I know you've all been anxiously awaiting my opinion for the last 22 pages
so here it is.
Let's start with the good - we won, Geoff Collins lost, nananana booboo stick your head in doodoo. Jamal Haynes is healthy, and when Jamal Haynes is healthy he is a beast. 170 yds on 19 carries and 2 TDs! He outperformed Hampton, the star of UNC's offense. Add in King also going over 100 yds on the ground and Chad helping to very effectively spell Jamal, and we have a very dangerous backfield. OL played fairly well again. DL had their best game of the season, doing a good job of stopping UNC's rushing attack and putting pressure on Criswell - 3 sacks and a forced fumble is solid work. We won, we are now 5-2, and just 1 win from bowl eligibility.
Now for the not so good. Those commentators and refs should be tied to a rocket and fired into the sun, the bias was absurd. The constant highlighting of Geoff Collins was nauseating - newsflash, he sucks and is the major reason UNC lost. How the ref did not see Efford being blatantly held directly in front of his face on Hampton's one big run is ridiculous, he was wearing the ref cam and we could all see it. Beyond that, as good of a day as we had offensively, it could have been so much better. Remember, this is a TFG defense we were playing, and they were not good. King obviously was injured early on and struggled to throw medium and long passes all game. Singleton dropped a catchable ball, which has become somewhat common for him. Defensively, we regressed in the secondary, back to playing the receiver and paid for it in penalties and big completions. We were penalized a lot on both sides of the ball in general and at bad times, killing our own drives and extending theirs. We played horribly on special teams. We continue to be unable to mash the pedal and finish an opponent off. We are incredibly predictable in certain situations.
It feels like this team should be so much better than we are, and a lot of what it seems is holding us back is coaching/playcalling. We haven't really played a complete game since FSU, and after seven games into the season I'm wondering if we are going to. Under Key so far, we've dominated a P4 opponent by 3+ scores only once - UVA last season. I miss blowing the doors off an "equal" opponent or two most seasons like we did under CPJ, every game is still in doubt in the 4th quarter these days. I said in chat that I don't think Key will win any championships here - I hope I'm wrong, but right now that feels true. I don't feel like the coaching is improving. We are very Gailey-esque.
Question I guess for the mods on the subject of Chat - do people I have on ignore have their comments hidden as well if they are in chat? Because all the comments from people acting like chat is the most vile, horrific place on the planet make no sense to me, so either I'm not seeing those comments or they have no experience harsher than what you might hear at church league softball. I guarantee every single SEC, Big 10, NFL, NBA, and MLB fanbase has people saying stuff during/after games that makes our chat look like a cordial tea with the queen (RIP), and there are other GT message boards that are far worse as well.
eta: Faking injuries is really chicken****, unsportsmanlike, and teams need to be penalized for it. Hopefully there is a rule change after the season, but some of those were incredibly obvious.
