IMHO, those arguing that this game was lost on defense are correct; as are those arguing that we lost it on offense. I think that any combination of two better series, whether from the defense or offense, would have gotten us over the top. It's a cliché to say that the sub-units need to complement and support one another but this game is a great example of the truth of that cliché. Losing the turnover battle in this game was probably decisive. Yes, the most obvious answer to beating Army is to outscore them but at this point in our process we seem to put rely more on the defense to step up in key situations and to try avoid asking too much of the offense. Winning shoot-outs is not how we roll (yet?). The offense is getting better week-week, at least showing flashes of being able to do more things, but consistency and being big in big moments aren't there yet. Carl, you're looking for some explanation of what you're seeing on offense. I think we go in every week hoping to run the ball, get stuffed, get behind, give up on the run and transition to a low-risk high reward passing (bubble screens, swing screens). We take an occasional shot just to loosen the defense up but we don't seem to go into full-up attack mode until desperation time. I'm sure a big part of that is fear of turning the ball over although we've shown a propensity to do that even running low risk offense. A confident team attacks on offense from the start -- I don't think that is us just yet but I do see us building the pieces.
That makes a whole hell of a lot of sense.
Somewehre in one of these threads, I broke down our first half offensive possessions - I think it was the OL thread? IDK, I wrote a lot past few days, because I actually watched the recording of the game, and the detached feeling I had Saturday after that almost mirror image of Rutgers in 2009, emotionally at least, turned to real anger. I stopped with the offensive possessions after the Tim Boyle experiment.
The offense we are putting on the field is simply inexcusable from a coaching standpoint.
Lost in all this mess of discussion, is the fact that early in the 4th quarter - the game was 21-14, our D had gotten the stop and forced the Army O off the field.
We had just come off a possession of count em...not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6, not 7, not 8, but 9 running plays with one play action pass to McQuillan to get to the Army 16 yd line. Who's our best player? Who did you correctly state Army studied film on? Foxy. 2 incompletions to Foxx, followed by a run/play action fake again to McQuillan for the TD. That made the game 21-14
The D comes back and gets the stop.
The offense comes back on the field? Pass, Pass, Pass, Punt.......
ONE duck__KING MINUTE OFF THE CLOCK.
I'm not budging on my side of this argument.
