Redskinhawk fans....

[jacojdm]

As for stoppage... I think holding OSU to 350 and 34 points is pretty damn good.

mmm, not really. osu is not what you'd call an offensive juggernaut. .

[redhawk95]

as i said on another thread, one of my questions is whether EITHER defense can stop the opposing offense. i'm not sure why miami fans would be questioning bg's D when ours ain't been too great, imo. regardless, i'm looking forward to some good discussion over the next week and a good game on tuesday.

[hammb]

So name one good offense that Miami has slowed down. Anybody?

Without Omar, however, BG doesn't have a GOOD offense.


I read through that thread and pretty much agree with everything those guys have said.

We don't tackle for crap...one of the worst groups of tacklers I've ever seen on a single football team. The defensive coaches should be embarrassed by it.

We don't block. It was better in the second half Saturday, but in the first half we couldn't block anybody. Throughout the season our OL has been a step below last year's, and they've gotten worse in the past few weeks.

Blitz Jacobs. Omar, for as good as he is, is very mediocre against the blitz. You could see it at Boise & at Wisconsin. When he gets pressure he has a tendency to look at the rushers and doesn't step up to make throws. He is also hesitant to run...I expect it even moreso if he's playing hurt.


I haven't seen a single Miami game this year, so I don't know if they're any good. We could beat them for all I know. But no matter the result I expect us to play poor defense, miss many tackles, fail to open holes for our RBs, and fail in pass protection against any sort of blitzing. If we can still do enough to win with that, so be it, but that doesn't make us a good football team.

Judge not by the record, judge by your eyes. We might be the worst 5-4 team in the NCAA, but due to the craptastic MAC we still control our own destiny. I hope we win, but at this point it seems like it's the booby prize to win the MAC this year.

[Godsgirlerific]

All I know is I'm going to be watching the game through fingers covering my eyes!!

Seriously, sometimes being a football fan feels like masochism.

[BelieveNBG]

so Hammb, why don't you spare yourself the pain and not worry about the upcoming game. I mean you already know what's going to happen on the field, so why bother. I certainly won't miss your pessimism as will no one else.

[hammb]

so Hammb, why don't you spare yourself the pain and not worry about the upcoming game. I mean you already know what's going to happen on the field, so why bother. I certainly won't miss your pessimism as will no one else.

.

Then don't read my posts. I won't miss your remarks.

Call it pessimism if you will, but the facts bear out what I'm saying. I'd consider it being realistic. We beat freaking Kent State by 10 lousy points. We looked bad at times, and good at times in that game.

We have been lousy against every decent team we've played all season. Our coach knows we're not a good team, and says he cannot fix it till recruiting season begins. Sorry if I didn't have my orange kool aid this morning, but that's the facts.

Perhaps I don't know what's going to happen on the field, perhaps I should've said it this way:

If we block for our RBs it will be the first game this year. If we protect the passer it'll be the first time this year. If we tackle well it'll be the first time this year.

I'm sorry, but at this point it's asking a lot for the team to suddenly improve its fundamentals just because they're playing a big road game against a rival who has our number.

I didn't even touch on how well we generally perform in nationally televised weeknight games...

[Warthog]

I didn't even touch on how well we generally perform in nationally televised weeknight games...

on the road, no less.

[BGGrad01]

I agree with most of what hammb is saying, but I think part of Jacobs' problems against the blitz against Wisky and Boise was the absence of PJ Pope. Pope is a great all-around back, including blocking and blitz pick-up. I don't remember all that many complaints about Omar against the blitz last year when Pope was blocking for him. However, with his shoulder (if he plays), I would expect Jacobs to be as jittery back there as AT was against WMU.

[hammb]

I agree with most of what hammb is saying, but I think part of Jacobs' problems against the blitz against Wisky and Boise was the absence of PJ Pope. Pope is a great all-around back, including blocking and blitz pick-up. I don't remember all that many complaints about Omar against the blitz last year when Pope was blocking for him. However, with his shoulder (if he plays), I would expect Jacobs to be as jittery back there as AT was against WMU.

Not saying he's terrible against the blitz...just mediocre. It's a weakness...perhaps his ONLY weakness, really. You could be onto something about the loss of PJ, too. PJ is invaluable to this offense and looked to have regained a lot of his explosiveness Saturday. He stood out to me as a guy who's back to full health. Partridge looked healthier and better than he has all season as well.

As you said as well, if Omar's playing with an injured shoulder I would expect him to be a touch jittery as well...it happens to the best players when they first return from injury; it takes awhile before they have the confidence that they can take a hit.

[Dayons_Den]

so Hammb, why don't you spare yourself the pain and not worry about the upcoming game. I mean you already know what's going to happen on the field, so why bother. I certainly won't miss your pessimism as will no one else.

I don't think hammb was being overly pessimistic nor was he saying we'd lose 65-3. He was just drudging up what we have done on the field so far this year.

I find his posts that bring up facts and have explanation to them a lot different than a post that just says "Man we suck, our coach sucks we won't win ever, dude"

[BelieveNBG]

Hammb,
You may be on point with your observations, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to call us the worst 5-4 team. Have you even looked at that list? Had O not went down, we'd be a 7-2 team right now. I reallize there are alot of things this team has not done well, but I have also witnessed improvements. For example, the team is definitely tackling better and although it was Kent, it was quite obvious that there was an improvement. Teams do improve over the course of a season.

