Optimism

[Tater]

Watching last night, there was a lot of bad, some more bad, and some downright ugly. Sprinkled in there was some things to be optimistic about. We've beaten to death the bad and ugly and some have jumped ship because it's impossible to get skull ****ed in Death Valley and win the SEC West. No one has ever done it. Not one.... Anyways.

Offensive Scheme and play designs. We actually have an offense that can attack these heavily talented SEC defenses. We saw the deep outs be open. We saw the vertical 1-on-1 can beat the DBs (Ra Ra especially). We saw on short yardage plays when we would pass we would have open players.

Now, we didn't attack vertically near enough. We didn't catch wide open passes we should have. We didn't read the defense and audible to passed when we should. Fair or not, this falls squarely on Leach. His concepts work. This widespread of lack of execution is on the coach though. Play the guys who will execute the concepts correctly.

Defensively, we were solid until we got winded late after the offense kept shooting itself in the foot. Anything after the Williams muff I chalk up more to the offense's inability to give the defense a break. Sure the Nabers drive was infuriating, but we all knew he was going to RAT us at some point. Some of those catches were just him making a great play. Tough pill to swallow, but the only change you could do is have someone different subbed in to cover him and pray they make an even better play. I'm not sure even Forbes could have stopped the 4th down catch.

Things to watch: How much does Will play next week? Bowling Green is a bad defensive team. They did beat Marshall, but they should be a tier below Memphis. Our C+ game gets us a win comfortably. Id hope we get our A game. Because I'd like to see Sawyer go vertical in the second half to see what arm talent he has in comparison to Will. If he has the cannon in-game that he should, then this board will make him the most popular man in Starkville. And if Will doesn't get his head on straight when reading a defense and not running against a 6/7 man box then he should get benched.

Around the West: Auburn is bad. Arkansas played an even worse game than we did last night. A&M doesn't have its answer at QB. They feel like the SEC's Iowa right now. 20 points beats A&M. Just that's a tall task against that defense. Alabama is Alabama. Rumors of their demise were greatly exaggerated. Ole Miss is getting fat on cupcakes. We'll have to wait until Kentucky to know more about them.

It's a long season. 9-3 is squarely on the table. If the rule of Leach holds true and that's our "wtf loss" then our "wtf win" is still on the table and 10-2 is on the table as well. Just have to execute.

I'd rather be thinking "we just need to execute the plays better" instead of "we just can't win because we'll never have the talent to." This offense is schemed to neutralize talent. Just have find players who execute it right.

[Catfish]

Watching last night, there was a lot of bad, some more bad, and some downright ugly. Sprinkled in there was some things to be optimistic about. We've beaten to death the bad and ugly and some have jumped ship because it's impossible to get skull ****ed in Death Valley and win the SEC West. No one has ever done it. Not one.... Anyways.

Offensive Scheme and play designs. We actually have an offense that can attack these heavily talented SEC defenses. We saw the deep outs be open. We saw the vertical 1-on-1 can beat the DBs (Ra Ra especially). We saw on short yardage plays when we would pass we would have open players.

Now, we didn't attack vertically near enough. We didn't catch wide open passes we should have. We didn't read the defense and audible to passed when we should. Fair or not, this falls squarely on Leach. His concepts work. This widespread of lack of execution is on the coach though. Play the guys who will execute the concepts correctly.

Defensively, we were solid until we got winded late after the offense kept shooting itself in the foot. Anything after the Williams muff I chalk up more to the offense's inability to give the defense a break. Sure the Nabers drive was infuriating, but we all knew he was going to RAT us at some point. Some of those catches were just him making a great play. Tough pill to swallow, but the only change you could do is have someone different subbed in to cover him and pray they make an even better play. I'm not sure even Forbes could have stopped the 4th down catch.

Things to watch: How much does Will play next week? Bowling Green is a bad defensive team. They did beat Marshall, but they should be a tier below Memphis. Our C+ game gets us a win comfortably. Id hope we get our A game. Because I'd like to see Sawyer go vertical in the second half to see what arm talent he has in comparison to Will. If he has the cannon in-game that he should, then this board will make him the most popular man in Starkville. And if Will doesn't get his head on straight when reading a defense and not running against a 6/7 man box then he should get benched.

Around the West: Auburn is bad. Arkansas played an even worse game than we did last night. A&M doesn't have its answer at QB. They feel like the SEC's Iowa right now. 20 points beats A&M. Just that's a tall task against that defense. Alabama is Alabama. Rumors of their demise were greatly exaggerated. Ole Miss is getting fat on cupcakes. We'll have to wait until Kentucky to know more about them.

