Believe it or not I think a couple positive things came out of that game last night.
1. The defense made some good adjustments although they still have a way to go.
2. It's REALLY nice having Reed back in there.
3. Let's face it, they looked like the better team and should have won in the end.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of improvement that needs to be made. First, where's the leadership on the offensive side of the ball. I don't mean Pat White. I mean I'm watching the game and Jeff Mullens and Doc Holiday are sitting up in the booth. Who's coaching the offense on the field??? One of them needs to get their butt down there and get the offense organized! Clearly, time management was not well thought out. Although Chris Fowler was beside himself at the end of regulation. The point should be made that it was 4th and 2!! At that point running the clock down for a hail mary made sense. They screwed up not calling the time out when they let 30-40 seconds roll off the clock on the previous set of downs. NO ONE seemed to step up to make that call. Mullens is still learning how to call a game, I put that one on Stewart.
I will also say again. The O-line is not getting it done! How many 3rd and shorts did we miss along with the 4th and an INCH! Colorado was sitting in a 3 -5 defense. That's our 5 lineman on 3 and couldn't get an INCH!!!!! I certainly noticed Stanchek standing straight up and getting pushed back. How about a little leverage guys. What a disappointment!
Finally, I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel on winning the Big East. USF is clearly now the favorite but there's enough weakness in conference that we could pull the upset. As long as they continually show improvement I can live with it. It the team folds because of attitude, then we should start considering options. Good thing they just signed the extension.....
2 comments:
There's a lot of criticism amongst the fan comments out there and much of it deservedly so. But I agree that it isn't the end of the world.
The O-line play was disappointing as there were very few successful runs in the middle and none on third down. The wide receivers were even worse. They either didn't block or blocked illegally which backed up the offense and stalled them.
What was even worse was the play calling. According to Mullen, running the ball almost exclusively was intentional to give the defense a break in TOP at the high altitude. That's absurd. I can see planning to run the ball more than average for this reason, but there has to be some attempt at balance. The one dimensional play calling was also a contrituting factor to the abysmal 3rd down conversion rate.
The clock management issue that those bozos in the booth harped on for 3 minutes was blown way out of proportion. I actually think Jesse Palmer understood what was going on, but didn't want to speak up after Fowler and James made such boobs of themselves. When there was over a minute to play, the 'Eers correctly let the clock run while managing their offense. With 35-40 seconds left, they should have called timeout and tried to move the ball down the field further. Instead, they hurried through a play, and ended up with no alternative but to try a hail mary. After the 3rd down play and 15-20 seconds were left and Fowler started rambling like a moron, there was no reason to call time out to punt the ball on 4th and 2. And there would be no reason to go for it w/ 15 seconds left on 4th down because it would give Colorado their chance at a hail mary. I think the altitude was affecting Fowler more than anyone.
Defensively, I though Williams played well and Lankster played well except for his bonehead penalties. Everybody else was just out there running around. The tackling wasn't quite as bad as against ECU, but it didn't have to be 'cause nobody was getting off blocks or covering anybody. Our zone coverage is pathetic and the only time we were successful against the pass on defense was when we rushed and played man behind it. Stewart had said we should expect to see more of that on Thursday, but we didn't see much of it at all.
But I'm with you Greg. They did play better and they did look like the better team. If someone can teach Mullen how to call plays and the defense can continue to improve, this team could still win the Big East. If they can't beat Marshall at home, though, I'm throwing in the towel and jumping on the fire Stewart bandwagon.
With each game I wonder which WVU football team will show up. Don't think we have truly seen the team we think we have or want. First they were guilty of reading their own press clippings. They thought they were better than they were. Then they were handicapped by the coaching. They obviously weren't trying to mix the plays with the players. Then we just had a breakdown in ball handling, blocking and tackling. The worse case of blocking and tackling I ever saw from a WVU football team. Then of course were the "stupid" mistakes. You wonder what is in their heads when they do some of the "stupid" mistakes they did. Coach Stewart fumbled the ball in time management. It could have been better managed and wasn't. He appeared to be like a deer in the headlights the last few minutes of the game. Where was he?? Yes we do have a chance for a good year but we will have to do better than we have. Are we ready to do better??? I hope so otherwise it will be a very long year and even longer time till the 2009 season.
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