My post-game thoughts

[AustinDawg]

First, losing sucks, but that was a hell of a game.
Our defense played well throughout the game, SC had a few "prayers answered" plays on random crap, but that happens in football. Our Defense had Spurrier frustrated for most of the game, but he caught on and used middle screens effectively towards the end.

3rd and goal, jump ball to Jeffrey for SC. Hard to stop that play, we had done well till then, but players make plays.

Offense was a bit better overall. I'm going to call receivers a wash since while I yelled at them early, they had a couple of great catches late.
We lost the game on the missed 40yarder and not going for it on 4th and 2 and trying the 52 yarder instead.

Russell was holding the ball way too long in the first half, but seemed a bit better in the second half. If you noticed, the playcalling was similar to what Relf had last year, with lots of rolls to one side or another, limiting the field. Peaches34 may chime in on that. I think it was a good decision, but was different than what we had been doing earlier, where we were forcing Relf to be a drop-back pocket passer.

Again it sucks, but it was a good game, and good effort, we're just not "over the hump" yet, and now need an upset of arky.

Ps. dont be whiny bitches

 

[was21]

receivers were totally covered from the git go...he played a very good game...we now are set at QB for the next 2 1/2 years....all that shat is now settled and we can go forward.

 

[aerodawg.sixpack]

the vast majority of those were Russell moving to get away from pressure. I guess it seemed that way at times because he would have to take off immediately.

I agree that our defense played pretty well. Just a few of those "What the 17 are they doing?" plays. Jeffrey may have caught that ball anyway but it was a terrible coaching decision to have Broomfield on him instead of Banks, not just for the talent difference but the height difference as well. It was no surprise that Mitchell whiffed the tackle on Lattimore's touchdown, the right call was made there, just terrible execution by a consistently bad player. Don't feed me any safety vs. running back bs because Whitley was laying the wood on Lattimore, not to mention that Mitchell didn't even touch him.

Russell definitely held onto the ball way too much early on, could have saved himself a couple of hits by throwing it away sooner. If his arm was not hit then the only terrible pass that I saw from him was the last interception (just saw a replay on ESPN as I was typing this, something definitely changed the trajectory of that ball, it was wobbly as hell). He has to hit that deep ball for the sure touchdown to Heavens. The no catch by Sanders on the deep ball was just as much on Sanders to me. The guy slowed down when he looked back for the ball and then T-Rexed and hardly even reached out for the ball after trying to catch up to where he should have been. The screen that was intercepted was a bad play altogether by everyone, Russell needed to make a better throw, the o-line has to slow the rush up a minute amount, and the RB could have helped Russell out by moving his feet a little bit once the play was busted.

I agree with your "over the hump" statement, and I think that is why this season has been such a disappointment so far. We are literally a few plays from being a 1 loss team. There is a difference in losing a game with a respectable score that you really never had a shot at and losing games because of a few plays that were there to be made but weren't. It stings really bad, but I still say we are definitely a bowl team because we will get 6 wins if the team doesn't quit after this game. I also think we have an outside shot at Arkansas with the way our defense has progressed this season.