Well, I will say one thing for this team... They always make it interesting.
Here is the Good, the Bad, and Ugly from last night's win over the other GSU.
The Good --
• AJ Turner is a legit stud... Imagine what we'd be discussing if we'd given him the ball a few more time against Georgia Southern in the second half. Love Huff, Hate Huff, the guy knows how to find and develop running backs and Turner is a potential home run hitter every time he gets it.
• Scripted plays... One theme that has appeared over the past 3-4 weeks - We are good on the first 2-3 possessions when we are running from a script. The issue is when the script runs out, or we are forced to adjust (more on that in a minute).
• Mike Green is an animal... He's been so good getting to the QB that he was drawing doubles all night. A tackle and a back, a tackle and a TE, tackle and guard, they had to commit two guys to 15. We need another pass rusher to get home from the other side because teams are adjusting to take away Green.
• Where has this Reece Verhoff been?... Banging home kicks from 40-plus two weeks in a row. Nice to see him finding some flow this season.
The Bad --
• Tackling... I know it was a short week and guys may not have felt 100 percent, but man our tackling was bad. Arm tackles, no one wrapping up, guys getting 3-4-5 yards after contact. Overall, a poor night for getting guys on the ground.
• Untimely turnovers... Following up the Georgia Southern game where a couple of turnovers absolutely killed us. It was a pretty clean game until GSU pulled within one score and Braxton hit their middle linebacker in the chest for a huge INT. Thank goodness GSU's coach looked about as unprepared for a close game as anyone in the stadium and they didn't score (they also didn't take the points earlier in the game and got stopped on 4th down at the 10 yard line which was a huge screwup by their first year HC).
• Zone coverage... I know you have to mix up the coverages between man and zone, but every big play we made all night was in man coverage. When we played zone, we played poorly, and GSU's backup QB was smart enough to take the wide open 5-7 yard throws over the middle of the field.
The Ugly --
• Thursday night crowds... We've discussed this at length 1,000 times on here, and I don't think there's any way to fix it aside from maybe being undefeated when our Thursday night game rolls around. But on TV it looked like there were about 500 people on the visiting side in the second half.
• Adjustments... The offense came out hot, scored on the first three possessions (while staying on script). Then nothing for a long long time as GSU got back in the game. It seems like Doege may have figured out the first 20-25 plays of the game, which most teams put together throughout the week. But then he struggles to keep the momentum once the script runs out. We need to be better at halftime of evaluating and adjusting to the flow of the game.
All in all, a fun win to kick off a long break that is going to feel like an eternity.
Louisiana Monroe has a bye this week and then a huge game against South Alabama on Oct. 26 before their trip to Huntington... Fun fact, if you just google "Monroe football" they aren't even at the top of the google search. You get Monroe High School NC followed by other Monroe High Schools, lol
Here is the Good, the Bad, and Ugly from last night's win over the other GSU.
The Good --
• AJ Turner is a legit stud... Imagine what we'd be discussing if we'd given him the ball a few more time against Georgia Southern in the second half. Love Huff, Hate Huff, the guy knows how to find and develop running backs and Turner is a potential home run hitter every time he gets it.
• Scripted plays... One theme that has appeared over the past 3-4 weeks - We are good on the first 2-3 possessions when we are running from a script. The issue is when the script runs out, or we are forced to adjust (more on that in a minute).
• Mike Green is an animal... He's been so good getting to the QB that he was drawing doubles all night. A tackle and a back, a tackle and a TE, tackle and guard, they had to commit two guys to 15. We need another pass rusher to get home from the other side because teams are adjusting to take away Green.
• Where has this Reece Verhoff been?... Banging home kicks from 40-plus two weeks in a row. Nice to see him finding some flow this season.
The Bad --
• Tackling... I know it was a short week and guys may not have felt 100 percent, but man our tackling was bad. Arm tackles, no one wrapping up, guys getting 3-4-5 yards after contact. Overall, a poor night for getting guys on the ground.
• Untimely turnovers... Following up the Georgia Southern game where a couple of turnovers absolutely killed us. It was a pretty clean game until GSU pulled within one score and Braxton hit their middle linebacker in the chest for a huge INT. Thank goodness GSU's coach looked about as unprepared for a close game as anyone in the stadium and they didn't score (they also didn't take the points earlier in the game and got stopped on 4th down at the 10 yard line which was a huge screwup by their first year HC).
• Zone coverage... I know you have to mix up the coverages between man and zone, but every big play we made all night was in man coverage. When we played zone, we played poorly, and GSU's backup QB was smart enough to take the wide open 5-7 yard throws over the middle of the field.
The Ugly --
• Thursday night crowds... We've discussed this at length 1,000 times on here, and I don't think there's any way to fix it aside from maybe being undefeated when our Thursday night game rolls around. But on TV it looked like there were about 500 people on the visiting side in the second half.
• Adjustments... The offense came out hot, scored on the first three possessions (while staying on script). Then nothing for a long long time as GSU got back in the game. It seems like Doege may have figured out the first 20-25 plays of the game, which most teams put together throughout the week. But then he struggles to keep the momentum once the script runs out. We need to be better at halftime of evaluating and adjusting to the flow of the game.
All in all, a fun win to kick off a long break that is going to feel like an eternity.
Louisiana Monroe has a bye this week and then a huge game against South Alabama on Oct. 26 before their trip to Huntington... Fun fact, if you just google "Monroe football" they aren't even at the top of the google search. You get Monroe High School NC followed by other Monroe High Schools, lol
