This is Sumlin's offense. And Kenny Hill came out like the Iceman. He executed flawlessly and showed no pressure from the situation whatsoever. Just play after play after play, he made the right read and a good throw. And yet I can't point to any one play and say "wow" like you did with Johnny. He's just a cold-blooded assassin. And if he can run this offense with that kind of efficiency on game one, it's going to be a fun ride.

But we knew our offense was pretty good. So let's talk defense. First, our gap control was outstanding. Sure Mike Davis didn't play, but against on OL that was considered the best in the SEC, there were really no holes to run for anyone. That's a massive leap and one thing I noticed was Mastro constantly moving DLmen to the right gap before plays. This is just something we sorely missed last year - some leadership out of our linebackers. But Williams, Walker, Henderson, and Arnold deserve props for playing very solid as a unit.

At end, Hall was quietly efficient and decent in the run game (where he was abysmal at times last year). Obioha was quite solid in a return to SDE and the two younglings, Johnson and Cunningham both got int the game, though I don't remember them doing much.

Oh yeah, and Myles Garrett, he was okay. Honestly if you don't realize what a talent we have on our hands, go back and focus on him on the play that was called Intentional grounding. Myles was doubled, split it, they held him (and it was also called) then he hit Thompson as he was throwing. And that all happened in like 2 seconds. Garrett got consistent pressure and it forced SC to adjust which freed up blitzers. Hilliard came straight free through the A-gap, something we rarely saw last year, because they were so focused on our DL.

Hilliard is going to be a big loss. He was amazing in the half he played. Mastro was solid and was always around the ball. And most importantly, we looked comfortable in the front 7 with very few missed assignments. That's a huge credit to him. He's also damn good in pass defense. He got drops like he was a 3-year starter and was forcing Thompson to throw over him constantly. One big reason we were abused down the middle last year was our LB corps was awful at that. We didn't rotate much at LB. We played a lot of heavy nickel so often just 2 guys on the field. I think only Mastro, Hilliard, Bass, Baggs, and Sanders played. Neither freshman did.

In the secondary we still have issues. It's unfortunate that fans will blame Deshazor for the two long TDs. Sumlin subtly hinted that was not the case. They were simply blown coverages and miscommunciations. It shouldn't be happening between Matthews and Everett but that was the duo on both plays. I don't want to talk about the PIs. I felt the refs were ticky tacky but that's going to happen some days. The reason they didn't get them and we did is because their CBs were rarely close enough to get called. The fact that we were - constantly - should bring a tear to your eyes.

What can you say about Watts? He's a breath of fresh air back there. Great range and brings the wood. He gambled a little for an INT and gave up a big play that he shouldn't have and another that Mastro saved his arse on, but these are mistakes of exuberance, not missed assignments or laziness. Love those kind of mistakes tbh. Vic Davis had a pretty good game as well and the future looks quite bright for both those guys. Though I don't remember it, Nick Harvey played while Wilson did not.

Drew Kaser's Heisman campaign is off to a rough start. He had only 2 punts and no TDs.

This team has very few seniors. And we have weaknesses on defense and lack of depth in spots. But this may be a special year. And there is zero doubt we'll be even better next year...

tl;dr version: we pretty good