Feel bad for the players here but game went about as expected. I thought we would play a little better and keep it more respectable (around 10-14 points) but UAB came out with their hair on fire after the Rice loss. This was always going to be a tough game but after losing to Rice UAB had to bounce back and they did in spectacular fashion. There wasn't a scenario where UAB was ever going to start 0-2 in conference. MT was never going to win this game. Feel like UAB could have really poured it on but got very vanilla with the play calling in the 2nd half. Everyone knew the game was over at half time.
UAB has the best rushing offense in the conference and their QB is deceptively accurate with good sized and talented WR's. They can beat you on the ground OR through the air which makes them so hard to defend. Shafer's defenses have always been feast or famine and lately it's been famine.
Lots of famine. I don't think he's very good at making adjustments when his game plan starts to go sideways, and it went sideways fast today. We simply cannot cover anyone in man coverage unless the QB is on his back and that's a lot to ask of your defense on every play. Any team that knows how to throw a forward pass can drop 50 on us without blinking. In retrospect, it's easy to see how we beat Miami. They simply don't have a QB.
Today, UAB had the superior players and the superior game plan. Shocking, isn't it ?
We have some pretty good units on this team (WR, DL) but we've also got some terrible units (OL, DB) that are really holding this team down. We are right on pace for our 6 wins this year which is about right for this team. You are just not going to win a lot of football games when you have glaring weaknesses on both offense and defense. Same old song and dance for the last 17 years. We simply don't have the jimmy's and joes. Rick Stockstill can never put together a team that is sound on both sides of the ball. There always has to be weaknesses that the better teams in our conference easily exploit. Never changes. And it will be even more difficult now to manage a roster and address weaknesses with the transfer portal mania going forward.
We could have really used Gregory Grate, Quincy Riley, and the hand full of OL players that transferred out today. Still would have lost, but at least it would have been respectable and we would have had a punchers chance. At this point, I truly believe MT should consider shutting down football and focusing on basketball. Things are only going to get worse in my opinion. The whole exercise seems 100% futile.
Middle will always be in the Middle.
Basketball has it's own issues and the transfer portal will likely hurt programs like ours (Nick did good this off season keeping it together, but I remain
highly skeptical going forward) but I think we stand a better chance there of winning championships, being successful, making NCAA tournament runs, and building a respectable fan base.
Now WKU is coming off a close loss to UTSA and will be looking for blood against rival MT next week. It is a must-win game for WKU as they simply cannot afford to go to 2 conference losses this early in the season. MT secondary likely to surrender 500+ passing yards next week in what is almost an assured loss.
Any team that can throw a forward pass can beat MT right now. We are getting scheme'd up big time and our DB's cannot guard anyone. Only games we have won have been against teams that cannot throw a forward pass. And the games we have lost (and all 3 losses coming by double digits) have been against a QB that knows how to throw a forward pass. We can't even keep it close when going against QB's that have a pulse.
Gonna get ugly with WKU, line should be around 5 by kick off and I like the Toppers big time.
Their QB knows how to throw a forward pass.
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