As for O against the blitz, the loss of PJ is huge. Not only does he provide more blocking, he gives Omar another quick hit option for the pass when the blitz is coming. Once PJ burns them a couple of times, teams have to come out of that blitz. I don't think it's a weakness of O, but a weakness of the team that he does not have a quick hot read when the blitz is coming so he is hesitant to get rid of the ball.

In the end, time will tell. It's just quite frustrating to me to see posts from our own fans that seem to want to get their posts of pessimism out there now, just to say "I told you so" if we lose. As for winning the MAC, I don't see how winning anything could ever be considered a bad thing. A title is a title and something that even in the down years of the MAC, BG hasn't seen one in quite some time.

[Warthog]

so Hammb, why don't you spare yourself the pain and not worry about the upcoming game. I mean you already know what's going to happen on the field, so why bother. I certainly won't miss your pessimism as will no one else.

I find his posts that bring up facts and have explanation to them a lot different than a post that just says "Man we suck, our coach sucks we won't win ever, dude"

I agree as well. hammb's football analysis is usually pretty good. He doesn't do it wearing the orange glasses and after drinking the kool-aid. Honest analysis shouldn't be construed as negative. It is what it is.

And his posts are also better then the "Let's all be happy and not be critical of our team" posts.

[BelieveNBG]

We might be the worst 5-4 team in the NCAA, but due to the craptastic MAC we still control our own destiny. I hope we win, but at this point it seems like it's the booby prize to win the MAC this year.

I believe this goes a bit beyond being critical of the team. Critical is one thing, but "the booby prize". I think most of us would be quite proud to be able to turn this thing around and beat both Miami and Ut and then go to the title game and win again. I'll take that craptastic title anyday.


GO BG!!!

[hammb]

Hammb,
You may be on point with your observations, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to call us the worst 5-4 team. Have you even looked at that list? Had O not went down, we'd be a 7-2 team right now. I reallize there are alot of things this team has not done well, but I have also witnessed improvements. For example, the team is definitely tackling better and although it was Kent, it was quite obvious that there was an improvement. Teams do improve over the course of a season.

I have not watched all the 5-4 teams, so perhaps my statement was hyperbolic. I was basing my statement mostly on the fact that Ohio is our signature win...Ohio. They're improved this year, but still not much better than probably the 70-80 range in all of college football. Outside of that our wins have been Temple, Kent, Ball State, and Buffalo. Those schools have got to be 4 of the bottom 15.

Perhaps we're not the worst 5-4 team, and we could be 7-2 if we had Omar, but we weren't playing that well WITH Omar. Even when Omar was here we struggled against Ball State & didn't put Buffalo away very convincingly either. With a healthy Omar we beat UB 27-7 and that was with us scoring 13 4th quarter points. This is the same team that Miami just drilled.

While it may look like we tackled better this week, I don't think we did. The KSU players just went down easier. We certainly didn't tackle well against Akron at all...their RB, who isn't really a star, ran through our tackles all day. The guy has 775 yards on the season, and 155 of them came against us. After the OU & Temple games I let myself get fooled into thinking we had improved defensively. I wish it were the case, but until they actually show this against a decent team, I'll continue to believe it was a case of weak opposition.

As for O against the blitz, the loss of PJ is huge. Not only does he provide more blocking, he gives Omar another quick hit option for the pass when the blitz is coming. Once PJ burns them a couple of times, teams have to come out of that blitz. I don't think it's a weakness of O, but a weakness of the team that he does not have a quick hot read when the blitz is coming so he is hesitant to get rid of the ball.

Perhaps you're right. I should not blame Omar, since I do not know what (or if?) the hot read is for the play called. With our audible system I also don't know. Generally when a QB senses blitz he & his WRs have to be on the same page to cut off a route and give him something hot. You would think with 2 senior WRs they would have that chemistry and know where to go with the ball in blitz situations. Certainly PJ was the #1 hot read a lot of the time, but it should've been made well known what the new read is when he went down. I guess you could say I misspoke. Perhaps this is not a fault of Omar's, but a fault of the offense, as you say. Either way the fact remains that Miami would be best served to blitz our offense, even if Omar is in there. It was a weakness for us earlier, even when we were fully healthy.

In the end, time will tell. It's just quite frustrating to me to see posts from our own fans that seem to want to get their posts of pessimism out there now, just to say "I told you so" if we lose. As for winning the MAC, I don't see how winning anything could ever be considered a bad thing. A title is a title and something that even in the down years of the MAC, BG hasn't seen one in quite some time.

I assure you I do not put that out there to say I told you so. I put it out there in hopes of saying I was wrong. If they improve I'll be the first to come on here and say I was wrong. I posted on here a number of times how I thought the defense had improved and looked better after the OU & Temple games, but now I look like a fool. It hadn't improved at all, it had just played lesser competition. I'm not prepared to say the same thing after the KSU game. If they back it up with a similar performance against Miami I'll change my tune.

I want a title, obviously, but I'm not going to fool myself into thinking this team is good. This is our worst football team since 2000, and that is undeniable, in my mind. We may win the MAC this year, which would be a great achievement, but that doesn't mean we got better as a team this year.

[HowAboutThatLocalSportsTe]

From one of the fans on the Miami board...

"Omar will probably play agaist us. Let blitz him and hurt the shoulder again."