Game Impressions

[BGSUVA]

Temple brought fans?

[Warthog]

One of two things is culprit here. Either, we are not devoting enough practice time to the special teams, or lousy coaching by John Bowers.

I'll add a third possibilty. Our coaching staff is 'out-thinking' itself. We use gimmicky formations for punts and kickoffs (always trying to kick it to the right and only have coverage on half the field) and we try gimmicks on kick returns. Stuff like this is what teams with lesser talent try to do to beat teams with more talent. They have to try to trick or confuse the opposition to try to get an advantage. Do you think that our opponents have that much more talent than us that we have to resort this kind of crap? I sure don't.

I think it is a case of our coaching staff thinking they are being innovative with these wierd formations, but they are just being stupid. Line-up, block, cover the kick, it is that simple. Don't try to reinvent the wheel.

[jacojdm]

i didn't make it to the game beacuse i was at a weezer concert here in cleveland, but, i was getting the updates from fellow falcons in the doyt.
for me, the most important thing is family. it's great to see bg beat ou again, because my mom is an ou alum.
and there's nothing that i enjoy more than beating my mother.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

Special Teams are about 90% coaching. About the only time you see punts blocked are when somebody misses an assignment. If everyone stays in their lanes on kick coverage, nobody is going to get a big return without breaking 4-5 tackles. Jebus our players should know that a kickoff is live once it goes 10 yards. If we paid attention to special teams, somebody would have fallen on that ball.

That play was the clearest evidence I've seen yet that our coaching staff basically ignores special teams. This is unacceptable. Special Teams is an equal third of football and decides probably 4-5 games a year.

Examples -- Against Wisconsin -- we had them almost broken after the second touchdown. On consecutive plays, we miss the XP and then allow the big KO return. The crowd wakes up and the rest is history.

Against BSU(2). We are right back in the game after scoring the first touchdown making it 6-6. On consecutive plays, we miss the XP and allow the KO return for a touchdown. The crowd gets into it and the rest is history.

Against Ohio -- We totally dominate on defense and offense. Because of a blocked punt, as well as a couple other screw-ups, Ohio had a great chance to be up 17 or 21-14 at halftime. Special Teams could have cost us this game had the defense not played so tremendously.


I said this in another thread, but ST mistakes like we made yesterday will cost us games against: a) better offensive football teams. and b) games away from the Doyt. (read: I'm talking about Miami and Toledo).


Okay enough bitching. Defense played great yesterday!

[Schadenfreude]

Temple brought fans?

Someone here claimed to have met one. I never walked down to that section to take a look.

You'll find that Toledo travels best. They'll fill up that visiting section and fill in gaps all over the east side.

Miami also travels well. Next time we host 'em, I expect they'll fill up that entire visiting section and then some.

As far as the band -- they definitely got the chance to play more, and I personally liked that. I guess I'd like to see them come up with a few more pep numbers by the next game. I did like that they tried "Blister In The Sun." That was different. On the other hand, that's a hard song to do with a huge band, because it's a quick song where timing is crucial.

My take. I'm not a musician or anything.

[Tswam]

I really don't like our punt and kickoff return schemes, but that's easy to say when things are blowing up. The blocked punt for the td was deja vu all over again from last Ocober in Athens. We seem to "out cute" ourselves at times. I'm also not sure how quickly the long snapper is getting the ball back to the punter. I thought Fry did a good job on his punt in the 4th quarter (he was kicking into the wind, the snap was high and outside, and OU had already gotten the 2 blocks).

That being said, I have never seen a coach (including John Bowers) ever miss an extra point or a chip shot field goal. Coaching is certainly a part of successful special teams (90% I don't think so), but execution and effort also have to be factored in.

[Dr. Bucko]

Aside from the special team-play, I thought BG looked good, and played as predicted. It was a good mix of play-calling though I think they should stick with the short passes more often than they do. The bombs don't connect all that often --- and too often cost us a first down. ------- I thought the announcer was much improved (the volumn was down), and I am especially glad that I didn't have to listen to that GOD AWFUL ROCK "music" that was blowing all of us old folks out of our seats last week. I do wish that we could haven't gotten more out of the band. Even with nothing going on, they just sort of sat there. What happened to that favorite rendition of Roll Out the Barrel that was their traditional strike up the band song that they used to play so often. I miss it.

[FliccGirl]

I do wish that we could haven't gotten more out of the band. Even with nothing going on, they just sort of sat there.

They've given us an announcement script this year that we have to follow-- we're not allowed to play over scripted announcements. We don't play when there's a flag on a play or a player down either, obviously. And sometimes there just isn't enough time between plays. (I wish we could have played more, too-- at one point we were yelling at our drum major to have us play something, and he just shook his head and said, "It's not my choice.")

What happened to that favorite rendition of Roll Out the Barrel that was their traditional strike up the band song that they used to play so often. I miss it.

We play the "roll out the barrel" song (the Beer Barrel Polka) after every game the band attends-- football, basketball, and hockey.

[04forheisman]

I'm sure that our 18-22 year old football players get pumped after a one-yard gain when our band plays "a-team" or "night court" theme songs. I have a hard time curbing my enthusiasm. I vote for music over loudspeaker between games, save the band for halftime and after the games.

If we ever get some more money we need to add speakers somewhere other than on the scoreboard.

Go falcons

[kdog27]

Temple brought fans?

For that game we sat in the Temple visitor section. I think there were 5-6 Temple fans in there.

[Jacobs4Heisman]

Temple brought fans?

For that game we sat in the Temple visitor section. I think there were 5-6 Temple fans in there.

I had one with me.

Last year, we sat in the Temple student section at LFF. My girlfriend and I outnumbered the Temple fans. I'm not kidding. There were 3 Temple students in front of us....but they were rooting for BG.

[FalconFanKM]

Nate Fry attempted his first field goal I believed of his career and he missed it.... give him a break... at least he made one....

[Shakeatailfeather04]

I'm sure that our 18-22 year old football players get pumped after a one-yard gain when our band plays "a-team" or "night court" theme songs. I have a hard time curbing my enthusiasm. I vote for music over loudspeaker between games, save the band for halftime and after the games.

If we ever get some more money we need to add speakers somewhere other than on the scoreboard.

If the football players rely solely on the band to get pumped up, we have problems. And it's not like those are the only two songs they ever play. Everyone else in the stadium seems to love the band; people were pissed last weekend that canned rock music was playing when the band could have been playing Ay Zig or the fanfare. It's definitely not worth the band's time to show up to only do halftime and post-game. They are part of the total game day package and the fact that they ever take a back seat to canned music is ridiculous.

[Rightupinthere]

Temple did bring fans. I greeted them as I walked by to line up. They were 40-50 yr old range so I believe they were parents of players.