I’ll post this before I read any of the board, which I suspect is brutal.
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It was a beautiful day, felt great outside, if I haven’t said it before…I REALLY love Fayetteville.
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Fall break is Monday/Tuesday, so my son sat with us for the game and just rode home with us! that’s by far the most I’ve seen him since he left for UA, man I’ve missed that dude!
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I was pleased with the odd passes we through across the middle right behind their DL. clearly new and also effective. very quick plays and a great way to get around those great DL.
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Our OL… man, that was brutal. I try to stay positive, so I guess all I can say is that Auburn’s DL is really impressive. I don’t think Arkansas has had a DL like that in my lifetime. I was born (in Fayetteville) in 1969, so if Bruce James reads this, I apologize, but my memories of the years prior to '78 are a bit fuzzy. And I love Tony Cherico and Billy Ray Smith, but I really don’t think we’ve ever had that many impressive DL at one time in my life.
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QB…I’m sure Hicks is a great dude, and apparently he knows our offense better than any QB on campus, but he is not a great QB. Most team would not call him a good QB. One of his picks was thrown (poorly) into triple coverage. How on earth he did not see a WIDE OPEN CJ O’Grady in the endzone is just beyond me. My wife saw it, from 130 yards away in the south endzone. Seriously. That stuff is inexcusable. I know he ran for his life and he was beaten up, but he not on that play. And the game of football turns on individual plays/milliseconds. Arkansas simply has no room for error, much less missing CJ like that.
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Chase Harrel drops the ball. a lot. he should not be targeted any more. ever. TJ Hammonds fumbles. a lot. I don’t care what he did at Joe T Robinson, we have other TB’s who are good. I just wouldn’t play him, like the past 2 coaching staffs.
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Collin Clay and Eric Gregory and Greg Brooks really look the part. I’m not sure Clay has the “quick twitch” for DE, but he looks huge. like bigger than Sosa. drove his man backward every play I watched.
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Met some really great Auburn fans. a few stayed at our tailgate about an hour after the game, we exchanged digits, have 3 really great new friends. 2 came to dinner with us. just great folks.
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We have no depth, by my count we played Sosa, Scoota and 2 every play of the game until the last dive or so. And they played HARD. our team never quit, they played hard, guys, don’t dare say they didn’t. The last drive or so they were just whipped/exhausted, like on that TD run up the middle. But our coaches keep saying that our D studs play too much, then EVERY game give them no time off. they clearly don’t trust the backups at all.
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Hicks played the whole game. I’ll go to my grave thinking that’s a bad idea, don’t even try to convince me otherwise. Not that we have a great QB or that it would have changed the game at all. But for the first time this year, the game was OVER in the 3rd (first?!?) quarter, so it would have been a great tine to see JSJ if not KJ. Or at least toss Starkel a bone.
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OL. no substitutions at all except for injury. I’d just love to see some of the younger players get some game reps in blowouts like this.
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Coaching. This is tough for me. I really do not know what to say, and I’m REALLY GLAD that I’m not the AD. On the one hand, San Jose state=fire them all immediately. and they don’t play backups, just like HDN, and they coach scared, just like HDN and Tito. too conservative, too scared and don’t motivate players in a championship fashion.
On the other hand, we really are dealing with a “coming off death penalty” situation, thanks to Tito. We literally have 78 scholarship players, to begin the season, minus a couple now. 52 of those are freshmen, now minus 1 or 2. I’ve never heard of a situation like this. our frosh are clearly talented, which makes me hope that this coaching staff can actually identify players, ergo if we give them time, they’ll fill the roster with players, and we’ll compete with the Auburns of the world.
so which is it??? I have no idea, just glad I’m not the AD. If a GREAT HC would come here, then I’d say make a change. if not, then 3rd year and see. -
As bad as things seem, if we just had a good QB. not a great QB, but just a QB like Toledo had or CSUlast year. we could literally be 4-2 or 5-1 right now. QB play has just killed us. Even with our poor OL and everything else, if we just had a good QB, we’d be 4-2 and there would be no discussion of changing HC. But, maybe if we had a better HC, he’d have a system that would be easier to learn??? Maybe, but man, CJ was so open in the endzone. like Boyd vs Kentucky. like everyone vs Old Mrs.
anyway, I had a great day with my son and wife and a few new friends. the crowd was sparse but capable of making noise on 3rd downs, for a while. after a while, though, when the loudspeaker says “3rd down!!!”, we all just expect that our defense will give it up. and when our trick play backfires, people actually just chuckle. when we score a meaningless TD, we are very excited. what does that say about our program?
GHG
