Whats Next? Missed tackles, missed blocks, poor clock management, poor play calling, penalties, dropped passes etc.

Will EMU ever win at Football?

Prob not Dennis, not until some of you alumni start passing out those big paychecks.....lol

(11-01-2012 08:22 PM)EagleSam Wrote:  

(11-01-2012 07:47 PM)holybovine Wrote:  

(11-01-2012 07:40 PM)EagleSam Wrote:  I'm gonna go throw myself into traffic.

Eh, I think you would come out of it OK Sam. When the chips are down, I think you would show lightening quick feet like our friend Bronson Hill.

Haha perhaps. My life would depend on it, I guess.

Glad that torture porn is over. Lets at least split with CMU and WMU. And get Bronson 1000 yards. That would make this year slightly less terrible.

I'm feeling good against CMU at home.

WMU on the road will be tough...But wouldn't it be nice to knock them out of bowl contention?

Guys,

I have tried to stay positive about this team but tonight was a joke.. What happened to our defense? The last 3 games we have played no defense and puts the offense under pressure. We seem to be too small at all positions and teams are powering the ball down our throats..

I saw a play where Ohio ran right up the middle and the guy was not touched..

Would you say that the coaches are putting the kids in the best place to be successful..

(11-01-2012 08:27 PM)Dennis Hoopster Wrote:  Whats Next? Missed tackles, missed blocks, poor clock management, poor play calling, penalties, dropped passes etc.

Will EMU ever win at Football?

"Ever" is a long time.

We'll win someday. I just hope it's at the d-1 level.

(11-01-2012 08:31 PM)NUPudge Wrote:  Guys,

I have tried to stay positive about this team but tonight was a joke.. What happened to our defense? The last 3 games we have played no defense and puts the offense under pressure. We seem to be too small at all positions and teams are powering the ball down our throats..

I saw a play where Ohio ran right up the middle and the guy was not touched..

Would you say that the coaches are putting the kids in the best place to be successful..

I'm tired of bagging on English, because at some point there's nothing left to say. However, this will be the last time I beat this dead horse: English was a poor defensive coordinator at Michigan and Louisville. He has had poor defenses here at EMU. All of his defenses share the same afflictions: lack of physicality from the DL, slow LBs, safeties with no field awareness, and poor tackling. His results here have not been surprising, but rather consistent with his entire career.

Hanging up in my classroom here in Louisville are a couple of the football posters for this year and each week I get asked by my students, "So how did they do this week?" To be truthful, I think it's pretty cool that I'm actually being asked by a couple of my students about them on a weekly basis. However, needless to say, I'm not exactly having a ton of fun explaining to my students that my university has a football program that is 1-8 and hasn't really done that much except for a fun 6-6 season last year. Considering the fact that this HS has also won three state championships in four years in football at the 3A level, more of these students are actually a bit interested in hearing about it. I do my best to put a positive spin on it but it's quite difficult. I hope the basketball team doesn't disappoint.

A few years back I figured I wouldn't in my lifetime ever see the Tigers make the World Series(was born in 1985), and now they've been in 2 in the past 6. Honestly, there is no program that I would really like to see become successful than that of EMU Football just because of all of the obstacles that we all know happen at EMU and to give the university something else to be proud of. I just sincerely hope that day comes sooner than later.

(11-01-2012 08:27 PM)Dennis Hoopster Wrote:  Whats Next? Missed tackles, missed blocks, poor clock management, poor play calling, penalties, dropped passes etc.

Scott alone has killed some key drives this season, but yes Dennis that about covers it. You'd think this staff and head coach after 4 years would understand clock management and do a better job of play calling, but no. I'll add our poor performing offensive line. Yes Neal not playing hurts but all of these guys had starting and playing experience and yet look where our running game this year is ranked compared to last year. I know many of us want the offensive coordinator gone but Kurt A deserves to be on the hot seat as well.

The only bright spot is many of our young guys true frosh, redshirts and sophs are getting experience. Hopefully that pays off for next year.

(11-01-2012 08:27 PM)Dennis Hoopster Wrote:  Whats Next?

Men's basketball begins today at the Convo complete with a new scoreboard.

(I'm gone for the weekend attending a wedding. Have fun guys. No EMU FB, no elections, no robo calls, etc.).

If I can get Internet access I'll be checking on the x-hibition game tonight.

I'm predicting a big win.

