Well you lads are a lot of help. lol Couple of comments, if I may. I believe I heard that Stanford's win put in first in the PAC. Someone may know for sure, I'm not for sure but as long as it's not USC I'm glad to see a shift in power- if it works out that way. When we improve the penalties will double. Sounds crazy, I know, but I feel we lack a little bit of intensity/purpose and when that is corrected there'll be more penalties that come with aggression.
Although I have nothing tangible to base this on, a big part of me feels that we will improve. The biggest difference between last year and this year is that we know where our glaring weaknesses are right now. In 2008, our overall better early season performance masked our biggest deficiencies until we got into the thick of conference play. By that point, it was almost impossible to make adjustments. And as the season went on, the team just got worse and worse. The biggest thing that the 2009 team has going for it is that it knows full well where it needs to focus, and it's (hopefully) learned those lessons without having to suffer a loss. Now, whether or not they make the adjustments remains to be seen. But I know that they can perform better than they have, so it's certainly plausible.
I take issue with blaming only Lee for the pick sixes...if we have an offense that makes a tackle 3-4 times we wouldn't even have a discussion. Sort of like the defense this season.
It's part of the game...picked up fumbles, INT's, blocked punts/FG...wrap up the ball carrier...the job doesn't change just because you are on a different side of the football. Six of the seven of those returned TD's were for 40+ yards. We make a tackle on just 3 and you no longer have him as a scapegoat...or escape goat.
Just saying...how many times have you heard of an offense being criticized for not making enough tackles.
and ladies. :grin: discipline as in stupid sh*t. intensity is ok. however, one thing the team has to be careful about this year is some new rules that intensity=penalty. the new flag football mentality of the rules. a lot of the discipline last year seemed to be just stupid mental mistakes and the celebrating what should be considered routine that i mentioned. act like youve been there type discipline.
That is a lot of ifs and pretty sures. Vandy had a pretty good season last year but they were anemic vs MS. ULL was steamrolled by Nebraska. Washington was beaten soundly by Stanford. Last years defense loked confused for most of the season. This one looks more donfident but Washington is the only decent Offense that we have faced and they moved the ball at will.
