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"I think we're lacking confidence," Pope said. "In previous games, we've gone into them with confidence. This year after a couple of losses we are lacking that confidence. We are a very beatable team right now."

This concerns me more than anything. Kent is a team that mailed in the season 4 weeks ago. But they can see this as a chance to get a win.

On one hand, I admire PJ for his honesty. But OTOH, do we want the Kent players reading this?

I am trying to remain positive but seeing quotes like that....well....

This staff and team have a choice to make. Either pick yourself up off the mat and start fighting for the East division, or quit and mail in the season.

We'll be at Kent and the UT games.
GO FALCONS!

That's not the kind of quote you would like to see from a senior leader. Especially from a guy like Pope. I don't understand how you can't go into a home game confident that you are going to win. It's not like we are playing USC or Texas. It was WMU and Akron. Sorry but these two teams should not strike fear in you. Even without Omar.

This just shows that players aren't being prepared for the game and a lot of things internally are wrong...

Confidence starts at the top. When players have confidece in the gameplan that the coach has put together they'll have confidence...

Confidence starts at the top. When players have confidece in the gameplan that the coach has put together they'll have confidence...

Or, as I like to say...the fish rots from the head.

If that's where PJ's head is right now, then PJ needs to take a seat. I'm sure Bobby Thomas would love th eextra work.

Piepkow made some similarly bothersome comments after the Boise game...I think he said they were discouraged because they couldn't stop Boise State's offense...

I've made my points about the coaching staff's failures this season. The solution to them is going to require some heavy lifting in the offseason.
But, we still have three games to play. You cannot have a senior talking like that publically. Jeez PJ, do you really want to go out like that?

Just because PJ says confidence is lacking, that does not mean that he is talking about himself as an individual. He just may mean the "team" seems to be lacking team confidence. This can happen from just a few players. As seniors, those guys are trying their hardest to lift up the underclassman and get them to stand up and fight. You see them on the sideline running up to the players...yelling at them to get fired up...slapping them on the helmet...etc. He may feel quite confident that he can go out there and put forth an effort that is inspired by the confidence that they can't be stopped, but the entire teams needs to have this same effort, including the coaches.

The coaches showed a great "lack" of confidence in the team when they showed absolutely no sign of even wanting to throw down the field. Did they lack the confidence that the quarterback knew how to throw? Did they lack the confidence that our receivers aren't good enough to go up and take the ball? Considering how good our offense is, it's amazing how little confidence they had in throwing the ball. When Omar got hurt, the coaches stood there like a deer in headlights. That was the time the coaches should have been overflowing with confidence and pushing that out to the team. I saw several seniors doing just that.

I think he is talking about the "team". We just need to get our heads back on straight.

BelieveNBG wrote:Just because PJ says confidence is lacking, that does not mean that he is talking about himself as an individual. He just may mean the "team" seems to be lacking team confidence. This can happen from just a few players. As seniors, those guys are trying their hardest to lift up the underclassman and get them to stand up and fight. You see them on the sideline running up to the players...yelling at them to get fired up...slapping them on the helmet...etc. He may feel quite confident that he can go out there and put forth an effort that is inspired by the confidence that they can't be stopped, but the entire teams needs to have this same effort, including the coaches.

The coaches showed a great "lack" of confidence in the team when they showed absolutely no sign of even wanting to throw down the field. Did they lack the confidence that the quarterback knew how to throw? Did they lack the confidence that our receivers aren't good enough to go up and take the ball? Considering how good our offense is, it's amazing how little confidence they had in throwing the ball. When Omar got hurt, the coaches stood there like a deer in headlights. That was the time the coaches should have been overflowing with confidence and pushing that out to the team. I saw several seniors doing just that.

THANK YOU. Football is a team sport - he can be as confident as ever, but without everyone else feeling the same way, it crumbles. TEAM SPORT.

Again. How can the team not be confident playing Western Michigan and Akron at home? That just boggles the mind.

BelieveNBG wrote:Just because PJ says confidence is lacking, that does not mean that he is talking about himself as an individual. He just may mean the "team" seems to be lacking team confidence. This can happen from just a few players. As seniors, those guys are trying their hardest to lift up the underclassman and get them to stand up and fight. You see them on the sideline running up to the players...yelling at them to get fired up...slapping them on the helmet...etc. He may feel quite confident that he can go out there and put forth an effort that is inspired by the confidence that they can't be stopped, but the entire teams needs to have this same effort, including the coaches.

The coaches showed a great "lack" of confidence in the team when they showed absolutely no sign of even wanting to throw down the field. Did they lack the confidence that the quarterback knew how to throw? Did they lack the confidence that our receivers aren't good enough to go up and take the ball? Considering how good our offense is, it's amazing how little confidence they had in throwing the ball. When Omar got hurt, the coaches stood there like a deer in headlights. That was the time the coaches should have been overflowing with confidence and pushing that out to the team. I saw several seniors doing just that.

No, the coaches showed Turner the same amount of faith that they showed Omar in his first start, they limited the playbook because they felt that streamlining things a bit for asn inexperienced QB gave them the best chance of winning.

Turner threw the short ball often, that doesn't mean he didn't have the option of throwing downfield. The INT on the first possession my have effected him mentally the same way we're assuming that it did the coaches.
(The swing pass to PJ on 4th and 2 could have worked if the seniors key to it's success had executed it properly)

My point is that PJ, as a Senior, would be serving the team better by focusing his comments towards the positive steps that he and the rest of the team can take to win some ball games

Flipper wrote: Turner threw the short ball often, that doesn't mean he didn't have the option of throwing downfield.

I know one play, in particular, sticks out in my mind.

It was in the drive that eventually ended in the PJ Pope fumble for the touchback. We had the ball at the 22 and it was 1st and 10. They ran a play action fake (first time ever!?) and rolled turner to the right, which was the wide side of the field.

