We are 7-0 and are atop the SEC west with another winnable game upcoming. We will get to next week in a bit, but let's brief what we saw yesterday. First off, no one with half a brain can say we played our best football yesterday. We knew we were in for a let-down type game, and it's a bit unfortunate it came on the road, but we had our letdown game and still managed to stay within ourselves and come out standing. There's something to be said about that. The years Alabama, Florida, and Auburn have won national titles, they had their share of letdown games (UT for Bama in '09, UK for AU in '10, etc.), but they still got better. At this point, this is nothing more than a tough game... so let's leave it at that.
I will say that we did need a game like this. At the beginning of the year and even the weeks leading up to this game, there was absolutely nothing appealing about this game from a "spotlight" standpoint. It's easy to get up for a top 5 Auburn team at home... it's much tougher to get up for an unranked, but respectable UK team at their place. We exchanged blows all game, and still got up every. single. time. There's something to be said about that, as well. This team has tenacity and fight... and that pays dividends later on.
So, let's talk specifics.
Coaching:
1. The first drive was impressive. We used the screen game to knock them off-balance and take huge chunks of yards. That also forced a defender out of the box to open up the run.
2. The second and third quarters, not so impressive. UK absolutely had no answer for J-Rob... and that was evident early on. I wanted to run him up the gut on every single first down until they showed us they could stop him. We started throwing the ball and trying option pitches (which I feel they were waiting on every time we ran it)... We did go back to that in the 4th quarter, which was better late than never. It paid off for us because it allowed us to put the game away.
3. I did not like our defensive gameplan. We shut down their run game to the point that the only running they did was with Towles, but we never spied on him. Their first scoring drive of the second half, aside from 2 plays, that whole drive was him running it on us, and we didn't adjust to stop it. Not collins' best effort, IMO.
Special Teams:
1. Logan Cooke was an asset, yet again, in KO and punts. We are just fine in both these areas. We seem to have shored up any concerns we have in our kick coverage units.
2. I have no earthly idea why we didn't allow Sobiesk to kick the 42 yard attempt. I mean... surely he has the leg to make that... right? I don't care if Cooke has made those in practice, Sobiesk has been doing pretty darn well for us, even if his kicks have been under 30 yards. I did not like that call.
3. Graham... man... what do we do here? 3 games, and muffed punts in as many games. We were very fortunate to recover the muffed punt yesterday. I really think we need to put Jameon back there, at least to call fair catch and secure the kick. Graham will be a stud later, but right now, I think his indecision, impatience, lack of confidence is costing us back there.
4. TURTLE. What a play by a guy who has been a warrior his whole time here. He abused the kicker with that stiff arm. What a gutsy decision to run with that, too. That was the dagger and the final nail in the coffin, and the worst possible outcome for UK.
Defense:
1. Believe it or not, aside from our gameplan, I felt we were not HORRIBLE on defense. Yes, we gave up some big plays, but it was a backup corner (Cleveland) and a backup linebacker (Jackson) who got burned. Aside from those 2 plays, we had an OK day. UK attempted 43 passes against us... thats A LOT of pass attempts. Teams are averaging 44 pass attempts a game against us (which leads the SEC), which is 8 more passes a game more than the next in line (OM, with 36/game). Our 1A defense is just fine. Our 1B defense is serviceable.
2. 27 total rushing yards on the day... and I don't think they hardly attempted 10 in the second half. 103 rushing yards on 32 attempts (and let's be real.... most of that was Towles... and 4 of those rushes were sacks).
3. We did give up 401 pass yards... 130 of those yards came on 2 plays (both those plays came on our second string secondary). That's tough to swallow, but considering UK brought their A-Game, I'm not in panic mode.
4. Some Positives... Will Redmond is our best cover corner, and it's not close. Shoutout to Calhoun, though... he made an effort play on a screen play where he was cut block and crawled on all 4s to make the tackle and save yards.
5. Our Linebackers did pretty well yesterday. McKinney made some nice plays, and we did OK in coverage... but because UK didn't run much on us, we didn't see a lot of these guys making impact plays.
6. Our D-Line saved our *** several times. Aside from a few containment issues up the middle, we had a very solid day up front... they stepped up when they needed to.
7. Our best defensive play was a third and long late in the game when we knew they wouldn't run on us and we put 6 guys down on the LOS. I saw what we were doing and fully expected UK to call a timeout, and didn't... we rushed 4, but it created so much confusion up front and ended up abusing their O-Line and sacked Towles.