It's a long season. 9-3 is squarely on the table. If the rule of Leach holds true and that's our "wtf loss" then our "wtf win" is still on the table and 10-2 is on the table as well. Just have to execute.

I'd rather be thinking "we just need to execute the plays better" instead of "we just can't win because we'll never have the talent to." This offense is schemed to neutralize talent. Just have find players who execute it right.

I like your post, very positive and much needed.

[Schultzy]

7-5 is still on the table but 6-6 is what I?ve been expecting all along.

[Tater]

7-5 is still on the table but 6-6 is what iv3 been expecting all along.

9-3/10-2 is on the table. 7-5 is most likely. 4-8/5-7 is what we'll get if we play like last night the rest of the year.

[Schultzy]

9-3/10-2 is on the table. 7-5 is most likely. 4-8/5-7 is what we'll get if we play like last night the rest of the year.

I wish I still had your optimism but don’t have your pessimism.

[Commercecomet24]

9-3/10-2 is on the table. 7-5 is most likely. 4-8/5-7 is what we'll get if we play like last night the rest of the year.

Appreciate the positive post. Yeah I agree 7-5 is most likely and what I figured before the season but as you said if we play like last night we're in trouble, I don't see that happening though.

[NCDawg]

Watching last night, there was a lot of bad, some more bad, and some downright ugly. Sprinkled in there was some things to be optimistic about. We've beaten to death the bad and ugly and some have jumped ship because it's impossible to get skull ****ed in Death Valley and win the SEC West. No one has ever done it. Not one.... Anyways.

Offensive Scheme and play designs. We actually have an offense that can attack these heavily talented SEC defenses. We saw the deep outs be open. We saw the vertical 1-on-1 can beat the DBs (Ra Ra especially). We saw on short yardage plays when we would pass we would have open players.

Now, we didn't attack vertically near enough. We didn't catch wide open passes we should have. We didn't read the defense and audible to passed when we should. Fair or not, this falls squarely on Leach. His concepts work. This widespread of lack of execution is on the coach though. Play the guys who will execute the concepts correctly.

Defensively, we were solid until we got winded late after the offense kept shooting itself in the foot. Anything after the Williams muff I chalk up more to the offense's inability to give the defense a break. Sure the Nabers drive was infuriating, but we all knew he was going to RAT us at some point. Some of those catches were just him making a great play. Tough pill to swallow, but the only change you could do is have someone different subbed in to cover him and pray they make an even better play. I'm not sure even Forbes could have stopped the 4th down catch.

Things to watch: How much does Will play next week? Bowling Green is a bad defensive team. They did beat Marshall, but they should be a tier below Memphis. Our C+ game gets us a win comfortably. Id hope we get our A game. Because I'd like to see Sawyer go vertical in the second half to see what arm talent he has in comparison to Will. If he has the cannon in-game that he should, then this board will make him the most popular man in Starkville. And if Will doesn't get his head on straight when reading a defense and not running against a 6/7 man box then he should get benched.

Around the West: Auburn is bad. Arkansas played an even worse game than we did last night. A&M doesn't have its answer at QB. They feel like the SEC's Iowa right now. 20 points beats A&M. Just that's a tall task against that defense. Alabama is Alabama. Rumors of their demise were greatly exaggerated. Ole Miss is getting fat on cupcakes. We'll have to wait until Kentucky to know more about them.

It's a long season. 9-3 is squarely on the table. If the rule of Leach holds true and that's our "wtf loss" then our "wtf win" is still on the table and 10-2 is on the table as well. Just have to execute.

I'd rather be thinking "we just need to execute the plays better" instead of "we just can't win because we'll never have the talent to." This offense is schemed to neutralize talent. Just have find players who execute it right.

Think your first paragraph is wrong. We got skulled drugged in Baton Rouge in '98 and still won the SECW (actually tied with Arkansas but since we beat Arkansas we went to Atlanta.)

[PikeDawg15]

Watching last night, there was a lot of bad, some more bad, and some downright ugly. Sprinkled in there was some things to be optimistic about. We've beaten to death the bad and ugly and some have jumped ship because it's impossible to get skull ****ed in Death Valley and win the SEC West. No one has ever done it. Not one.... Anyways.

Offensive Scheme and play designs. We actually have an offense that can attack these heavily talented SEC defenses. We saw the deep outs be open. We saw the vertical 1-on-1 can beat the DBs (Ra Ra especially). We saw on short yardage plays when we would pass we would have open players.

