We could have used...

[factman]

He had good reason to complain!!! I was sitting beside a longtime HS football coach and right in back of a HS official, and on one play with about 5 minutes or so to go, the OU QB rolled out and one of our defenders was held to the point it looked like his jersey was about to tear, and the referee was running behind the play. He reached for his flag 2-3 times on the run and missed, so he just decided to let the play go, with no call. All three of us saw the play and mentioned it at the same time, and OU ended up scoring. I have no idea if the officiating determined the outcome of the game, but that call and the interference call on BG down around the five were certainly BAD calls that went against us, that shouldn't have, and resulted in scores for OU. We all thought that call was offensive interfence (he hooked the defender behind him) or at least a NO CALL. Maybe these guys had just as many bad calls the other way, but they certainly weren't as noticable to me.
That being said, BG's play left something to be desired at times, also!!!

[Flipper]

I've pretty much resigned myself to this year being a rebuilding year. I know our strength coach is a highly touted guy...and the times I've looked into the weight room it looks like they have all the tools (I'd kill for some of that stuff) but we are not a very strong team from the looks of it. We got beat up in the 4th qtr a lot last year and we were getting pushed around a bunch yesterday....on both sides of the ball. And it's not just a question of mass...yeah it helps to be 310lbs when you're trying to push people out of there, but a 290lb guy can do it if he has a strong enough base and the right mind set.

For me...the lone bright spot was the play of that Jones kid on the DL. Shame we couldn't redshirt him and Roussos and give them a year to grow, but Jones was having more of an impact than the upperclassmen

[Warthog]

We all thought that call was offensive interfence (he hooked the defender behind him) or at least a NO CALL.

factman, that's the way I saw it too. The WR was 'boxing out' the defender, using his hand to pin him behind him. The defender may have then interfered with the WR, but it was the action of the WR that forced him into that position. And with the LOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG discussion they had about it, one of the officials must have wanted to call it offensive interference. So why not call it both ways, which would be legitimate, offsetting penalties, replay the down?

[hammb]

I've pretty much resigned myself to this year being a rebuilding year. I know our strength coach is a highly touted guy...and the times I've looked into the weight room it looks like they have all the tools (I'd kill for some of that stuff) but we are not a very strong team from the looks of it. We got beat up in the 4th qtr a lot last year and we were getting pushed around a bunch yesterday....on both sides of the ball. And it's not just a question of mass...yeah it helps to be 310lbs when you're trying to push people out of there, but a 290lb guy can do it if he has a strong enough base and the right mind set.

For me...the lone bright spot was the play of that Jones kid on the DL. Shame we couldn't redshirt him and Roussos and give them a year to grow, but Jones was having more of an impact than the upperclassmen

I'm in agreement, Flip. Clawson's track record is that his first year teams aren't that great. Then he said early on that he thought he could win quicker here, and also mentioned needing Sheehan to play like an All MAC player and the team could win. My initial reaction was uh oh, because I didn't think Sheehan could be that player, then we go out and play so well in that Troy game. Expectations went up a bit from there, and we played tough at Mizzou as well. Since then though, we've looked more like the team I expected. Sheehan is what he is and that is the ugliest stat padder you'll see...dude is NOT a good QB, but I'll be damned if his stats don't look pretty at the end of the day. The defense looks awful, and our OL cannot run block.

Both of our lines need to seriously work in the strength department, that is for damned sure. I remember when Urban came in he totally ripped our OL up and down because they had only one player on the team that could bench press 400 pounds. He lit into them and berated them until they were willing to put in the work in the weight room.

This team needs something to instill that work ethic into these guys again, because for the last 4 years they've looked like the same listless, lazy team as they were at the end of the Blackney era. Hopefully Clawson can get it through to them...we are definitely not a strong team at the point of attack...

[Jacobs4Heisman]

This was always going to be a rebuilding year. I'm getting more and more excited about going away from the piss-poor version of the spread we've run the past few years. I love the spread, but our version has no teeth, and it's frustrating as hell to watch, especially in the red zone.

[hammb]

This was always going to be a rebuilding year. I'm getting more and more excited about going away from the piss-poor version of the spread we've run the past few years. I love the spread, but our version has no teeth, and it's frustrating as hell to watch, especially in the red zone.

Wide open WRs in the redzone ALL NIGHT last night. Sheehan doesn't see the field worth a damn when it gets down close to the goalline. The TD pass that he ended up throwing to Jones, for instance. We got the TD, which was great, but Tyler held onto the ball for awhile before finally deciding on that target...all the while Chris Wright was standing ALL ALONE on the goalline to Sheehan's left. Tyler just doesn't see the plays develop, holds the ball too long and locks onto WRs.

He's got the physical tools, but he just doesn't process information quick enough. This manifests itself when the field is condensed and the pressure gets dialed up a bit in the red zone. He's great between the 20s, but he's always struggled in the red zone.

[Rightupinthere]

and our OL cannot run block.

The last couple of weeks I wondered why we steered so far away from the balanced attack established in the first game against Troy.

My wonder was answered yesterday when I saw the same thing. Pretty good pass blocking which was needed for Sheehan to wait for his chosen receiver [Love BG Style], but it took the RB to find the hole to gain any yardage.