Offense:
1. Someone get J-Rob a medal and a tub of ice cream. They had no answer for him. None. Just like Boobie in 2009, we had another huge rushing day, and J-Rob gets all the credit there.
2. Even though Dak sputtered, he still had 310 yards, 1 passing TD, and 2 rushing TDs. Just another day at the office. He got beat up, but I fully expect him to play next week vs. Arkansas.
3. O-Line did great in run blocking. We got a ton of leverage up front and opened up lanes for Robinson and Dak. We struggled with pass blocking, though... give UK credit, they have some studs up front. Smith and Dupree and All-SEC caliber players, and we struggled with those guys all day.
4. Griffin had a few key plays in there, as well.
5. MoJo had a great first half. We are going to really be relying on him down the stretch... he provides some key support in the passing game.
6. Bear had an off day. At this point, it's just a bad day. I expect him to be back.
7. I've said it before, and I'll say it aGAIN... Gabe Myles will be as good, if not better than Jameon by the time he leaves State. He still struggles with catches over the middle, but he is sick on screen plays out of the backfield. However, his play of the game was the trick play where he had nothing open downfield, so he had the presence of mind to pull it and gain 8 yards. He made something of nothing. Most young players get an itchy trigger finger and want to try to be a hero, but not Myles. He took what he was given and made a positive gain for a 2nd and short. Well done.
So, how does the west shape up from here out? I've got my Western division rankings below, as well as some comments and some key points.
DRT's Western Division Rankings, Week 9:
1. THE Mississippi State Bulldogs - The Dawgs survive a tough road test against a good UK team. Both teams exchanged blows and the MSU Pass defense had a rough go at most of the day, but at the end of the day, a win is a win. Style points mean nothing at this point in the season.. wins mean everything.
2. Auburn - After a shootout with USCe, the Tigers move to 6-1. The tigers have a date with a deflated OM team in Oxford next week, which will have HUGE implications with us. If Auburn's offense fires on all cylinders, they win this running away. OM just does not have the horses to keep up, but their defense may keep this game close enough for them to make a charge. More on OM later, but I will be pulling hard for AU in this one... mainly considering we have the tiebreaker over them.
3. Alabama - This team is still trying to find itself. They went to sleep in the second half against Tennessee, but still came out with a win. Alabama's defense is still tough, and their offense has the firepower to burn you. Cooper is the best WR in the conference, and it's not really close. Alabama plays LSU in BR in two weeks... and we need LSU to win that one.
4. LSU - This team is finding itself at the right time. Their defense has clicked... and their offense, although not as dangerous as they have been in years past, will still pound you to a pulp. The big nasties up front are probably the best run-blocking o-line in the conference, and their fullback is a headhunter. LSU winning out is OK, at this point. If it comes down to us having a tiebreaker with a 2 loss LSU at the end of the season, it wasn't meant to be, anyway.
5. OM - This team got exposed, and LSU did it. These cocky bastards thought they'd roll into BR and take care of LSU because "MSU did it." Nope. Their defense got outleveraged all night by a bruising LSU rushing attack that never let up, and they could never stop it. Not only that, Bo Wallace proved to the nation that he is not a changed individual like many touted him to be. After jawing with fans behind the bench and forcing coaches to intervene, headbutting a player, and pouting off the field at the end of the game, he showed that when the grind hits, he's still the same ol' Bo. I fully expect OM to have 2+ losses by the time the egg bowl comes around. We need an Auburn to beat these guys and hopefully, Arkansas will give them a run for their money, as well.
6. Arkansas - This team is going to spoil someone's season by the end of the year. Still have no idea why Bert ran that Fat Guy QB touchdown throw up 21 to UAB... makes no sense. Either way, we match up well with these guys... and we play them at home.
7. TAMU - They gotta figure out how to play defense... and figure out how to run the football. This ain't the Big 12(10).
Overall, I feel like the West goes through Tuscaloosa on 11/15. However, I'm hoping some cannibalism takes care of OM and Bama, particularly. If we lose either of those games and they don't lose another, we lose the tiebreaker. We still have the tiebreaker over Auburn (but probably not in a 3 way tie with OM in the mix, should AU win the Iron Bowl). So.. some key games from here out... we need LSU to beat Bama to push them to 2 losses and we need AU to beat OM to push them to 2 losses. That gives us a mulligan between OM and Bama... and I feel a lot better trying to go 1-1 against those teams instead of 2-0.
