Todd4State's weekly vent

Todd4State

Redshirt
Mar 3, 2008
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First of all, I left the game early. I don't care if you question my fanhood, want to revoke my fan card or whathever else you want to do. I had to leave because of a lethal combination of Tyson Lee shitting all over himself, Carl Torbush, the officials, and the guy behind me telling people to "get an application" because they criticize Tyson Lee. I was just sick of it all.

First of all, Carl Torbush needs to hit the road and go coach somewhere where they don't give a **** like him and are just willing to give him a check. Somewhere like Oberlein or Wal-Mart. Is there some Bear Bryant ancient SEC rule where we can't have a competent offensive AND defensive staff at the same time? Here's what concerns me about Torbush:

A. The lack of emotion and energy that the defense plays with.

B. The lack of creativity.

C. The predictability.

D. The poor overall game planning.

E. The overall execution. Although, I am in favor of Torbush's.

Does this sound familiar? (Cough, Croom?) I can understand why the offense struggles. We have an inferior player at QB. But on defense, we have a decent front seven. We have a couple of decent safeties. And we have one average CB. There is something to work with there. A couple of our players on defense may very well end up playing on Sundays. And yet, Alabama has WR's running wide *** open? Where's the blitzing? Alabama does not exactly have an offense that would have people like Mike Leach clamoring to sign up for a seminar to learn about it. The most "gimicky" thing they do is the pistol and the wildcat. And saying that's gimicky is stretching it. Dan's biggest first year coaching mistake so far has been hiring Torbush. We need to ditch Carl and get someone who's aggressive, creative, energetic, and likes to blitz. A team like MSU is not going to have the overall talent to just sit back and play read and react vanilla defense and succeed. We need to use our athletes and blitz people and mix up coverages. We need to disguise stuff and bring pressure. That will hopefully lead to turnovers and things like that. And MSU can certainly find a good DC. Ellis Johnson should be the minimum standard, with Joe Lee Dunn circa 1998-1999 being the gold standard. And one interesting thing- Bear Bryant's DC in the 70's was Ken Donahue, who he got from MSU after the 63 Liberty Bowl appearance. History has shown that we can get a good DC, and we need to do so. This is the second game in a row, and the third really bad defensive showing this year. It seems like since the Florida game that they've gotten worse. That is unacceptable.

Now the QB's- I'm tired of watching Tyson Lee **** all over himself out there. People say he manages the team better, but damn, he has 14 picks and only 4 TD's. That's not what I call managing a team. He especially sucks in the red zone. I really think at this point, Chris Relf should be the "redzone QB" because while he is mistake prone himself, at least he doesn't panic, and he gives us another decent running option along with AD at that part of the field, which is nice since Tyson is really a non-factor in the passing game in the redzone anyway. And I'll give Relf credit- his running has been pretty good lately. I'm just sick of Tyson Lee. I'm sick of hearing about how he is a good kid, who is a Christian, and how he's doing the best he can, and how he loves MSU, yada, yada, yada. The bottom line is, he is a MAJOR liability out there. It's gotten to the point where I'm actually wondering if Relf wouldn't be the better option. The only difference I see is that Lee can complete the short passes better than Relf, but aside from that? Relf is a better runner, and Relf does have a stronger arm. I mean, Relf may be pegging port-a-potties in practice, but at least his arm is strong enough to get it there. And yeah, he may throw a ton of picks, but so does Tyson. At least with Relf teams will have to at least respect the fact that he might throw it deep and it won't get underthrown, and that should help the running game. You never know when he might accidentally complete a deep bomb. Not to mention at least Relf can see the receivers and the receivers can see him. And at least Relf looks like an SEC player. He sucks, but at least you don't have opposing fans laughing at him like a midget in the circus. At least I only have to put up with only two more weeks of this BS. And Dan Mullen to. He looked like he wanted to kick Tyson's *** out there.
 

FlabLoser

Redshirt
Aug 20, 2006
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Bama WRs were not running wide *** open all night. We had blown coverage a couple times but that's it. And our secondary is VERY young. Some of them are starting, what, their 3rd or 4th game?

Poor tackling, hitting high instead of low, is a bigger concern. But I can't complain about the scheme.

Offensively....we have a midget at QB. Not Mullen's fault. We were playing against Bama. Not Mullen's fault. Running between the tackles is a bad matchup. A downfield attack is a bad matchup. Given those circumstances I thought we did good. We were the 2nd team all year that had > 100 yards rushing against Bama. Our passing sucked and that's the fault of a drop by Berry, Wilder not attacking the football, and mostly Lee just being Lee.

Overall, we had to play perfect and hit some big plays just for a chance to win, provided the refs were nice to us. None of that happened. Bartender, I'll have another.
 

War Machine Dawg

Redshirt
Oct 14, 2007
2,832
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One an absolutely perfect throw. Tebow, McCoy, Bradford, Keenum, et. al couldn't have thrown that one any better than Relf did. I say tell Stonehands to go back to running track. He can't catch a cold, much less a football. And last time I checked, catching the football was essentially the entire job description for a WR.
 

Agentdog

Redshirt
Aug 16, 2006
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The thing that I see with the WRs is they are not very physical. They are tall and fast but it seems DBs knock them off their routes and gain position easily. It looked Wilder and McRae were 6 inches taller than those DBs. However, they have no veritcle leap and do nothing to gain position. I am talking specifically about the first pass of the game and the pass to McRae near the endzone. Berry is same as well.
 

