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So a few thoughts from Saturday's win. First, credit to the players for not getting down on themselves and finding it in their hearts to gut out a win, on the road, while teammates were going down to illness and injury. It would have been very easy for the team to quit, especially given that the team did quit last year after the QB change. They did not. Second, what a throwback to Edsall v.1 that was. Struggle to move the ball offensively, get outgained 2 to 1 over 60 minutes, but win the redzone battles, win third downs and win turnovers (I know turnovers were 2 to 2, but even though that is a win for us the fact that our two takeaways got us 14 points it was a huge win) and come away with a victory that it doesn't appear would be easily replicated. Old Edsall in a nutshell. I wonder whether TD Husky was even happy with the victory, or preferred losing in games where we were moving the ball up and down the field all day. Finally, not to pour water all on the team's efforts, but I'm not sure how much Saturday's game really showed us. Yes, there is no question the D got stops, and got takeaways, but it still gave up over 500 yards and 24 points, and I do ask myself how much of that being an "improvement" was due to Temple not being able to make plays that were there, and how much of it was really we were much better. I think some of both. No question we made some plays, but I also think they easily could have had another 150 yards and 20 or so points if they executed better. Now, some of that is that Temple is not as good offensively as the last 4 teams we played, and some of that is that is that college players aren't supposed to take every opportunity and it looked like we were due for some balancing out because none of our last 4 opponents missed any. But am I convinced yet that our defense has moved from incredibly sucky to somewhere between sucks and below average? No, I'm not. I'm going to have to see it another time. Which would have been fine if our offense at the same time didn't seem to struggle for the first time since Shireffs got off the pine.
Offense, defense and specials? Let's start with specials. Generally was o.k. -- I don't think either side won the day -- but Tarbutt has to get past this mental crap about babying a short FG attempt. Soon. Or we have to use him for kickoffs, EPs and long FGs and find someone else (presumably the walk on Rishell) who can.
On defense, while Joseph has gotten a ton of praise on here the last few weeks, I've thought he deserved it against the run but that his inability to get drops has been part of the problem in the pass coverage. I thought he was getting back much deeper or Saturday. Also, I thought Diggs had not been near his level of last year since returning to the injury until Saturday, but he looked like a totally different player. Luke and Foley both had better games, and the constantly changing defensive secondary made it hard to even know who was in, and still looked sieve like at times, but at least every so often stood up and made a play and that made all the difference. Kudos to Swann, who had to step in unexpectedly, and Coyle, who instead of sulking when benched earlier kept at it.
On offense, they didn't look at all like how they've been looking, and we didn't move the ball a whole lot, but when they got inside the red zone they kept coming away with 7 and on this day that was enough. Will it be enough going forward? Frankly, I doubt it but we'll see. Kudos to the rebuilt OL, which if they couldn't move Temple's front 7 at least held up in pass protection for the most part. With three underclassmen starting and Crozier back next year as well, we are putting ourselves in a position that, we can get QB play as good as what we're getting this year, we will be good offensively. Is the answer on our roster or do we need to look for a JUCO or Grad transfer? None of us know but the staff does.
So that's it. It was great to break all those losing streaks (actual, conference games and road games) but I'm not jumping on a short term bandwagon because of it. What I know is that we're 2-4 and have both a winnable game on Saturday and a game that, if we're going to have any chance whatsoever of getting to 6-6 this year, we absolutely have to have. So it's time to start planning the tailgate, hoping it's a decent weather day and get ready to yell. And then we'll see if holding a team to 24 points is repeatable.
Offense, defense and specials? Let's start with specials. Generally was o.k. -- I don't think either side won the day -- but Tarbutt has to get past this mental crap about babying a short FG attempt. Soon. Or we have to use him for kickoffs, EPs and long FGs and find someone else (presumably the walk on Rishell) who can.
On defense, while Joseph has gotten a ton of praise on here the last few weeks, I've thought he deserved it against the run but that his inability to get drops has been part of the problem in the pass coverage. I thought he was getting back much deeper or Saturday. Also, I thought Diggs had not been near his level of last year since returning to the injury until Saturday, but he looked like a totally different player. Luke and Foley both had better games, and the constantly changing defensive secondary made it hard to even know who was in, and still looked sieve like at times, but at least every so often stood up and made a play and that made all the difference. Kudos to Swann, who had to step in unexpectedly, and Coyle, who instead of sulking when benched earlier kept at it.
On offense, they didn't look at all like how they've been looking, and we didn't move the ball a whole lot, but when they got inside the red zone they kept coming away with 7 and on this day that was enough. Will it be enough going forward? Frankly, I doubt it but we'll see. Kudos to the rebuilt OL, which if they couldn't move Temple's front 7 at least held up in pass protection for the most part. With three underclassmen starting and Crozier back next year as well, we are putting ourselves in a position that, we can get QB play as good as what we're getting this year, we will be good offensively. Is the answer on our roster or do we need to look for a JUCO or Grad transfer? None of us know but the staff does.
So that's it. It was great to break all those losing streaks (actual, conference games and road games) but I'm not jumping on a short term bandwagon because of it. What I know is that we're 2-4 and have both a winnable game on Saturday and a game that, if we're going to have any chance whatsoever of getting to 6-6 this year, we absolutely have to have. So it's time to start planning the tailgate, hoping it's a decent weather day and get ready to yell. And then we'll see if holding a team to 24 points is repeatable.
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