He was in on a play last week for 0 yards. He's not 100% anyway. Why would any team sandbag a game when they could have gone undefeated in conference play and have home field advantage? I'm pretty sure they didn't say in the locker room "let's go out and let them beat us 27-3 so we can surprise them next week." After the game got out of hand in the 4th, they held back some but they were down by a bunch. That just means they didn't pass as much.
Maybe we were just better than them. Maybe they played a cupcake schedule. Maybe the west isn't that good. LaTech got beatdown by WKU for pete sakes and LaTech was supposed to be good. That lineman that got ejected wasn't doing anything against us. We had already sacked AJ a couple times and we were leading. One OL doesn't get a run game off the ground. The dude that went in was bigger than him and still got owned.
I think UAB will play better on Saturday but honestly, we matched up with them really well and Shafer was dialed in. He had them figured out. We'll see how they do in the pouring rain with 17mph winds. It's gonna be terrible weather. It will be about turnovers. Right now, the advantage is ours because of the run D. Their line is going to have to block us in the rain and they are solely a run team. Unless they go all pass, they aren't fielding a new team with a whole new playbook in 5 days. I just don't see it. It won't be easy but it won't be unfamiliar either.
Was their entire defense being held out too? We held out a couple of our guys but that was decided after halftime. If the game was going the other way, they would have played. There is a bit of cat and mouse on UAB's part I'm sure but all mouse? No. They played us straight up and we didn't empty the tank either.