I’ll give this one more shot. And won’t even use a bunch of boldface to do so. Beating Temple shouldn’t have been considered a lock this year or last.
But coming off a bye...after a FCS loss....most expected to see an improved game plan. What we got were half of our O plays going for 1 yard or less, were on the wrong side of the turnover margin, and 24-2.
Our team looks like they are drowning in the middle of a lake and do not know how to swim. Dance maybe...swim no.
Bold was for those who had ignored or hadn't seen prior replies direct to them, though that wasn't the case for all I replied to.
I think your reply has some merit and I am happy to engage since you at least support your opinion with data. I do disagree with a lot of it though. While there were things to be concerned about, I actually thought the offense looked better than vs. El Cid, accounting for differences in opponent. We averaged the same yards per play as Temple (4.4 vs. 4.5). While those numbers still aren't anything to boast about, I'll take it as progress. Number of plays for 1 yard or less probably led to our issues on 3rd down, but overall we moved the ball at a similar clip to our opponent.
So what were the main contributors to the 24-2 scoring margin? Well, turnovers and lack of kicking game, imo. I've always believed regardless of who the coach is that the types of fumbles we saw on Saturday are on the player. There was no helmet on ball, no odd circumstances, just balls ripped away in the open field. The coaches put the players in position to score 7 points safely, and succeed better than past weeks otherwise. Guarantee that Tobias has been coached on ball security this year and takes 100% responsibility for those. Obviously the 2nd fumble led to 7 the other way. That closes over half the scoring gap.
On kicking, we passed on 2 reasonable field goal attempts and therefore asked our less than stellar offense to try to convert on downs that had probably less than 50% chance of success (conservatively). I posted before, I think there's something going on with Wells beyond coaching, based on what I've seen in warm-ups. I'm not talking about sailing kicks wide left, wide right or coming up short.
Re: "our team looks like we're drowning", that is not the case for D or ST. And I just provided reason for taking the O's performance in context. So I think that's wasted hyperbole about the team that is probably more directed at the O, but I won't take it too seriously.