Now, we didn't attack vertically near enough. We didn't catch wide open passes we should have. We didn't read the defense and audible to passed when we should. Fair or not, this falls squarely on Leach. His concepts work. This widespread of lack of execution is on the coach though. Play the guys who will execute the concepts correctly.

Defensively, we were solid until we got winded late after the offense kept shooting itself in the foot. Anything after the Williams muff I chalk up more to the offense's inability to give the defense a break. Sure the Nabers drive was infuriating, but we all knew he was going to RAT us at some point. Some of those catches were just him making a great play. Tough pill to swallow, but the only change you could do is have someone different subbed in to cover him and pray they make an even better play. I'm not sure even Forbes could have stopped the 4th down catch.

Things to watch: How much does Will play next week? Bowling Green is a bad defensive team. They did beat Marshall, but they should be a tier below Memphis. Our C+ game gets us a win comfortably. Id hope we get our A game. Because I'd like to see Sawyer go vertical in the second half to see what arm talent he has in comparison to Will. If he has the cannon in-game that he should, then this board will make him the most popular man in Starkville. And if Will doesn't get his head on straight when reading a defense and not running against a 6/7 man box then he should get benched.

Around the West: Auburn is bad. Arkansas played an even worse game than we did last night. A&M doesn't have its answer at QB. They feel like the SEC's Iowa right now. 20 points beats A&M. Just that's a tall task against that defense. Alabama is Alabama. Rumors of their demise were greatly exaggerated. Ole Miss is getting fat on cupcakes. We'll have to wait until Kentucky to know more about them.

It's a long season. 9-3 is squarely on the table. If the rule of Leach holds true and that's our "wtf loss" then our "wtf win" is still on the table and 10-2 is on the table as well. Just have to execute.

I'd rather be thinking "we just need to execute the plays better" instead of "we just can't win because we'll never have the talent to." This offense is schemed to neutralize talent. Just have find players who execute it right.

We aren?t beating either Alabama or Georgia . The question is can we stay within 3 touchdowns ?


You are right about the rest of the west . Auburn is a dumpster fire , Arkansas has some BIG weaknesses in that secondary , Texas A&M is the same as they were last season just with a left handed quarterback ( who beat us last year at home .GULP) , ole miss has the best running back in the Division but their quarterback misses wide open receivers consistently and makes horrible mistakes when he doesn?t just hand it off . Is ole miss?s rushing game good enough to beat an sec team , we will see against Kentucky .
Kentucky can not run the football to save their life and they beat a very very very overrated Florida team ( and Kentucky should have lost that game if not for Anthony Richardson playing like a middle school quarterback).

Yeah I?m not impressed with anyone but I wasn?t impressed with LSU either and we lost .

We should?ve beat that LSU team by double digits if we capitalized in the 1st half and put them away.


The ceiling is 9-3 but the problem is
Home vs A&M
Home vs Arkansas
@Kentucky
Home vs auburn
@ ole miss

We will not go undefeated against that ^^

We will lose Atleast one of those because of special teams errors or playing with 9 instead of 11 .

[Schultzy]

Think your first paragraph is wrong. We got skulled drugged in Baton Rouge in '98 and still won the SECW (actually tied with Arkansas but since we beat Arkansas we went to Atlanta.)

Good memory on that.

[PikeDawg15]

We aren?t beating either Alabama or Georgia . The question is can we stay within 3 touchdowns ?


You are right about the rest of the west . Auburn is a dumpster fire , Arkansas has some BIG weaknesses in that secondary , Texas A&M is the same as they were last season just with a left handed quarterback ( who beat us last year at home .GULP) , ole miss has the best running back in the Division but their quarterback misses wide open receivers consistently and makes horrible mistakes when he doesn?t just hand it off . Is ole miss?s rushing game good enough to beat an sec team , we will see against Kentucky .
Kentucky can not run the football to save their life and they beat a very very very overrated Florida team ( and Kentucky should have lost that game if not for Anthony Richardson playing like a middle school quarterback).

Yeah I?m not impressed with anyone but I wasn?t impressed with LSU either and we lost .

We should?ve beat that LSU team by double digits if we capitalized in the 1st half and put them away.


The ceiling is 9-3 but the problem is
Home vs A&M
Home vs Arkansas
@Kentucky
Home vs auburn
@ ole miss

We will not go undefeated against that ^^

We will lose Atleast one of those because of special teams errors or playing with 9 instead of 11 .

To add to this
My preseason prediction was 9-3
Losses
Home vs A&M
Home vs Georgia
@ Alabama

Could we just swap the lsu loss for the A&M ? I hope so but I didn?t expect in the pre season to look like that against A&M.

