OK. Here are my first game observations: 1.) We have some SERIOUS athletes on both sides of that ball. Our coaches have plenty of talent to work with. This gives me hope. 2.) As stated 100 times already, our D was terrible in 3rd and long situations. 3.) UDub was MUCH, much better than I thought they were. They will probably get to a bowl game this year. 4.) As poorly as we played defensively, if we had gotten one more turnover, or stopped them 1 more time in the 2nd half, we would feel a lot better about ourselves today. 5.) JJ looks good. Real good. I would make one minor tinker with his play- Run past the 1st down marker and slide! 6.) We will be fine. Our D will tackle better. We will get pressure on the QB, and our offense will continue to move the ball and score points. Folks, we've got too many great athletes to be mediocre/bad on defense. The coaches will make adjustments and corrections. We'll be fine. :crystal::geaux::crystal::geaux::crystal:
Areas we showed promise: 1) Offense, when we needed to move.. we turned it on. 2) Patrick Peterson. I would love for him to stay 4 years. 3) 2nd half adjustments on Defense. 4) The option is gonna be money for us this year. Areas of concern: 1) Special teams 2) Defensive line got little to no pressure, granted.. was a veteran O-line. 3) Charles Scott looked sluggish. I wonder if he was sick..
I'm not going to give any grades because I'm more into overall general observations and I'm no good at micro analysis of football...a game I never played. We won, and I'm happy with it...looking forward to the next game :geaux:. One observation I made was that UW showed a lot of character at the end of the game by going on that 80 yard drive to score as time ran out. I thought that was really impressive...they never packed it in and should be proud of their determination to perform as well as they could. They really gave 100% at the end. Wish we could have been witness to that last year...especially the Arkansas game !!!
I've brought this up before but this bears repeating in light of last night's game. We have a special teams coach on the staff whose sole job is to take care of this side of the ball, and it simply doesn't look like we're getting any results out of it. And I don't buy that we don't have the athletes necessary for an effective special teams unit. So I have to ask: what is this guy doing? We were dead last or almost there in several punting/kicking categories in 2007, and we haven't budged from that position after all that time? Robinson needs to start pulling his weight on this staff; otherwise that's money that could be put to much better use elsewhere.
I couldnt really tell on my crappy TV -- but did Chavis have the DB's and Safeties 60 yards off the line? He did it at UT, but I couldnt tell on every play last night.
I wouldn't know, since ESPN seemed more concerned about showing their Davie Jones' locker crap than actually showing a touchdown pass play. o:
