Knapke last 2 games

[Flipper]

Guys...its Callaway...not Calloway.

Anyhow...I don't have much faith in Knapke and like hammb, I don't think the offense does either. I would hope that the move indoors will give them all a psychological boost and we'll see an offense that looks more like the one that played at UMass vs what we saw this week against BSU. Saying that your team needs to be out of the elements to be successful in December sucks..but that seems to be where we are roght now

[Redwingtom]

Guys...its Callaway...not Calloway.

Anyhow...I don't have much faith in Knapke and like hammb, I don't think the offense does either. I would hope that the move indoors will give them all a psychological boost and we'll see an offense that looks more like the one that played at UMass vs what we saw this week against BSU. Saying that your team needs to be out of the elements to be successful in December sucks..but that seems to be where we are roght now

I think you're spot on Flip. Being indoors will give us a huge edge with our speed. Look for Ronnie Moore to have another big day. And I fully expect Babers to have Callaway in their for quite a few plays just to keep NIU further off balance.

[slashba33]

Guys...its Callaway...not Calloway.

Anyhow...I don't have much faith in Knapke and like hammb, I don't think the offense does either. I would hope that the move indoors will give them all a psychological boost and we'll see an offense that looks more like the one that played at UMass vs what we saw this week against BSU. Saying that your team needs to be out of the elements to be successful in December sucks..but that seems to be where we are roght now

I think you're spot on Flip. Being indoors will give us a huge edge with our speed. Look for Ronnie Moore to have another big day. And I fully expect Babers to have Callaway in their for quite a few plays just to keep NIU further off balance.

I agree as well playing indoors will be a significant help to our offense, but if Babers has this idea of incorporating Callaway into the MACC game, why not play him during the BSU game for at least a series or two? I think the element of surprise angle goes both ways if he throws a freshman in the biggest game of the year and he isn't ready just as much as it will throw NIU off their game plan.

[Rollo83]

Guys...its Callaway...not Calloway.

Anyhow...I don't have much faith in Knapke and like hammb, I don't think the offense does either. I would hope that the move indoors will give them all a psychological boost and we'll see an offense that looks more like the one that played at UMass vs what we saw this week against BSU. Saying that your team needs to be out of the elements to be successful in December sucks..but that seems to be where we are roght now

I think you're spot on Flip. Being indoors will give us a huge edge with our speed. Look for Ronnie Moore to have another big day. And I fully expect Babers to have Callaway in their for quite a few plays just to keep NIU further off balance.

I agree as well playing indoors will be a significant help to our offense, but if Babers has this idea of incorporating Callaway into the MACC game, why not play him during the BSU game for at least a series or two? I think the element of surprise angle goes both ways if he throws a freshman in the biggest game of the year and he isn't ready just as much as it will throw NIU off their game plan.

The only way Callaway sees the field on Friday night is if Knapke struggles mightily again for a significant stretch. This is not the spot to have a young, inexperienced quarterback to try and learn to run this offense. NIU defense will eat him up. I hope it doesn't come to that because the game will already have been decided.

[BGFan]

Guys...its Callaway...not Calloway.

Anyhow...I don't have much faith in Knapke and like hammb, I don't think the offense does either. I would hope that the move indoors will give them all a psychological boost and we'll see an offense that looks more like the one that played at UMass vs what we saw this week against BSU. Saying that your team needs to be out of the elements to be successful in December sucks..but that seems to be where we are roght now

Makes me wonder if they've been using the field house for practice way too often. The way they were huddling around the space heaters it looked to me as if they weren't used to being out in the elements.

[factman]

BINGO, BG Fan! If you are going to play in it, you better practice in it! Not saying it has to be every day, but it better be more than 50%.
There were a lot of critical plays and situations in the BSU game, that some of the guys with capes, huddled around the heaters never even turned to watch the game. I don't know if the coaches didn't notice, but if they didn't, some team captains should have been jumping all over a few of these players. I know of some coaches that would have had the heaters and capes taken away to make the point. This went on the entire game.

[Flipper]

factman...that reminds me of the guys who were doing the "chicken dance" with the band in the 4th qtr of a game we were being taken to pound town in.....I think it was during the GB years. So soft....

Rollo is right..cooler heads will prevail and Babers will live or die with Knapke. Throwing a true freshman out there in the biggest game of they ear would be taking a huge gamble. I think he kept Knapke in against BSU to show him and the team that they're going to live or die with him. So far as the MACC game goes, it Knapke or Knothing....

[jpfalcon09]

All I know is that there will be no excuses come Friday night, either you play well or you don't. I think it's a great opportunity for the players and coaches to salvage a rather tumultuous season, especially with how the last few weeks have gone.

[Redwingtom]

factman...that reminds me of the guys who were doing the "chicken dance" with the band in the 4th qtr of a game we were being taken to pound town in.....I think it was during the GB years. So soft....

Rollo is right..cooler heads will prevail and Babers will live or die with Knapke. Throwing a true freshman out there in the biggest game of they ear would be taking a huge gamble. I think he kept Knapke in against BSU to show him and the team that they're going to live or die with him. So far as the MACC game goes, it Knapke or Knothing....

I agree, but I don't believe he would be planning on having Callaway out there for an extended period of time. I think it would be just in certain circumstances.

[kdog27]

That's all I want. A couple series to give NIU something else to think about. If they decide to blitz like Toledo did, how about a well timed screen for once. I'm not saying he is the answer but this offense clearly is missing something and every defense knows it. Not hard to defend or prepare for an offense that only runs a handful of plays. It's like the original Techmo Bowl playbook.

