How worried are you?

State averaged 7 yards a carry but had to rely on the big run to get anywhere close to that. Not sure that should be the case against USM.

I'm annoyed rather than worried. My annoyance is that occasionally Dan seems to overthink things. I think what we all really wanted to see was a solid win, with backups getting a lot of time in game 1.

Obviously USM had a great game plan and deserves a lot of credit for keeping that from happening.

BUT, this was a game to get Lee and Williams touches, and to get our backup QB some experience, and we didn't seem to make an effort to do that. Additionally, that many runs for Holloway seems a bit scary. I really don't have a good idea what Dan And Diaz's plans were for that game.

Also, I hate the "vanilla" talk, as another poster said, most of the time when we play vanilla it means we don't have any other flavors.

This week will tell us what we need to know.
I also think that not having a game really hurts LSU in this.

The brandon holloway deal is going to be more frustrating than we have seen with muffin. I wasalmost disappointed when he had a nice gain. I'm trying to prepare myself. Muffin's personnel stubbornness is going to cost us a win or two

How do you not let williams, lee, and gray out there against usm? Wtf? Shumpert is mediocre. Holloway is smaller than me. Gray might be the most explosive player we have.

Don't think its reasonable to have any expectations, or lack of, before the LSU game. We will learn what this season is going to look like then.

I think our DL looked good. AJ is going to be a terror in backfield's, Ryan Brown Brown holding it down and near flawless as usual. Run defense looked solid, important going into LSU.

Offensive line looked great, better than they did on game 1 last year, still completely mind blown how Hevesy fields a good product every year. Can't stress enough how great it was to see them protecting the QB, I don't think anyone has to be told how important Dak staying healthy this year is.

What we didn't get to see is how Shump is with his cuts. I think he looked great as a receiving back, and shedding some pounds gave him some noticeable speed. But we really didn't see him get any touches that weren't just a called straight plunge between the tackles.

Holloway needs to learn to catch. He's too fast to not get the ball in his hands, but he isn't big enough to do it if he isn't a threat to catch the ball out of the backfield.

Hard to take much away from the secondary. I love that nobody escaped the zone. Last year we would have been seeing some of those catches go for 60 yard TD's untouched. There was always a man there to make the tackle as soon as the catch was made, which is improvement for the zone coverage we all hate so much. Going to be interesting to see what Redmond and Calhoun can do manned up against LSU's WR's.

I am a little worried about our (Sam?) LB position. Jackson just wasn't fast enough to cover his zone, going to really miss Wells there if we don't get it fixed.



ETA: Oh, and our WR's need to still be cutting laps for those drops. Dak threw some beautiful passes of 25+ yards, which is where he needed to improve, and wasn't rewarded for them because of absolutely inexcusable drops.

quote:

---

I initially thought this and we could gradually work the new guys in. Need 'em now. I would only use Coman and Market if we had to or in definite run plays. But get their asses out otherwise. Gotta get Peters and McLaurin significant PT. Thank God Taveze comes back this weekend.

---

Safeties did their job Saturday. You didn't see anyone breaking loose downfield did you? With exception of the trick play, which was Redmnond's fault. He had his eyes downfield and was going for the pick, misjudged it and didn't come down with the ball. The safety was exactly where he should have been on that play, covering the top while Redmond should have been in front, not 5 yards in front trying to be a hero.


But on th bright side, I doubt we will be playing a retarded 35 yard deep zone against LSU. Nobody should be upset with the defenses pass coverage performance. That scheme is designed to contain and give up yards underneath. They took what the defense gave them, can't do a lot about that. Red zone D was strong.


Be upset about fumbles, be upset about dropped passes, hell, be upset at Dak's short passes. But all defense can do is execute the scheme they are in and, with exception of one TD pass, they did that.

Yeah I'm interested to see how Manny approaches it. Protect the box and make Harris beat us with his arm, or pin their ears back early and try to rattle him. I can't remember what AU did last year but I'm assuming they got to him early and often.

Regardless, the most important thing will be offensive execution early. We need to get some points on the board so they don't have the luxury of pounding the ball and wearing down the defensive line, which will undoubtedly be their strategy.

If our defense spends 13 minutes on the field in the first quarter again, it will be a long night.

quote:

---

Offensive line looked great, better than they did on game 1 last year,

---

Rewatch the game and key in on Rufus Warren. We're gonna be in for a long year if that shite keeps up.

Have to wonder if Rankin's RS gets pulled if they aren't comfortable with Rufus.