This team makes me drink

[Tater]

Think your first paragraph is wrong. We got skulled drugged in Baton Rouge in '98 and still won the SECW (actually tied with Arkansas but since we beat Arkansas we went to Atlanta.)

I would hope the way I drug out that sentence made that obvious but yea, that was blatant sarcasm.

[Goldendawg]

Sitting in Atlanta in '98 was one of the proudest moments in my Bulldog life! When Kevin Prentiss ran back the punt for the go ahead TD, I thought we had it. If JJ hadn't been hurt late in the regular season, who knows? Hail Jackie! Hail the '98 team! Hail State!

[Tater]

I wish I still had your optimism but don’t have your pessimism.

Our A game can go toe to toe with anyone in the country. Our B game had us up 13-0 in Death Valley 29 minutes in. Our D game let LSU outscore use 10-3 for a quarter and some change. Our F game let that LSU team outscore us 21-0. Our D-F game has us lose to everyone except BGSU, ETSU, and maybe Auburn.

The problem is we haven't seen our A game for 4 full quarters under Leach.

[Schultzy]

Sitting in Atlanta in '98 was one of the proudest moments in my Bulldog life! When Kevin Prentiss ran back the punt for the go ahead TD, I thought we had it. If JJ hadn't been hurt late in the regular season, who knows? Hail Jackie! Hail the '98 team! Hail State!

That punt return by Prentiss was our high water mark, but UT winning the Natty that year was worth 70 million to the SEC and it showed after that in the refereeing especially on the bogus flag on Sluder on third & long.

But you’re right Golden that atmosphere was extremely electric in Atlanta that night.

[Tater]

Appreciate the positive post. Yeah I agree 7-5 is most likely and what I figured before the season but as you said if we play like last night we're in trouble, I don't see that happening though.

This team is too Jekyll and Hyde to trust either way. After last night I give us more of a shot than I did to beat Georgia or Bama. Last night was what I thought the Arizona game would be preseason.

[Tater]

To add to this
My preseason prediction was 9-3
Losses
Home vs A&M
Home vs Georgia
@ Alabama

Could we just swap the lsu loss for the A&M ? I hope so but I didn?t expect in the pre season to look like that against A&M.

This team makes me drink

I had 10-2 with a wtf loss to Arizona and the traditional one to Bama.

Flip Zona / LSU and Bama / Georgia and it still makes sense. But if we go 4-3/3-4 before the Bama game then Leach has to cut bait on Will and try Sawyer. Otherwise his job is on the line by the Egg Bowl.

[Maroonthirteen]

I'm optimistic that State has an improved team over last year. I'm optimistic that last night doesn't define the season. State can win 7 this, maybe 8 with an upset.

However I don't buy this offense neutralizes talent differences. We haven't score a TD on Bama in two years. We have Bama and UGA this year at home. Make those games a fourth quarter game, I'll give credit where it is due. However to date, this offense is just another way to attack a defense. Like any offense, sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

[WhiskeyPirate]

7-5

Tough schedule

LSU on the road, Bama, Georgia, top ten ranked : UK and Arkansas.

What does that mean ? You lost to #1, #2, #8, #10 and to LSU in Death Valley which historically has happened about 95% of the time.

So don’t let anyone tell you we should win 9 or 10 or Leach should be fired. What a load of bull..

If we go 8-4 we will probably be a top ten ranked team or very close.

7-5 and we are still probably a top 20 team.

[Santiago]

What I saw last night was positive also, and has been for a couple of years. In that with this offense, if the QB and WR's are playing at least above average to really good, then it neutralizes going against a defense full of 4 and 5 star players.
Catch the passes last night and we have over another 150 yards(assuming those first downs create a few more), and we eat up another 10 minutes of clock overall, and generate points.
Do that, and by the 4 quarter it is their defense that is gassed and not ours. We do need an accurate QB who can also escape pressure enough to keep the 5 star and NFL DL from laying their ears back.

[Commercecomet24]

What I saw last night was positive also, and has been for a couple of years. In that with this offense, if the QB and WR's are playing at least above average to really good, then it neutralizes going against a defense full of 4 and 5 star players.
Catch the passes last night and we have over another 150 yards(assuming those first downs create a few more), and we eat up another 10 minutes of clock overall, and generate points.
Do that, and by the 4 quarter it is their defense that is gassed and not ours. We do need an accurate QB who can also escape pressure enough to keep the 5 star and NFL DL from laying their ears back.

Good post. RaRa dropped a crosser in the third quarter that lsu was out of position on and he likely would've scored or at least got close because that whole side of the field had been vacated