The Falcon Realist Club- long
Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 12:48 pm
With all due respect to the members of the optimist club I believe from time to time that we should be compelled to evaluate what has happened, so we can apply what we have learned.
Like the members of the optimist club, I too believe that this team has a lot of talent. The potential is out there for us to get to the MCC, and potentially even win it. The improvements on defense have been nothing less than surprising, and kudos in this area to both the coaching staff and the players are well deserved. There are some things about this team that are phenomenal, some that are good, some that are bad, and some that are downright abysmal. That being said, I can’t emphasize enough the fact that I am a Falcon fan first, last, and always. We’ve made some great improvements on defense, we’ve done a good job of encouraging major gifts to the athletic program and to the university. However, there are some things that we need to be honest about and take of the orange colored glasses.
Play calling: We’ve had good quarterbacks and receivers for a number of years. Our offensive style has been to spread the field and look for the safe routes. It has served us well, and can continue to do so, however we need to extend the field too. We cannot consistently move the ball when all we show are 4 yard short out patterns. We have to through the deep ball to keep the defense honest. While we are on that topic, that means we have to run the ball occasionally too, but 3 and long when you are down by a lot, late in the game is NOT the time generally to do so. This leads us to point number 2.
Turnovers: Say what you will in defense of the team and the harder non-conference schedule that we’ve played this year, but the simple fact of the matter is we aren’t going to be champions of any league when we turn the ball over more times than we find the endzone. That’s right folks we have more turnovers than touchdowns. This is true both in the air and on the ground. While I’m grounded enough to realize that we probably won’t see the likes of Omar’s numbers for a while, we need to expect an effort to approach that potential. After all progress is measured not only by how much you move forward, but also by how little you fall back. Which leads us to….
Kicking: Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that this has been my biggest soap box. But we haven’t hit a single FG this year from outside 30 yards. Think about that. We’ve missed more than we’ve made. And it isn’t just FG kicking, our punt coverage hasn’t been that great either. I think that we need to seriously consider anytime we are inside the opponents 40 yard line to be 4 down territory. We don’t get a whole lot out of missed FG’s and we don’t get a lot out of a squib kick that gets run back to the original line of scrimmage either. We might as well take one more shot down the field.
Look, I love this team as well, but as with anything else in life people tend to rise to the level of your expectations. This team is not Georgia, or USC, or even Ohio State Caliber. Maybe we never will be, but if we seriously believe that we are the big boys in the MAC then we better start acting and playing like it. If we want to be considered on the national scale then we need to hold ourselves accountable to that level of expectation. We were FAVORED over Minnesota. We can make all kinds of excuses as to why we should have one, or what should have happened. Until those things do happen on a consistent basis and until we are willing to hold our players and coaches accountable for the failure to meet those expectations they we will continue to be what we have been. A pretty good program in a mid-major conference.
Please understand, I want the team to succeed, and I believe they can. This is a group of young men who in many instances were overlooked by the “big boys.” They have classes, roommates, families, worried, concerns, and challenges. And through it all they show up, they practice hard, and most give their all every week. The coaches are competing against some of those “big boys” without the same depth, facilities, or resources, and usually they do a damn good job. But like the proud parent, it’s not so much that I am disappointed in the results as the fact that I see the potential for this team to be so much greater. So I’m not pessimistic, I don’t think we’ll lose a lot of our remaining games, but I’m not optimistic enough to think we run the rest of the table either. I guess that makes me more of a realist.
--MH
Like the members of the optimist club, I too believe that this team has a lot of talent. The potential is out there for us to get to the MCC, and potentially even win it. The improvements on defense have been nothing less than surprising, and kudos in this area to both the coaching staff and the players are well deserved. There are some things about this team that are phenomenal, some that are good, some that are bad, and some that are downright abysmal. That being said, I can’t emphasize enough the fact that I am a Falcon fan first, last, and always. We’ve made some great improvements on defense, we’ve done a good job of encouraging major gifts to the athletic program and to the university. However, there are some things that we need to be honest about and take of the orange colored glasses.
Play calling: We’ve had good quarterbacks and receivers for a number of years. Our offensive style has been to spread the field and look for the safe routes. It has served us well, and can continue to do so, however we need to extend the field too. We cannot consistently move the ball when all we show are 4 yard short out patterns. We have to through the deep ball to keep the defense honest. While we are on that topic, that means we have to run the ball occasionally too, but 3 and long when you are down by a lot, late in the game is NOT the time generally to do so. This leads us to point number 2.
Turnovers: Say what you will in defense of the team and the harder non-conference schedule that we’ve played this year, but the simple fact of the matter is we aren’t going to be champions of any league when we turn the ball over more times than we find the endzone. That’s right folks we have more turnovers than touchdowns. This is true both in the air and on the ground. While I’m grounded enough to realize that we probably won’t see the likes of Omar’s numbers for a while, we need to expect an effort to approach that potential. After all progress is measured not only by how much you move forward, but also by how little you fall back. Which leads us to….
Kicking: Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that this has been my biggest soap box. But we haven’t hit a single FG this year from outside 30 yards. Think about that. We’ve missed more than we’ve made. And it isn’t just FG kicking, our punt coverage hasn’t been that great either. I think that we need to seriously consider anytime we are inside the opponents 40 yard line to be 4 down territory. We don’t get a whole lot out of missed FG’s and we don’t get a lot out of a squib kick that gets run back to the original line of scrimmage either. We might as well take one more shot down the field.
Look, I love this team as well, but as with anything else in life people tend to rise to the level of your expectations. This team is not Georgia, or USC, or even Ohio State Caliber. Maybe we never will be, but if we seriously believe that we are the big boys in the MAC then we better start acting and playing like it. If we want to be considered on the national scale then we need to hold ourselves accountable to that level of expectation. We were FAVORED over Minnesota. We can make all kinds of excuses as to why we should have one, or what should have happened. Until those things do happen on a consistent basis and until we are willing to hold our players and coaches accountable for the failure to meet those expectations they we will continue to be what we have been. A pretty good program in a mid-major conference.
Please understand, I want the team to succeed, and I believe they can. This is a group of young men who in many instances were overlooked by the “big boys.” They have classes, roommates, families, worried, concerns, and challenges. And through it all they show up, they practice hard, and most give their all every week. The coaches are competing against some of those “big boys” without the same depth, facilities, or resources, and usually they do a damn good job. But like the proud parent, it’s not so much that I am disappointed in the results as the fact that I see the potential for this team to be so much greater. So I’m not pessimistic, I don’t think we’ll lose a lot of our remaining games, but I’m not optimistic enough to think we run the rest of the table either. I guess that makes me more of a realist.
--MH
