Love Jamal but he is small and it doesn't take a lot to get him to the ground. Our old B backs would have withstood running into the back of one of our linemen, like Saturday, and he is victim to a number of ankle tackles. Don't know if I would trade him for any other RB in the ACC, with the exception of Hampton, though.
The oddsmakers had us going 5-7 at best. Beat N.C. State, and it's 6-6 and a bowl game. After three and a half years of the journey through the wasteland, I'll take back to back 6-6 and back to back bowls. Frankly, this team really isn't that good. We're not particularly deep anywhere. But - at least we're on a better path than two and a half years ago.
At least now we go into games expecting to have a chance. Back then, I just wondered if we could keep it within 30. That's how bad it had gotten.
This was the conversation every Saturday.
Me: Dude, they are going to beat our ###.
Bud: What makes you say that?
Me: Have you seen us play? Have you seen the level of our coaching? We are going to get the #### beat out of us.
Now?
Other than Notre Dame (and I'll admit, just before kickoff with FSU, because as I watched them take the field, they just looked like NFL guys compared to our team. They passed the eyeball test. But that's all they've passed), we haven't been physically overmatched this year. VPI was solid on defense but other than that, I came away thinking how overrated Drones was. I thought we were going to have Woody Dantzler flashbacks, given how hyped he had been, but had nothing of the sort.
We were lucky to be 6-6 last year (thank you, Mario Cristobal). Now we can get 6-6 and next year, maybe start climbing up the win ladder. Got to get better in a lot of areas, but it is doable, as my old calculus professor used to say.
Rebuilding the utter travesty the previous guy left in his wake (before his hair transplant) ain't gonna be fixed quickly. Patience.