O'Drobinak was the TE on the right side and he was running an out at about 5 yards. Sharon was in the left slot and ran a slant at about 15 yards. Sanders was the outside left WR and ran a post. Turner had these 3 guys to choose from as he rolled right. All 3 receivers were running in the same direction as him...this is probably one of the easier passes for a right handed QB to make, especially a mobile one.

I'd have to watch film to be 100% sure, but it looked like it was a man coverage with the safeties dropping into a Cover-2. Anyway, as the play unfolded O'Drobinak beat his man and was open at about 5 yards deep...he got open before reaching the right hash and was pretty open. Chuck beat his man handily as his guy got caught in the middle traffic. The strong side safety bit on the play action fake and took about 3 steps forward. By the time he made the recovery Chuck was past him on the slant...he's running to play catchup realizing he had abandoned his zone and the CB was beaten. Sanders was well covered by his CB and the FS stayed in his zone, so he was bracketed.

So essentially as Turner rolls right he's got a very open TE that is a pretty easy toss for 5-10 yards. He's also got a very open WR who's further downfield and is gone for 6 if it's completed, but it's a deeper throw. Turner put the ball on the money to O'Drobinak who makes the catch and is run out of bounds for a 9 yard gain.

A more confident QB, and certainly Omar Jacobs IMO, makes that throw to Chuck. It would not have been a difficult throw, he just need to lob one towards the right sideline at about the 5 yard line. Chuck was so open he walks into the endzone if AT gets him the ball. Turner took the safe/easy play.

I'm just throwing this out there, because I watched the play closely and it was set up so well. It stuck out in my mind quite vividly as a play where, IMO, Turner made the wrong read. I'm not sure whether or not AT was coached to always take the safe plays, but as Flipper says there were times when deeper throws were available and Turner chose to throw the shorter/safer route. I'm not taking all the onus off the coaching staff, because IMO our biggest problems are fundamentals which I do lay on the staff. Just saying that some of the conservatism did come from the QB, not just the staff.

It's very difficult for me to see how anyone can start harping on remarks that PJ made to the press without hearing the entire press conference. Quotes like that one can be taken out of context when reading one liners in the newspaper. I have seen this type of thing happen many times. Number 1, it was immediately following the game and Number 2, the media has the luxury of making things sound the way they want to. PJ has done too much over the years and he has more heart than most on the team. He has been injured all year, but has yet to complain and get down on himself because things aren't going good for PJ. Instead, he has made it a point to be there to support BJ and to really do all he can to help Bobby Thomas get better. He has been unselfish and one thing about PJ...he has never lacked confidence.

As for the short passes...I have no problems with that being the game plan, but on the last drive in a time where we must move the ball, the fourth down play was bad and Turner ran what they called time out to tell him to run...no confidence by our coaches to allow him to throw even 8 yards down the field.

BelieveNBG wrote:As for the short passes...I have no problems with that being the game plan, but on the last drive in a time where we must move the ball, the fourth down play was bad and Turner ran what they called time out to tell him to run...no confidence by our coaches to allow him to throw even 8 yards down the field.

That's pretty much verbatim with what I was saying at the game. If you aren't super confident in him and want to run mostly short passes that is fine for most of the game. However, when you're down and only 3:00 on the clock you simply must open up the offense a little more. It's not the ideal situation, obviously, but you really don't have a choice at that point.

Pope Interview (He had plenty of fight at this interview immediately following the game when they felt sicker than they have ever felt after any loss. This is very positive. The lack of confidence remark was made to compare the difference in how they were playing at the start of the season vs. the last couple of games. He is basically saying we need to get back to the drawing board and get that swagger back. He's right...)

How is the team feeling right now?

"Not good. We need to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch. We need to get rolling again, we need to build confidence, and we have a lot of things that we need to work on to win our next game."

Does your failure have to do with who's in?

"No it does not . We play as a team. Today we lost as a team, and I can't speak on personnel, I just can speak on my performance. To me I think we had the right personnel in, we just didn't get the job done."

Do you feel 100% healthy?

"I am not 100% yet, but I feel better then I have in previous weeks. I am still not 100% but close to it."

Talk about the fumble.

"I thought I reached the ball over the plain before it got knocked out, but that's not my decision. We have to fight through that and we have to play a good game to beat a good team."

What do you see different from when you guys were playing better earlier this year?

"I think we are lacking confidence. In previous games we go into them with confidence. This year after a couple of losses we are lacking that confidence so we are a very beatable team right now."

I really have not been convinced Turner is an even average qb. He's a great athlete no question with above average arm strength for your typical non-qb player. But I question if Turner has even got the goods to be good qb. Hammb , you made an excellent point on Turner taking the very safe , easy play although I've never been opposed to passing to the TE's. The first TD AT threw was a play action fake bootleg with AT rolling out and finding O'Drobinak wide open for an easy walk into the endzone. I like..no love those plays and wish we used those plays more often. AT has great speed for qb and can get alot of yards rushing when the 0-line creates a massive hole. But overall AT doesn't look like he's comfortable at all make simple reads. Omar has AT beat by a gigantic landslide in this area, whithin seconds of receiving the snap Omar has the ball firing out of his hands to a reciever. Turner's not "seeing" the guys that are open quick enough. I don't know if Turner's being alot shorter hurts his field vision or not but I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case.

As for the team confidence factor , thats simply cuz everyone placed our entire hopes and dreams into Omar which is kinda understandable after Omar's stat busting '04 year. But you can't put all your eggs in one basket. The staff and team as a whole never prepared themselves for a Omar injury. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tyler Sheehan starting over AT next year if he's indeed verballed and signs with us and is not still hampered from his collerbone injury.