Bowl/Year assesment

Agree on all points

ETA: Lynch cost himself a few mil yesterday

3rd and Grantham.....nice.

I'm willing to give Mason some slack for that game. He is not the reason we lost. In just his second game he had us in a position to snag a second decent comeback win in as many games if Lymch doesn't drop it.

TGII did look almost fat. Hope he gets after it in the off season. That having been said, he is still a beast. We need some stellar RBs to back him up, though. He/we missed Marshall.

Defense should continue to improve, but it would be really hard for them not to.

We almost (should have) won 10 games this year despite the adversity. If we don't win 10 next year with the team we have coming back, changes should be made.

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Although I agree its not all on Mason, if Murray had been back there there is no doubt who would have won. Im just saying yesterday he did ok but a lot of the time he looked like a scared Halloween cat

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There was a drop off, but that had to be expected. There was that one crossing route to Bennett that Mason missed for what would have been an easy TD for Murray.

Also, we went back to being Field Goal U. Kind of forgot what that was like for the last four years. We've never had a QB with a nose for the end zone like AM.

All that having been said, we were plagued by drops that were in no way the fault of Mason. He's had two tough assignment for his first two games and played well enough for us to win both.

I think he'll continue to improve and he should be fine.

Reasonable assessment, bdv.

My overall view is well known so I won't waste your time repeating it here. It's pretty much a reflection of my bowl summary:

Here's a link to the box score: LINK Data/facts talk and b.s. walks.

1. As has often been the case, TO's were a major factor in the loss; we had 2 critical TO's, 1 more than Nebraska. We had a negative TO margin for the season.
2. While we had more first downs, more total yardage and led in time of possession by almost 7 minutes, Nebraska ran the ball better than we did with 144 yards to our 96. They averaged 3.3 yards per carry to our 2.2; 2.2 doesn't cut it when you are trying to sustain drives.
3. Mason played well enough to win completing 21/39 passes 1 TD and 1 INT. Critical drops of routine/softly thrown passes by receivers prevented a comeback to win on that final drive. Mason was short-arming a lot of his passes apparently trying to increase accuracy and make them easy for our receivers to catch. Mason as a new starter is taking a lot of time to work through his progressions.
4. Our OL was pass blocking pretty well for Mason considering that our receivers could not get open and Mason was taking a lot time trying to find an open receiver. Our OL was pretty much stonewalled on most running plays.
5. As you said, Gurley is obviously not 100% and yes, the field conditions were a factor; apparently we weren't wearing the correct cleats for the that type of field according to the field manager who manages the field for the Jaguars (this from the TV commentators). Gurley has not had the same moves and flat out speed that he had before the ankle injury.
6. Our secondary is not good and the absence of JHC might well have been the difference in the game. Nebraska did not pass much, 6/16 for 163 yards, but 2 big plays for TD's were a significant part of the difference in the game.
7. Special teams continues to hurt us. Reggie Davis should be removed from the punt return duty. He just doesn't seem to be able to position himself to receive punts cleanly. Finding himself out of position on that muffed punt, he should have just let it go.
8. The main bright spot was FG kicking my Marshall Morgan. We have another good one.
9. However, we were having to kick FG's because our redzone offense is not good. We have no power running game when we need it because our OL is not good at run blocking and we could not come up with a well designed pass play in most critical situations and when we did the passes were dropped by our receivers.

Some good points. I am not quite as bullish on our teams chances next year. I am expecting another 8 - 5 type year. Hoping that I am wrong but based on the play of the last two games, I just do not see us improving over this year. I hope Mason improves and I expect he will after he practices more and spends more time preparing as the starting QB. I do question his arm strength and accuracy though.

Same thought on Gurley - he looked like he had put on a significant amount of weight and it was not helping him. It is obvious that something is still not right with him as his running was nowhere near what he showed us earlier in the season.

Our secondary is God Awful. That 99.5 yard bomb that we gave up to Nebraska was simply unacceptable. The CB who had coverage (Swan?) gave up on the play and then held his arms out as if to say, "it aint my fault". He should have been hauling A$$ to try to catch the receiver to make up for his mistake. Finish it off with the safety who whiffed on making the big hit and you have a deplorable play. Front 7 are good but any smart team will just pass over them.

OL will struggle next year and I am sure CMR and others will use the fact that they struggle as a reason for our lack of success vs fixing the problem. 72 or par for the course.

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Honestly I think the "we owe Mason" mentality needs to go away.. Yes he was going to transfer and then decided not too, so what I say open the QB position up all the way up to next fall and lets see who deserves it.

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100% yes. Owing a player is BS and you would never see that at any other SEC program. From what we saw from Mason yesterday, he will not cut it at this level. Let Ramsey actually compete for the starting job.

TG
Very disappointed in his progress, leadership, and physical performance. I know sprained ankles can be hard to recover from, BUT he should be much further along. Beyond that, he did look out of shape and not showing much in the area of leadership.

Mason
Appeared to have lost his gunslinger status. Hard to say whether this was the pressure, play calling, lack of trust in receivers or hangover. He best find some swag. QB competition should be OPEN.

O-line
No idea why the line that did a solid job protecting Murray early this year had such an issue with Nebraska. My guess is they just didn't have the desire (like the rest of the team and fans).

Receivers
I hope Mason working with these guys over the summer helps. Very unimpressive.

3rd and Grantham
Enough said. Secondary.

Year as a whole
I can easily see where this year would have put the team in a negative place. Hard to believe but we had the ball with a chance to win in every single loss but Missouri. Can't get much closer than that.

Very concerned that a lack of overall leadership might create some issues over the summer. Who do we have that can step up in this area?

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5. As you said, Gurley is obviously not 100% and yes, the field conditions were a factor; apparently we weren't wearing the correct cleats for the that time of field according to the field manager who manages the field for the Jaguars (this from the TV commentators). Gurley has not had the same moves and flat out speed that he had before the ankle injury.

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How does this happen if true? Someone should be held accountable for this. It was obvious the team was a little flat and hampered by field conditions. Abdullah seemed to cut better than TG. Was it the cleats? I saw both teams shaking heads in frustration with field conditions though. Slick field + heavy/hobbled TG probably puts him at about 80% (yet he still had a good game).

He does need to check that temper. He's letting these guys get in his head.

LINK

Nice thread bdv1974, put it up with this one and I'm somewhere in the middle.