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I only saw the beginning and end of the game, so I’m not going to do the type of analysis I normally do. But nonetheless there are a few things I wanted to say, so let’s go.
1. So I was wrong. And am happy to be wrong. I thought Mora could improve the program, but over time, and I worried that we didn‘t have time. We’ll, he’s improved it more rapidly than I thought possible, recognizing the injuries at the skill positions we are dealing with. Look, I don’t want to pretend we should be drunk with happiness about where we are — we’re still not close to even cracking the Top 100, and two of our three wins are against teams we shouldn’t be worried about losing to. But the improvement in everyone’s attitude, and the defense, and the running game — Jim Mora is doing a good job and deserves a lot of credit.
2. Never in a million years did I think I’d be talking about getting to 6 wins and bowl eligibility this year, and that was even if we stayed healthy. But at this point it’s not rational to not talk about it. We are 3-4. If we can’t beat UMass, at home, we’re not progressing the way we hope, so let’s assume we get that done. That leaves 4 games to get two wins. At Ball State and Army and home against BC and Liberty. I think we’ll be double digit dogs in all of them, if they were played today, but except Liberty none of those teams are any good. GIven that we beat the spread by about 28 points against Fresno and 18 or so yesterday, I don’t understand why we’re not moving up past the trash in the computer rankings quicker than we are, but my eyes tell me that, if Houston stay healthy (and my WAG is he’ll miss Ball State and be back for BC), we have a reasonable chance against Ball State, BC and especially Army. We still have work to do, and improvements to make, and injuries to avoid and recover from, but it is not an unreasonable goal. Of course, it will be a lot, lot easier if we get to our off week 4-4 with a win in Muncie Saturday. That’s a lot easier with a healthy Houston, but any game can be won with defense, and we’ve given up two defensive TDS in two weeks. Ball State has been winning games in the MAC — they aren’t the patsies they looked like after 2 or 3 games — but if we play great we can shut them down
3. I love the attitude of this team. Love, love, love it. If we play a week without Houston we may need to air it out more, but Ball U can’t defend the pass at a top level either.
4. Saturday, to get to 4 and 4, is a huge game. I’m thankful for this team to bring us a big game this season. I don’t think we really had one since the Houston win in 2015. I can’t imagine how pumped up I and others will be if BC comes in and we’re 4 and 4.
That’s it. Don’t need to spend a lot of time talking about the game when I only saw about 20 minutes of it and saw the box score, but the defense, while it bent a lot, didn’t break and generated takeaways, and the OL bulldozed a defense and the offense avoided turnovers. Yeah, it would be great if we could have passing yardage, but doing more than enough to win is enough.
1. So I was wrong. And am happy to be wrong. I thought Mora could improve the program, but over time, and I worried that we didn‘t have time. We’ll, he’s improved it more rapidly than I thought possible, recognizing the injuries at the skill positions we are dealing with. Look, I don’t want to pretend we should be drunk with happiness about where we are — we’re still not close to even cracking the Top 100, and two of our three wins are against teams we shouldn’t be worried about losing to. But the improvement in everyone’s attitude, and the defense, and the running game — Jim Mora is doing a good job and deserves a lot of credit.
2. Never in a million years did I think I’d be talking about getting to 6 wins and bowl eligibility this year, and that was even if we stayed healthy. But at this point it’s not rational to not talk about it. We are 3-4. If we can’t beat UMass, at home, we’re not progressing the way we hope, so let’s assume we get that done. That leaves 4 games to get two wins. At Ball State and Army and home against BC and Liberty. I think we’ll be double digit dogs in all of them, if they were played today, but except Liberty none of those teams are any good. GIven that we beat the spread by about 28 points against Fresno and 18 or so yesterday, I don’t understand why we’re not moving up past the trash in the computer rankings quicker than we are, but my eyes tell me that, if Houston stay healthy (and my WAG is he’ll miss Ball State and be back for BC), we have a reasonable chance against Ball State, BC and especially Army. We still have work to do, and improvements to make, and injuries to avoid and recover from, but it is not an unreasonable goal. Of course, it will be a lot, lot easier if we get to our off week 4-4 with a win in Muncie Saturday. That’s a lot easier with a healthy Houston, but any game can be won with defense, and we’ve given up two defensive TDS in two weeks. Ball State has been winning games in the MAC — they aren’t the patsies they looked like after 2 or 3 games — but if we play great we can shut them down
3. I love the attitude of this team. Love, love, love it. If we play a week without Houston we may need to air it out more, but Ball U can’t defend the pass at a top level either.
4. Saturday, to get to 4 and 4, is a huge game. I’m thankful for this team to bring us a big game this season. I don’t think we really had one since the Houston win in 2015. I can’t imagine how pumped up I and others will be if BC comes in and we’re 4 and 4.
That’s it. Don’t need to spend a lot of time talking about the game when I only saw about 20 minutes of it and saw the box score, but the defense, while it bent a lot, didn’t break and generated takeaways, and the OL bulldozed a defense and the offense avoided turnovers. Yeah, it would be great if we could have passing yardage, but doing more than enough to win is enough.
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