RE: Rice-KU PGT (post game thread)
40, I'm really not sure where in all that you are taking such exception to what I wrote.
If TMcH was not healthy for the 2H against UCLA (which you seem to be inferring here), then DJ clearly should have taken that half. Same for La Tech. KU might have been a harder call, inasmuch as we barely won with TMcH, so he was apparently healthy enough to play. But DJ could have been a useful change of pace, particularly after he got a couple of halves on film and coaches could make necessary adjustments. If that happens earlier, does the DJ we see against UH look more like the DJ against AFA? Probably. Of course, if DJ had taken the 2nd halves aginst UCLA and La Tech, and no more, that would obviously have saved a bunch of wear and tear on TMcH. Would he have been healthier against Marshall and Memphis? Almost certainly. Would he have been healthy enough to have played against UH? Let's assume not, but nobody can ever really know.
I guess my point is a rehash of one I've made before. I don't really have a problem with playing at least some non-conference games like pre-season games, but that's not what we are doing. Playing them like pre-season games to me means you try to win all the way, but you also play a lot of people. What we do is keep the starters out there until they drop, and then in the post-game press conference, use the excuse that it was "only a pre-season game." If depth is going to be an issue, and it clearly has been, then getting as many people as you can into the early games is the best way to develop a solution to that.
So my approach to the second half aginst UCLA or La Tech would have been that DJ is going to take the half, and we are going to try to win with DJ. We almost certainly could not have been worse offensively in the second half aginst UCLA with DJ, and it probably didn't really matter at La Tech. That approach means you lose UCLA and La Tech, but last time I checked, we lost them anyway. And it certainly gives rise to at least a reasonable expectation that we could have gotten a different result against Marshall, UH, and Memphis. Win all three (not outside the realm of possibility) and we're at 9-3, 10-3 with the bowl. And we don't have to play much better to win at Tulsa too, which gets us to 10-2 and in the conference championship game. That's about what I thought this team should have accomplished last year, and that's about the minimum I think it should accomplish this year.
As for the utiliation issues with Sam, I've been saying since his soph year that he was a unique talent who should have been used differently from the way we did. I don't know why it took so long to adjust our scheme to fit our talent, but that has been a recurring theme. And we don't have enough talent to go that route.
Did we have injuries? Yes. Did they hurt us? Yes. Did the same thing happen to every other football team in the country? Yes. That's part of the game. Being prepared to deal with them is part of game preparation.
Defense was certainly a problem. But was the statistical improvement from 1H to 2H due to real improvement in the defense or to substantial difference in the quality of opposition? Is a defense that ranked #60 against the people we played in the 2H of last year really any good?
I think I've addressed your depth, defense, health, and schedule points. I'd just say that the things that happened in those regards are things that were known or should have been expected well in advance. And yes, I expect coaching to come up with solutions to those problems. Maybe my expectations of the coaching staff are too high. But I've been around staffs that I think could and did meet those expectations, so I'm willing to accept nothing less here.
Aside from what I've already said, I don't think it's appropriate--for several reasons--for me to be talking about the quarterback controversy.
I don't see our schemes being that much different from anyone else. I do think we meerkat more than most, which may or may not be a good thing. But I don't imagine that our offense causes many DC's to lay awake at night figuring out how to counter us. And I think that's where we need to be.
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