It's going to be a long season but I'm patient.

[Falconboy]

our OL cannot run block.

Both of our lines need to seriously work in the strength department, that is for damned sure. I remember when Urban came in he totally ripped our OL up and down because they had only one player on the team that could bench press 400 pounds. He lit into them and berated them until they were willing to put in the work in the weight room.

This team needs something to instill that work ethic into these guys again, because for the last 4 years they've looked like the same listless, lazy team as they were at the end of the Blackney era. Hopefully Clawson can get it through to them...we are definitely not a strong team at the point of attack...

I'm not exactly sure what is up with our offensive line's inability to establish the los at all in these games, but what I have gathered is the possibility that GB just didn't recruit very good run blocking O-lineman during his tenure here. I have a feeling he went after fairly agile quick lineman that could pass block really well but were severely lacking in the leverage and power aspects. It could be just a different type of lineman that Clawson now needs to recruit to establish the run game with this new offense. Maybe there is only so much Aaron Hillman can work with.

[FortWayneFalcon]

I'd like to see the coach focus a little more on his players on the field rather than 4q's of bickering with the officials. Tell them they made a bad call and then move on. No whining! No excuses! As a player how do you feel about the game when the coach spends that much time arguing with the officials? I think you start to feel like "it's not my fault".

Clawson arguing with officials had nothing to do with how the players played. Every coach in America is in the officials ear for 4 quarters.

If we had won you wouldn't have cared and thought the coaching staff was firing them up. Mountain out of a molehill.

You're certainly correct in regards to how it would have shaped my opinion if we won, but in the absence of dominating field play from anyone on the field I found myself searching the sideline for the coach's response. Rather than being fired-up, I was distracted. It's just me I guess.

[Redwingtom]

I'd like to see the coach focus a little more on his players on the field rather than 4q's of bickering with the officials. Tell them they made a bad call and then move on. No whining! No excuses! As a player how do you feel about the game when the coach spends that much time arguing with the officials? I think you start to feel like "it's not my fault".

Clawson arguing with officials had nothing to do with how the players played. Every coach in America is in the officials ear for 4 quarters.

If we had won you wouldn't have cared and thought the coaching staff was firing them up. Mountain out of a molehill.

Yeah, but if he would not have called that timeout just to argue we could have gotten the ball back at the end of the game!

[cowboyjoe]

A rebuilding year with 8 starters back on offense? Boy, I will hate to see what next year brings. We better win 6 games because that wasn't good enough last year. 14,000 people for Homecoming? We may hope we get that Buffalo crowd back from last year for our remaining home games.

[MarkL]

A rebuilding year with 8 starters back on offense? Boy, I will hate to see what next year brings. We better win 6 games because that wasn't good enough last year. 14,000 people for Homecoming? We may hope we get that Buffalo crowd back from last year for our remaining home games.

Sure, 8 starters back on offense, but now just 2 starters back on defense. Big rebuilding year ... offenses rebuild much faster than defenses. With the exception of a couple of drops and an odd fourth down RB sweep, the offense really worked pretty well against Ohio Saturday. The defense looked like they were rebuilding, though.

[hammb]

A rebuilding year with 8 starters back on offense? Boy, I will hate to see what next year brings. We better win 6 games because that wasn't good enough last year. 14,000 people for Homecoming? We may hope we get that Buffalo crowd back from last year for our remaining home games.

As I have pointed out to you BEFORE The season, and will again do we only lost 3 starters on offense, but they were a HUGE portion of our production. We lost our leading receiver and our leading rusher. We also lost Parks who was a huge redzone threat last season. In all this team scored 43 offensive TDs last year Partridge, Parks, and Turner accounted for 16 of them. Beam contributed 3 more and he transferred for playing time. Kelly is also gone so there's 2 more. So there are 21 of the 43 TDs gone off the team.

Then look at the guys who returned: Pronty is gone for the year and Scheidler's been hurt to. That accounts for 8 of our returning TDs missing time because of injury.

Bottom line is that yeah it sounds cool to say that we're returning 8 starters our offense should be awesome! It makes you sound like you know what you're talking about to spout that off. But when you look at WHO we lost, it's pretty clear this was a rebuilding year offensively. You cannot lose all of your best playmakers and expect the offense to continue on without missing a beat. Sometimes it matters less how many starters you lose than it does who those starters are.

On the other side of the ball, we lost almost our entire defense. Is it a shock that they might struggle?

[orangeandbrown]

We had huge losses to graduation and then put Ream and Mahone on top of it.

I have never seen a Coach spend as much time arguing with the refs as Clawson did. We were laughing about it in our section, it was like a cartoon character.

[daspollak]

We had huge losses to graduation and then put Ream and Mahone on top of it.

I have never seen a Coach spend as much time arguing with the refs as Clawson did. We were laughing about it in our section, it was like a cartoon character.

You hire position coaches to talk to the kids and make sure they are aware of what is going on. The head coach makes the critical decisions and I happy he was hounding the refs. Next time I hope he goes ape sh!t when they miss a blatant hold or call a BS pass interference.