FOOTBALL Middle Tennessee @ Illinois (ESPNews), 3PM, Saturday, Sept 26

[JohnDavidBlue]

me right now.

 

[sWiley]

honestly, we deserve to lose with the chicken $hit play calling all game long. Didn't start attacking their defense until we literally had no choice because of limited time being left in the game (and whada ya know.....we had some success....). I'm really sick of "Busterball" - He's great at running it up on JV teams but folds like a cheap tent any time we face a defense with a pulse. Our offensive line is terrible and his play calling did absolutely nothing to help try and disguise that. Good coordinators can sometimes even turn bad offensive line play into a positive by taking advantage of an over aggressive defense. When you're getting beat at the line of scrimmage you have to try something else besides a dive play on every 1st down you bone headed clown.

I don't understand why it has to be so hard to be a fan of this team. I don't care that we lost but let's at least go down with ballsy play calling and not chicken $hit playing not to lose mentalities.

 

[ToddMalone]

tough loss.
thought they were gonna win it.

 

[sWiley]

would have if we didnt play not to lose the first 3 quarters. notice how we moved the ball when we had no choice but to be aggressive

 

[JohnDavidBlue]

I think it is going to be a fun year still but stock has always coached a bend but don't break and play not to lose mentality. so so frustrating. this was ours.

 

[sWiley]

^^ You hit the nail on the head with the kicking game/special teams. If a coach is going to adopt a play not to lose mentality (aka try to limit your teams mistakes and wait for the other team to beat themselves) then it's absolutely imperative that you have solid special teams. Over the last three weeks we have given up HUGE special teams plays. First, the alabama blocked punt, then the Charlotte onsides kick that they ran in for 7, and now another blocked punt and missed FG resulting in 10 free points the other way. How is our punter so bad? He takes way too long to get the kick off and then can hardly even get it down the field with terrible hang time. Since I've followed MT beginning in 2003 we've never had such an inept & incompetent punter. Why coaches do not offer scholarships to punters I will NEVER understand. As far as I'm concerned they're just as freakin' important as your quarterback. They massively influence field position and (as we learned today) can literally be the difference between winning and losing. I would have at least 2 punters on scholarship if it were my damn team!!!!!!!! See this recent commit Will Mitchell? 5'7 180lb slow poke RB who will never see the field here.....or would you prefer one of the best punters in the country??? Because so few schools offer punters scholarships, the few schools that do can get the cream of the crop......what I would give to be able to be a head man at a college team.....I swear coaches are so caught up in trying to do what everyone else is doing instead of taking a step back and looking at the big picture and thinking for themselves and really critically thinking about what the team needs. (And this team doesn't need a white boy 5'7 slow poke RB.....)

TLDR: You're simply not going to beat anybody worth beating if you play not to lose and then cripple yourself on special teams.

ps. Our offensive line sucks

 

[TeKEraider]

A couple of things.

Losing sucks.

I know everybody wants to pile on the play calling but you have to remember we have had a lot of success the last few years running the ball in late game passing situations. We had the time on the clock and time outs to run the ball. Late in the game when the d is tired and expecting pass is not a bad time to run. It just didn't work out this time but we have gashed teams in the past in that same situation even when we weren't running great earlier in the game.

We were playing several back up linemen tonight and it showed. We gave up no sacks to Bama and 3 to Illinois. A sack would have been deadly there. Hopefully we are healthy by conference play. The drive at the end wasn't a failure. It wasn't a chip shot but a 43 yarder should be made. That should have been a successful 2 min drill if the kicker does his job.

I still think this team will compete for the conference title. There are some things to fix(punter) but our D is impressive. To me they only gave up 17 to a pretty decent offense. The punter gave them 7 and the offense gave them 3. I think this D ends up being the best we have had since Manny and may end up statistically better

The offense is capable of big things especially if the line gets healthy and Tucker gets healthy . Lil Stock will only get better as play goes on. The kid only has two ints and one of those was bs. Marshall looks down and WKU is fighting injuries. The east is winnable. Hosting a ccg is still attainable. We are 1-0 in cusa.

 

[sWiley]

I know everybody wants to pile on the play calling but you have to remember we have had a lot of success the last few years running the ball in late game passing situations.

We also had an offensive line with a pulse.....

This current group couldn't block the wind