking that maybe Myles should handle the PR duties going forward.

I expected us to go vanilla in this game with the same old one back three WR set that we seem to run all the time. I was very pleasantly surprised to see us come out in two back sets and us actually running our offense. Kudos to Dan! We also ran some triple option out of the gun in our two back sets and that was nice to see again. I like how we worked on the deep passing game which is something we really haven't had too much of the first two games.

I thought the defese was OK- I thought we just went through the motions on the long TD drive in the third quarter, but it was good to see us get focused back again and shut them down the rest of the game. The special teams were acceptable - mistakes like the bad hold (I think) happen and really the main thing that I had an issue with was Ross's fumble.

Usually these games are "no win" for a hardcore fan like me and the rest of us because you really can't beat a team like this bad enough and every mistake gets noticed even if you win 70-0. That said, I was actually pretty pleased with how we played overall even though there were some rough spots. And that was a nice surprise.

I hope a lot of the things we saw today get incorporated into our offense going forward and I hope the younger guys get more action because I think they can really help us out now- they just need a chance. Should be an interesting game next week.

[SheltonChoked]

You shouldn't be to hard on Ross for the fumbled punt. The defender got hit helmet on the ball. Have d to hold on to it when that happens.

But our Starting LB have to play better.

[spudd21]

Need to tackle better. Everything else will fall into place.

[Jacksondevildog]

If we tackle well vs Auburn and contain the edge a bit when they run stretch plays, we will win. If not, we will get hammered.

[shoeless joe]

Only things worth taking away from this game:

1. Young guys got some experience (and now everyone thinks they're awesome cuz they looked good against a 1-AA school)

2. Dak didn't get hurt