[Beaker]

Guys...its Callaway...not Calloway.

Anyhow...I don't have much faith in Knapke and like hammb, I don't think the offense does either. I would hope that the move indoors will give them all a psychological boost and we'll see an offense that looks more like the one that played at UMass vs what we saw this week against BSU. Saying that your team needs to be out of the elements to be successful in December sucks..but that seems to be where we are roght now

I think you're spot on Flip. Being indoors will give us a huge edge with our speed. Look for Ronnie Moore to have another big day. And I fully expect Babers to have Callaway in their for quite a few plays just to keep NIU further off balance.

I agree as well playing indoors will be a significant help to our offense, but if Babers has this idea of incorporating Callaway into the MACC game, why not play him during the BSU game for at least a series or two? I think the element of surprise angle goes both ways if he throws a freshman in the biggest game of the year and he isn't ready just as much as it will throw NIU off their game plan.

The only way Callaway sees the field on Friday night is if Knapke struggles mightily again for a significant stretch. This is not the spot to have a young, inexperienced quarterback to try and learn to run this offense. NIU defense will eat him up. I hope it doesn't come to that because the game will already have been decided.

I agree that throwing Callaway in there in the championship game when we are already looking at a deficit is not the time to have him try to learn the offense. That's exactly why coach should have been working him in a series here and there when it was clear Knapke was struggling and in fact, regressing. Last week would have been the perfect opportunity to get him some meaningful game experience and he didn't do it. Obviously, we would all like to see the James we saw in the Indiana game, but plans don't always go according to our hopes and it would have been prudent to at least make an effort to have a viable plan B.

Kdog makes a perfectly good point. If Callaway comes in and NIU decides to bring the blitz on him every play, there are things that can be done to counter that. I wonder if any time is being spent in practice this week working on that, particularly with Callaway?

I'm not sure if it was mentioned elsewhere on this board and I missed it, but I was a little put off by the quotes attributed to Babers in the Blade article this week. He said the BSU loss had little to do with x's and o's and was all about a lack of effort and enthusiasm from the players. Clearly, he's right about that lacking from the players and that played a big part in what happened, but to put all of the blame on them and take none for himself or his staff for not having them ready to play their best game is pretty weak. I have to wonder what the mental outlook and confidence of this team is heading into this game. I don't know, but I would have to guess it's different than it was a year ago at this time.

[Dayons_Den]

I'm not sure if it was mentioned elsewhere on this board and I missed it, but I was a little put off by the quotes attributed to Babers in the Blade article this week. He said the BSU loss had little to do with x's and o's and was all about a lack of effort and enthusiasm from the players. Clearly, he's right about that lacking from the players and that played a big part in what happened, but to put all of the blame on them and take none for himself or his staff for not having them ready to play their best game is pretty weak. I have to wonder what the mental outlook and confidence of this team is heading into this game. I don't know, but I would have to guess it's different than it was a year ago at this time.

Here is the full quote where he squarely takes the blame on his own shoulders. The quote is from the Sentinel and I also saw it paraphrased on FalconBlog , he definitely shoulders the blame.

"Enthusiasm and effort," said Babers when asked what went wrong in last week's game. "You have to respect the game and you have to play the game with the right enthusiasm and the right effort. I take full responsibility for that. I think we had one quarter of great enthusiasm and great effort and then after that it dwindled and dissipated.

[Beaker]

Thanks for posting the full quote. I had not seen the Sentinel article. I went back and read the Blade article again to see if I had missed something. Curious how/why they chose to omit the "I take full responsibility for that" part of the quote. I has a different tone to it when those few words get cut out.

[Falcon Commander]

kinna curious about Callaways prep....
they say Knapke is starter, full faith in him and proved he deserves it. Fine

so what happens if Knapke gets hurt? Will Callaway go in with no thought of him playing (meaningful reps, game plan for him, etc)?

seems like that;s what happened when MJ got hurt in the first game.


(I know osu has some very good athletes but, they've survived losing their 1st & 2nd QB's -so far)

[hammb]

kinna curious about Callaways prep....
they say Knapke is starter, full faith in him and proved he deserves it. Fine

so what happens if Knapke gets hurt? Will Callaway go in with no thought of him playing (meaningful reps, game plan for him, etc)?

seems like that;s what happened when MJ got hurt in the first game.


(I know osu has some very good athletes but, they've survived losing their 1st & 2nd QB's -so far)

That's the way it works on every. You cannot take reps away from your starter (especially if he's been struggling) just to get the backup more prepared. There just aren't enough reps in the week to get both guys prepped to play. When you try to prep 2 you're going to end up with nobody prepared for the game.

As for the Buckeyes they were in a similar situation to us for the bulk of the season but their backup ended up developing into a Heisman contender, ours didn't. Their 3rd stringer wasn't needed to do much to beat Michigan, I'm curious to see how they'll do in the Big 10 Championship. Even with the development of Barrett they still lost a game that they had no business losing to a lousy opponent, and they had the luxury of letting him develop against a whole lot of teams who were VASTLY outmatched across the board talentwise. Knapke didn't have that luxury, especially since we also lost a helluva lot of other starters along with our starting QB.


I hope Knapke comes out and plays well, and if he doesn't I wouldn't mind seeing some of Callaway just to see if he can provide a spark. But if Knapke is the starter (and it's probably the right call at this point) then they have to give him every single rep and the best chance he can possibly have to succeed tomorrow night.