NUpolo8
Banned
Which was right after the "openly dismiss everyone who disagrees with me, yet never offer any claim link evidence to the contrary" essay in the Afterward.
14 seasons with zero conference championships
- Thread starter JTrain
- Start date
It'sNotAFakeID
All-American
It'sNotAFakeID
All-American
No no no, it's like high school again. Talking behind peoples' backs and stuff.
I'm all giddy inside.
Nobody
Starter
NUpolo8
Banned
It'sNotAFakeID
All-American
Landlord
Banned
See that is funny because I was fairly certain we had competed for conference titles at least five times per 14 years!
It'sNotAFakeID
All-American
presidentjlh
All-Conference
Our defense has been extremely impressive to me. The score was not indicative of what I felt to be a great performance from such a young unit.
True2tRA
Banned
To me, there is no question something has clicked. What? And why now? Those are big questions.....and I don't think they are answered by simply gaining experience. Something more has changed.
presidentjlh
All-Conference
I think the answer is fairly clear: The blitz. Once Bo allowed the team to be aggressive, they are like wild men out there, and it's great.
Landlord
Banned
Yes, but I wonder how exciting that really is.
We were talking about this at the tailgate today - the problems with this team/program aren't black&white. I think that's easy to see because they keep being fixed, one by one, but without improvement as a whole.
First it was an anemic offense - fixed that pretty well.
Then it was a poor offensive line that would spend 3 days giving up a sack, a false start and a holding call. Our line is pretty good now, and those penalties have been cut way down.
Then it was lousy recruiting - we've been getting good talent the last few seasons.
Then it was (not really going in order) switching to a new conference - well, we're in season three. That excuse has run out.
Then it was scheme our players were too crappy to execute - we have better players and have shown progress but still have the Minnesota and UCLA games as proof that there's some ugly in there.
Basically, the above might not be entirely accurate, but the question needs to be asked - as each of these individual things improve, why are the big picture end results not also improving? Because there's still something at the core that is very wrong with the way our program approaches football games, and more experienced players, more capable defense, a favorable schedule or whatever other element you want to focus on isn't going to fix whatever is wrong. It transcends and handcuffs all of that.
I just wish we knew what it was.
knapplc
International Man of Mystery
That's because defense is a predatory pursuit. These guys are trained to attack, tackle, separate man from ball, sack, disrupt. When you try to make those kinds of people play passively they rebel, either overtly or subconsciously.
It is always going to be more fun to go out and attack the QB than to sit back and hope to contain him.
You have to let your hunters hunt. And he finally seemed to figure that out midway through the Northwestern game.
True2tRA
Banned
That's fine, but it still leaves the why now? What were we waiting for? I don't know. Maybe we didn't feel our backs against the ropes until that NW game, but this strategy would have worked all year. This defense wins UCLA and Minnesota IMO.