TheBigDA

Redshirt
Aug 29, 2008
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Ok I know it is football, but same principle. You swing your hand in front of his eyes and he closes them, similiar to trying to teach a catcher not to flinch or close their eyes when a bat is swung. He caught the deep ball when he was all alone at KY. Just a combination of being physical and bat blind.
 

DawgTeacher

Redshirt
Feb 24, 2008
67
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Wilder is young, he's had some injuries too. He got by the DBs a good bit last night, all he's lacking is some physical skills. His hands are too soft. I think Mullen and staff will coach him up to be a pretty good one. As far as the QB situation, I don't think anybody posting on message boards has any right to go against the coach that has won a national championship and has us really competing with top programs this year. I would think if someone else over there on the sidelines gave us a better chance to win, then Mullen would obviously put him in (he's not trying to lose). Last, Torbush had us in position all night, except for a couple of blown coverages (not his mistake) but we just missed tackles...Chris White</p>
 

kired

All-Conference
Aug 22, 2008
6,958
2,243
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FlabLoser said:
Bama WRs were not running wide *** open all night. We had blown coverage a couple times but that's it. And our secondary is VERY young. Some of them are starting, what, their 3rd or 4th game?

Poor tackling, hitting high instead of low, is a bigger concern. But I can't complain about the scheme.
That sums up the defensive problems perfectly. The problems with coverage weren't in the playcalling - it was execution. Our guys getting juked out of their shoes, or biting on a play action fake. And our tackling was atrocious at times.
 

lanceharbor7

Redshirt
Feb 24, 2008
905
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As one close up camera shot on Torbush after a particularly poor tacking effort, you could see him yelling "Tackle" at Chris White.
 

olemissbydamn

Redshirt
May 24, 2006
1,479
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Todd4State said:
on defense, we have a decent front seven. We have a couple of decent safeties. And we have one average CB. There is something to work with there.
I understand your frustration, but none of your defensive gripes really matter considering you only scored 3 points.

You said it yourself, a DECENT front seven, DECENT safeties, and an AVERAGE cornerback. You can't expect those guys to beat arguably the number 1 team in the nation. Decent and average won't get it. Torbush may be terrible, but he is working with below average SEC talent. Some of your better defensive players just don't have a ton of experience.

With that said, before the bashing of me begins, I've openly said that Mullen appears to be a very good coach. There seems to be a ton of excitement around your program. You will turn it around.

You are just going to have to endure the transition growing pains until next year. You can beat up Tyson Lee all day, but it isn't his fault that Croom couldn't get you a decent QB. He is doing the best he can with what he has.
 

FlabLoser

Redshirt
Aug 20, 2006
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Agentdog said:
The thing that I see with the WRs is they are not very physical. They are tall and fast but it seems DBs knock them off their routes and gain position easily. It looked Wilder and McRae were 6 inches taller than those DBs. However, they have no veritcle leap and do nothing to gain position. I am talking specifically about the first pass of the game and the pass to McRae near the endzone. Berry is same as well.
That's what I'm saying. They need to use their bodies to block out DBs. They need to stop the route a couple steps short and jump up and catch balls high in the air instead of expecting it to come down and hit them in the chest as if the DB is not going to try making a play on it.
 

JimmyPeoples

Redshirt
Mar 3, 2008
4
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Torbush came in with Franchione at Alabama in '01, and his defense was awful. The next year you could really see the improvement, they made plays all over the field. He also did a good job at North Carolina with Mack Brown. If he holds true to form I think you'll be pleased with what he puts on the field next year. I think his system is just so complicated that the kids can't get it that first year.

As an outside observer (Bama fan) I believe you've got a winning combination working in Starkville. I hate to see it because it's just going to make our ridiculously tough conference even tougher.</p>
 

deanbar

Redshirt
Sep 20, 2007
350
0
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what about the pass to bumphis that hit his shoulder pads? wasnt even looking for the ball. I liked seeing Relf being given more of a chance, but why did we always go to the right? Marquis was playing world-class defense last night...and our guys were usually double covered.. surely their other guys arent as good as he is??

Bama impressed me as they should as the #2 or 3 in the country - yes we should have beaten LSU - yes we played FLA better than could be expected.
To be able to beat Bama we would have had to catch them on a off day - and we would have had to play perfect ball and get some breaks... look at their stats-look at their talent - look at their coaching.

Bottom line is we are getting RESPECT now and are competitive in the SEC.

That being said - i will be really surprised if we win the next 2....but I am excited about Mullen and our expectations for "next year".

Someone said that Torbush may go to the 49er's - was that for real or a joke?
 

Todd4State

Redshirt
Mar 3, 2008
17,411
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<</blockquote>I understand your frustration, but none of your defensive gripes really matter considering you only scored 3 points.

because we only scored 3? We are going to play other people that aren't as good as Bama that we will score against, and it would be nice if the defense could stop someone. There's no swagger, no energy, and then they're letting Julio Jones run free by himself. You've GOTTA know where he is at all times. How does that happen?
 

megadawgmaniac

Redshirt
Sep 15, 2004
746
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I've posted here before that I know fans of non-SEC BCS schools that told me after the hire that Torbush was not a bad choice. The only warning was to not let him become head coach.

AA - who knows the bad hire was made 6 years ago