I was in Ohio (working the Obama campaign) and stop in to see the game at a sport-bar. There were a few EMU fans there so I sat with them. I could not believe the harsh talk/words about English, his staff and how they had set the fb program back because of his poor coaching this season, there play calling, not playing the right kids at the start of the season (offense and defense), defense getting worse etc..

One person (Karen) asked, what can English/staff do to motivate the guys to play the last 3 games? What speak can he give to get them to play for 3 more games. Other questions were:

If some kids believe English will be fired after the season what to play for?

If you were a recruit, would you come here with so many uncertainties?

What would the selling pitch be like?

I told them I would post their concerns here..

Thanks for the beers, fun, and good time Kathy, Mike, Scott, Brad, and Karen..
Dam, I wished I was still single again.. I posted your thoughts and please join the board here..

I do expect recruiting to "fall off"s this year after the past two classes, if you note the 2013 recruiting thread its been quiet out there. We know recruits are still coming to home games. As others and I have stated I doubt English will be fired this year. He gets his full five years and IMHO he would have to be at .500 or better next year or his contract will not be renewed. Honestly if his record is not better than the previous coach and his contract is renewed Gragg will have some explaining to do. The weather in Athens was not great but somehow Ohio found 16,000 plus fans to attend. That would be our attendance for THREE home games combined. I honestly hope English will win a few more games this year and end the year on an upbeat basis against WMU and CMU. But yes this season has been a bitter bitter disappointment. Rather than building a positive foundation of last year it looks like the foundation is crumbling-again.

Dear Friends,
I know this is going to sound stupid, but after watching the game last night, Eastern could have won it. Everyone's comments of dropped passes, missed tackles, etc. are correct. If, you were to watch the game again, there were key moments when passes were dropped, or a tackle was missed, and had those things not occurred Eastern could have stopped their drives, and or scored points themselves.
The other thing that struck me was when the announcers showed the schedules of both teams. Ohio's schedule so far, was all losers and cupcakes, except for two games. Those two were Pennsylvania State and Miami, and they are one and one with those games. So, Ohio is not exactly a powerhouse football team. That is why I have suggested that Eastern could have won the game.
One other point. I'm really upset that a penalty was not called on that block thrown on Blake Poole. The replay clearly shows it was a head to head contact. Also, I can't believe that Eastern was called for penalty after penalty, and Ohio played simon pure. I'm not saying that some of the calls against Eastern weren't deserved, but I can't believe that our side was the only one commiting penalties, and some of those calls killed drives that also could have led to points for Eastern.

At the game last night, I shared a lot of the feelings you guys were posting on here.

At times, I think Hunter Matt and the other underclassmen on defense looked pretty decent, for freshmen at least. Other times, their failure to wrap up, poor pursuits, and broken coverage we're embarrassing. For the future, I'd like to stay optimistic. These guys went out and EARNED these positions. Keep working hard this off-season and we may have some budding stars on defense.

I joked with my friend on the ride back, "we can't get any worse than this next year, can we?" I do think there's some truth to that though. Lately the playmakers on offense and defense are all underclassmen. Maybe I'm just trying to give myself hope to hold the tears back, but all we can do is improve from here.

Passing Attack - why our all star TE candidate has only caught 2 passes total during the last 2 games?

Why don't we ever throw to Creel? The othe frosh receivers hardly ever play but have both burned their redshirt year.

Don't have a deep threat basically because the QB doesn't have time to throw.

Ken on the penalities alot of them were deserved like Scott's pass interference in the third quarter or McFadden's holding. The refs should have been fired if they didn't call these, some are fixable like kickoffs out of bounds.

Last year we found ways to win, this year we find ways to lose.

The interception and then three straight passes and giving back to Ohio with time left was a coaching decision and a very poor one.

Dear emu79,
I did say that many penalties called on Eastern were deserved. What about the hit on Poole? What happened on the three straight passes? The second was dropped which would have been close to a first down. I agree, we have been shooting ourselves in the foot all year long, but I'd be willing to bet that the referees are looking for more penalties against Eastern because they have a losing record.

(11-02-2012 07:57 AM)Ken Barna Wrote:  The other thing that struck me was when the announcers showed the schedules of both teams. Ohio's schedule so far, was all losers and cupcakes, except for two games. Those two were Pennsylvania State and Miami, and they are one and one with those games. So, Ohio is not exactly a powerhouse football team. That is why I have suggested that Eastern could have won the game.

Ken has a good point. According to Sagarin's, Ohio has the softest schedule in the MAC and EMU has the 2nd most difficult schedule behind only UMass.

I does not change our disappointment in the EMU team though.