Lee
Ramblin' Wreck
- Messages
- 841
I don't think people are basing it on one game. At least I'm not. The Temple game was worse to me. We had just lost to an FCS school which should give a little extra motivation, we were coming off a bye week, and we were playing the team that our head coach was coaching last year, which should give some advantage. With all of that going for us we put up a whopping 2 points and we weren't even competitive against a mediocre team that later gave up 63 points to UCF. We followed that up with equally uncompetitive games against two other mediocre teams. It was a pretty miserable stretch of games. Not just one game.
I was out if the country for the Temple game and did not go back to watch it. From looking at the play by play we were in FG range but went for it (for obvious reasons) on our 2nd drive. Oliver fumbled going into the endzone on a 3rd and goal on our 3rd drive. This would’ve put us up 10-0 at the time. We then fumbled (while in FG range again) that they scoop and scored. That’s at least 13 points with a good fg kicker and not fumbling (by the qb who would be running the O with the option still in town). 14-13 (or better) early 3rd instead of 21-0 looks a lot different.
Again, I didn’t watch the game, but it’s hard to argue that game looking different if we had a decent kicker and Oliver not fumbling twice (once going into the endzone).
Next point is that we did not have a qb. Graham is clearly the guy, but he was hurt for the Citadel game. If he didn’t have the classroom issues and could’ve focused more on football and the coaches didn’t have to worry about his eligibility, he could’ve started the season as QB1 and the offense would look a lot different now. Look how much better it has looked since he took over. It’s not where it needs to be, but it’s obvious they are playing better.
My point stands. If we had beaten Citadel and were 3-6 right now, the person I replied to’s expected win total would be well within reach. Some people can’t let go of the fact that we lost to one team (that we never should have lost to) and are grading this staff based solely on that one game and not the body of work throughout the season.