Saturday night is the watershed moment of our season. It’s the game that will measure our true level of improvement. At Army we showed a spark on offense with Tyler Phommachanh newly at the helm and Brewton excelling on special teams. As for our defense, the triple option blurred any rational evaluation. We saw glimpses of our defensive improvement vs Wyoming until wearing down in Q4. We displayed some Mazzone imagination on offense but were also aided by some questionable "home cooking" penalty calls. So where exactly are we in our slow progression from the depths?
This Saturday we’re playing a nighttime away game in an atmosphere where the refs will more than likely reverse the penalty advantage that aided us against Wyoming. And for some added intrigue, we're rolling into Nashville to face some (nominal) SEC athletes who were just humiliated by Georgia 62-0. Whatever self-respect the Commodores hope to reclaim will come at our expense.
So anything is possible (isn’t that why we watch) and nothing would surprise me. Conflicted, I’ll either be taking UConn on the money line at (+450) to validate our growing ascension and Vandy’s utter capitulation—or— Vandy (-14.5) for all the reasons you can imagine. So I’ll wait for an epiphany right before kickoff and if none appears, I just may keep my powder dry. Go Huskies!