I know this was long, but here are some things to think about... There's a lot of football left to be played, but we are in the driver's seat (despite was some mfers in Oxford want to believe).
Hail Damn State.
I will say that we did need a game like this. At the beginning of the year and even the weeks leading up to this game, there was absolutely nothing appealing about this game from a "spotlight" standpoint. It's easy to get up for a top 5 Auburn team at home... it's much tougher to get up for an unranked, but respectable UK team at their place. We exchanged blows all game, and still got up every. single. time. There's something to be said about that, as well. This team has tenacity and fight... and that pays dividends later on.
So, let's talk specifics.
Coaching:
1. The first drive was impressive. We used the screen game to knock them off-balance and take huge chunks of yards. That also forced a defender out of the box to open up the run.
2. The second and third quarters, not so impressive. UK absolutely had no answer for J-Rob... and that was evident early on. I wanted to run him up the gut on every single first down until they showed us they could stop him. We started throwing the ball and trying option pitches (which I feel they were waiting on every time we ran it)... We did go back to that in the 4th quarter, which was better late than never. It paid off for us because it allowed us to put the game away.
3. I did not like our defensive gameplan. We shut down their run game to the point that the only running they did was with Towles, but we never spied on him. Their first scoring drive of the second half, aside from 2 plays, that whole drive was him running it on us, and we didn't adjust to stop it. Not collins' best effort, IMO.
Special Teams:
1. Logan Cooke was an asset, yet again, in KO and punts. We are just fine in both these areas. We seem to have shored up any concerns we have in our kick coverage units.
2. I have no earthly idea why we didn't allow Sobiesk to kick the 42 yard attempt. I mean... surely he has the leg to make that... right? I don't care if Cooke has made those in practice, Sobiesk has been doing pretty darn well for us, even if his kicks have been under 30 yards. I did not like that call.
3. Graham... man... what do we do here? 3 games, and muffed punts in as many games. We were very fortunate to recover the muffed punt yesterday. I really think we need to put Jameon back there, at least to call fair catch and secure the kick. Graham will be a stud later, but right now, I think his indecision, impatience, lack of confidence is costing us back there.
4. TURTLE. What a play by a guy who has been a warrior his whole time here. He abused the kicker with that stiff arm. What a gutsy decision to run with that, too. That was the dagger and the final nail in the coffin, and the worst possible outcome for UK.
Defense:
1. Believe it or not, aside from our gameplan, I felt we were not HORRIBLE on defense. Yes, we gave up some big plays, but it was a backup corner (Cleveland) and a backup linebacker (Jackson) who got burned. Aside from those 2 plays, we had an OK day. UK attempted 43 passes against us... thats A LOT of pass attempts. Teams are averaging 44 pass attempts a game against us (which leads the SEC), which is 8 more passes a game more than the next in line (OM, with 36/game). Our 1A defense is just fine. Our 1B defense is serviceable.
2. 27 total rushing yards on the day... and I don't think they hardly attempted 10 in the second half. 103 rushing yards on 32 attempts (and let's be real.... most of that was Towles... and 4 of those rushes were sacks).
3. We did give up 401 pass yards... 130 of those yards came on 2 plays (both those plays came on our second string secondary). That's tough to swallow, but considering UK brought their A-Game, I'm not in panic mode.
4. Some Positives... Will Redmond is our best cover corner, and it's not close. Shoutout to Calhoun, though... he made an effort play on a screen play where he was cut block and crawled on all 4s to make the tackle and save yards.
5. Our Linebackers did pretty well yesterday. McKinney made some nice plays, and we did OK in coverage... but because UK didn't run much on us, we didn't see a lot of these guys making impact plays.
6. Our D-Line saved our *** several times. Aside from a few containment issues up the middle, we had a very solid day up front... they stepped up when they needed to.
7. Our best defensive play was a third and long late in the game when we knew they wouldn't run on us and we put 6 guys down on the LOS. I saw what we were doing and fully expected UK to call a timeout, and didn't... we rushed 4, but it created so much confusion up front and ended up abusing their O-Line and sacked Towles.
Offense:
1. Someone get J-Rob a medal and a tub of ice cream. They had no answer for him. None. Just like Boobie in 2009, we had another huge rushing day, and J-Rob gets all the credit there.
