Sunday Morning QB- It's Great To Be Alive Edition

[Coach34]

1. What a great day of having nothing to do except watch college football's opening weekend. So glad to still be here on Earth able to enjoy it. I deemed it too hot to grill, so I cooked a pot of tomato/beef soup with some other veggies added in. My poor child that hates corn (I didnt realize that was even possible) was treated to applewood bacon grilled cheeses on Texas toast.

2. The Arnett Era began yesterday with a 48-7 win over a solid 1-AA team in SELA 48-7. While a good start to the season, it had its ups and downs so we will discuss parts of it here. I really loved his interview at the end of the 3rd Q where he told the chick he was still pissed about that 1st half drive we gave up. That's the kind of guy we need running our program.

3. Special Teams? Yes Sir. Our new FG kicker is the step-son of a college teammate of mine who is a really good dude. Very happy for him on his upgrade on his 2nd wife as well as his step son's college debut. Knocked down his first two FG's from fairly deep. Us left-footed kickers are special. Well done. The punting was solid. A blocked punt for a TD. Looked really good on ST's. I wish we would go ahead and kick it out of the EZ on kickoffs instead of trying to pin them deep but that is just a philosophical difference of opinion.

4. Rogers was very average yesterday. Def missed WR's down the field to take some shots. Wasnt as accurate on short throws. Had to roll left a couple of times which is tough on a RH'ed QB. Wright did exactly what he was brought here to do. We didnt throw with him because we didnt want to show anything against SELA. He certainly brings some juice to the offense. At first glance my concern is that the offense needs the running threat at QB to really thrive. It could be that it was just first game problems and we will get much better with Rogers in there. But he has to take the shots down the field more often or there really is no need for him to be in there. My hope is that with more time in the offense he will. They will for certain show all of what was there to him in film sessions today and tomorrow. He needs to be that guy.

5. Marks looked about like I thought he would. He is a good player. It's also much more enjoyable watching him play when he isnt getting blown up by a LB'er after a pass from Checkdown Charlie. He gets a chance to run the ball on multiple runs and catch passes on different routes. He is a star in a very talented RB room. Marks will be the guy but we have other players to take some load off of him to keep him as healthy as possible.

6. The O-line has work to do. They will get better but you can see they are still a work in progress. But it was expected in Game 1 in a new offense. Now they have film of things SELA did of overloading a side and such to learn from. This is a vet bunch and I expect them to improve a good deal by next week. As bleh as the offense looked at times- we did go for 525 yards yesterday. Thats pretty good.

7. Good game from ol White Legs. Really good signing by our staff. I like being good in the slot- it gives defenses problems because you can do so much with them. Bellazar showed some speed on the jet. Need Griffin healthy- glad to see him return in the 2nd half. Hopefully our outside guys can give us a little more moving forward.

8. DL looked good except for that one drive. We played very vanilla defensively and that is why they were able to get to the edges on us with some success. Pickering had a shot at a sack and whiffed on a middle rush- hated seeing that. LB'ers played ok. Jett looks good rushing the passer but looks so slow other times. It's amazing he amasses the tackles he does. Watson brought the thunder as usual. Terrible job by Furge on the goalline pass for a TD. Stay with the man- you werent being threatened. The QB faked in the middle- not the edge. While some want to whine- we did only give up 208 total yards.

9. Overall- good 1st game and lots to be excited about. It was the first State game I have enjoyed watching since 2018. We have an actual offense now and not a 7 on 7 drill. Lots to work on and build on as we head into next week. I didnt like the way we kind of went thru the motions because it was SELA. I'm not surprised by that from such a vet team tho. Hell, even Georgia was only up 17-0 on UT-Martin at half. They are ready to play bigger games for sure. It certainly seemed like someone got in their ass at half about the effort in the first half. On to Arizona

10. Good day for the SEC sans SC last night. Auburn surprised me winning as easily as they did. Kentucky, A&M, and Tenn looked how I thought they would. UPig rolled and will be tough to deal with this year. Mississippi got their easy one out of the way and now have 6 possible losses coming at them. Will they lose all 6? Of course not but they better be ready for them or they could. Tulane will make them work and Ga Tech is improved. Bama, LSU, UPig, and then Auburn has them staring at 0-4 to start off conference play. College football is back and I'm sooooo glad I'm here for it.

11. Extra point- I hate the new clock rule. It's going to shorten games for sure- probably around 10 plays. We ran 68 plays yesterday. We averaged 81.6 last year. Some of it is the new offense of course- but some of it the new clock rules. I think it forces more teams to go up tempo