Damned if you do
Well its a little late here on the game recap. But I wanted to get out ahead of the upcoming Reyes preview of the USF game. Some thoughts…
I thought this was the type of game earlier that would actually score GROB points. You know, hang with the conference heavyweights, show improvement, make a strong showing on the road etc. But since we’ve hung the “lame duck” moniker on Greg Robinson all that is out the window. He again gets skewered for game management. Should he have kicked a FG to make it 10-9? Hell, shouln’t he have kicked at 4th and 18 when you need two scores?
I can’t really fault either decision frankly. I think you need to try and get a TD when you are inside the 5 and the game is in the balance. West Virginia had more 3 and outs against us then we probably allowed all season. I think the pressure would have been on if we could have gotten ahead 13-10. On the 4th and 18 decision there was under a minute left while of course we could have gotten the onside kick and had a short field, the reality was we had no timeouts and would have needed to go down the field in a hurry. Hard to see that happening with this club. But either way, our lame duck was damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Now let’s look ahead:
The good: I will say that outgaining the Mountaineers was both a surpise for both our offense (ie over 300 yards/20 first downs) and our defense (holding an opponent under 300!). These are building blocks for the rest of the season.
Curtis Brinkley continues to be a beast on the ground. He showed alot of fight while getting the bulk of the carries. He has been nothing short of a workhorse for this team.
Hello WR play! Donte Davis continues to grow in his role and we finally started seeing Lobdell have the kind of impact we needed on Day One. His terrific catch helped sustain that long first quarter drive. Van Chew and Marcus Sales have played well.
3 and outs! The defense finally registered some three and outs and you can see how key that is to game management. I’ll have some more of that please! If they can do that this week, I may start to agree that this could be a good defense Gregger. Game ball to Derrell Smith. The kid is getting better each week.
Bad: Still light on sacks allowed and gotten. Pressure needs to be better. On O, I don’t think the end of the Corey Chavers era can begin soon enough.
Ugly: What is going on in the underbelly of the program? First, an incident with an undergrad and multiple players and now the Doug Hogue saga? While the first is out of a coach’s control, the 2nd is directly related. What is going on Greg?
Anyway, if we continue to show improvement it appears that we can still get a win. The number of possibilities are growing. Louisville: needed all the special teams help they could get to win at Memphis. Cincy is in the mix now, ekeing out a 13-10 win over Rutgers. How motivated will they be to finish the season off with us? Rutgers is clearly at our level. The spread will be manageable. I still think UConn is doable. They are one dimensional and just don’t make alot of mistakes. We can hang around.