2. Even though Dak sputtered, he still had 310 yards, 1 passing TD, and 2 rushing TDs. Just another day at the office. He got beat up, but I fully expect him to play next week vs. Arkansas.
3. O-Line did great in run blocking. We got a ton of leverage up front and opened up lanes for Robinson and Dak. We struggled with pass blocking, though... give UK credit, they have some studs up front. Smith and Dupree and All-SEC caliber players, and we struggled with those guys all day.
4. Griffin had a few key plays in there, as well.
5. MoJo had a great first half. We are going to really be relying on him down the stretch... he provides some key support in the passing game.
6. Bear had an off day. At this point, it's just a bad day. I expect him to be back.
7. I've said it before, and I'll say it aGAIN... Gabe Myles will be as good, if not better than Jameon by the time he leaves State. He still struggles with catches over the middle, but he is sick on screen plays out of the backfield. However, his play of the game was the trick play where he had nothing open downfield, so he had the presence of mind to pull it and gain 8 yards. He made something of nothing. Most young players get an itchy trigger finger and want to try to be a hero, but not Myles. He took what he was given and made a positive gain for a 2nd and short. Well done.
So, how does the west shape up from here out? I've got my Western division rankings below, as well as some comments and some key points.
DRT's Western Division Rankings, Week 9:
1. THE Mississippi State Bulldogs - The Dawgs survive a tough road test against a good UK team. Both teams exchanged blows and the MSU Pass defense had a rough go at most of the day, but at the end of the day, a win is a win. Style points mean nothing at this point in the season.. wins mean everything.
2. Auburn - After a shootout with USCe, the Tigers move to 6-1. The tigers have a date with a deflated OM team in Oxford next week, which will have HUGE implications with us. If Auburn's offense fires on all cylinders, they win this running away. OM just does not have the horses to keep up, but their defense may keep this game close enough for them to make a charge. More on OM later, but I will be pulling hard for AU in this one... mainly considering we have the tiebreaker over them.
3. Alabama - This team is still trying to find itself. They went to sleep in the second half against Tennessee, but still came out with a win. Alabama's defense is still tough, and their offense has the firepower to burn you. Cooper is the best WR in the conference, and it's not really close. Alabama plays LSU in BR in two weeks... and we need LSU to win that one.
4. LSU - This team is finding itself at the right time. Their defense has clicked... and their offense, although not as dangerous as they have been in years past, will still pound you to a pulp. The big nasties up front are probably the best run-blocking o-line in the conference, and their fullback is a headhunter. LSU winning out is OK, at this point. If it comes down to us having a tiebreaker with a 2 loss LSU at the end of the season, it wasn't meant to be, anyway.
5. OM - This team got exposed, and LSU did it. These cocky bastards thought they'd roll into BR and take care of LSU because "MSU did it." Nope. Their defense got outleveraged all night by a bruising LSU rushing attack that never let up, and they could never stop it. Not only that, Bo Wallace proved to the nation that he is not a changed individual like many touted him to be. After jawing with fans behind the bench and forcing coaches to intervene, headbutting a player, and pouting off the field at the end of the game, he showed that when the grind hits, he's still the same ol' Bo. I fully expect OM to have 2+ losses by the time the egg bowl comes around. We need an Auburn to beat these guys and hopefully, Arkansas will give them a run for their money, as well.
6. Arkansas - This team is going to spoil someone's season by the end of the year. Still have no idea why Bert ran that Fat Guy QB touchdown throw up 21 to UAB... makes no sense. Either way, we match up well with these guys... and we play them at home.
7. TAMU - They gotta figure out how to play defense... and figure out how to run the football. This ain't the Big 12(10).
Overall, I feel like the West goes through Tuscaloosa on 11/15. However, I'm hoping some cannibalism takes care of OM and Bama, particularly. If we lose either of those games and they don't lose another, we lose the tiebreaker. We still have the tiebreaker over Auburn (but probably not in a 3 way tie with OM in the mix, should AU win the Iron Bowl). So.. some key games from here out... we need LSU to beat Bama to push them to 2 losses and we need AU to beat OM to push them to 2 losses. That gives us a mulligan between OM and Bama... and I feel a lot better trying to go 1-1 against those teams instead of 2-0.
I know this was long, but here are some things to think about... There's a lot of football left to be played, but we are in the driver's seat (despite was some mfers in Oxford want to believe).
Hail Damn State.
