Things are never as bad or as good as they seem. It was only one game. Lots of teams struggled in their first game. USF was mentioned. OSU was down to Indiana. Michigan was down to florida with two pick six's in the first half. Florida didn't have 10 players due to suspension. Stay calm it's a long season and we will improve. We will win more than we lose and go to a bowl.

I predict I will still love UC, and that they will still be playing with purpose at the end of the season. I honestly don't care how many games we win this year as long as we continually improve throughout the year. After four years of he who shall not be named it's going to take some time to become relevant again. This boat has been sailing without a captain for a long time, and its going to take a little while to right the ship. I just wish we could recoup some of the money we paid to he who shall not be named for gross incompetence.

(09-03-2017 07:13 PM)icecat21 Wrote:  Things are never as bad or as good as they seem. It was only one game. Lots of teams struggled in their first game. USF was mentioned. OSU was down to Indiana. Michigan was down to florida with two pick six's in the first half. Florida didn't have 10 players due to suspension. Stay calm it's a long season and we will improve. We will win more than we lose and go to a bowl.

We weren't very good last year in the first game, and went up to Purdue and played our best game of the year on the road. Hard to tell early in the year.

(09-03-2017 09:37 PM)dsquare Wrote:  

(09-03-2017 07:13 PM)icecat21 Wrote:  Things are never as bad or as good as they seem. It was only one game. Lots of teams struggled in their first game. USF was mentioned. OSU was down to Indiana. Michigan was down to florida with two pick six's in the first half. Florida didn't have 10 players due to suspension. Stay calm it's a long season and we will improve. We will win more than we lose and go to a bowl.

We weren't very good last year in the first game, and went up to Purdue and played our best game of the year on the road. Hard to tell early in the year.

Purdue football is hot garbage. Michigan is on a whole other level...

I started at 6-6, now I am really thinking 4-8. The offensive line and qb play is dreadful and Fluberville's recruits are going to keep us with the same win-loss record as last year. I think we beat ECU, UConn and 1 more. I hope it turns around and goes much differently. It will be hard to to tell next week as we are gonna get throttled. The Miami of Ohio game will paint the picture for rest of the season.

(09-03-2017 09:58 PM)daap_bearcat97 Wrote:  I started at 6-6, now I am really thinking 4-8. The offensive line and qb play is dreadful and Fluberville's recruits are going to keep us with the same win-loss record as last year. I think we beat ECU, UConn and 1 more. I hope it turns around and goes much differently. It will be hard to to tell next week as we are gonna get throttled. The Miami of Ohio game will paint the picture for rest of the season.

Agree

I didn't get to watch the game closely; and what I did see was not impressive. Still, there was one play that stood out for me. This team got a stop on 4th and goal. To me, that play was all about pride - and I'm pretty confident in believing last year's team would have given up a TD on that play. I'm hoping the coaching staff builds off that play. Not looking forward to this weekend, but I still believe we can beat Miami (OH), get to six wins, get the extra practice, play in a bowl game and that the program will definitely be heading in the right direction.

I'm firmly in the BCMark, UCGrad/DSquare etc camp. Tools work better once they've been "worn in" a bit. We will improve, Boone will get in a rhythm and the coaching staff will develop their chemistry. I still see a winning record (schedule related).

I am conveniently forgetting just how bad we finished last year.

(09-04-2017 05:17 PM)FenderCat Wrote:  I am conveniently forgetting just how bad we finished last year.

A lot like we started this year.

sticking with 7-5. I think this team has a lot of work to do, and I think we have the right coaching staff to help overcome bad habits of the past few years and revamp the culture. I dont think last Thursday is as bad as it seems.

I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but a Source told me that our staff intentionally watched no film and did no research on Austin Peay, in order to see how our players and staff react to totally unexpected situations. They allegedly didn't even know that AP had a dual threat QB. I'm not sure if I understand or believe this claim, so take it FWIW. Maybe it will ease some folks' concerns about our expectations for this season.

(09-04-2017 05:28 PM)TubaCat Wrote:  I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but a Source told me that our staff intentionally watched no film and did no research on Austin Peay, in order to see how our players and staff react to totally unexpected situations. They allegedly didn't even know that AP had a dual threat QB. I'm not sure if I understand or believe this claim, so take it FWIW. Maybe it will ease some folks' concerns about our expectations for this season.

I find that one hard to believe especially since this was the Staff's very first game. However, I'm more inclined to believe that the game plan was pretty vanilla in preparation for Michigan.

(09-04-2017 05:32 PM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  

(09-04-2017 05:28 PM)TubaCat Wrote:  I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but a Source told me that our staff intentionally watched no film and did no research on Austin Peay, in order to see how our players and staff react to totally unexpected situations. They allegedly didn't even know that AP had a dual threat QB. I'm not sure if I understand or believe this claim, so take it FWIW. Maybe it will ease some folks' concerns about our expectations for this season.

I find that one hard to believe especially since this was the Staff's very first game. However, I'm more inclined to believe that the game plan was pretty vanilla in preparation for Michigan.

I heard the opposite. Staff spent June watching film of the games up to Navy.

Most outlets reported an influx of ten plus transfers for AP, including the QB. Not sure what a ton of game tape would have told them about this team.

I'm sure they were looking for fundamentals and were playing vanilla. We have to remember that the offense has a lot of dysfunction to shake off and our defense is under the direction of a first time DC. I expect positive momentum and expanded roles for the younger members of the roster as the season goes on, but development of what we have (not terrible recruits, but mostly project recruits with raw, undeveloped talent) is absolutely key to moving forward and becoming more competitive this year. We'll learn some next week, but not everything.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't buy this "staff showed vanilla to make it super tough on the next week's opponent" bull. You win one game at a time and losing to AP would have really started the CLF regime off on a bad note.

I know the loonies over on Bearcat Sports Journal said Tubbs showed vanilla (seems like for about every other game) but the reality is, tubs sucked. He wasn't smart enough nor did he care enough to mastermind some grand "I'll show a vanilla play calling scheme this week so the team we play next week won't have anything to prepare for". I didn't believe it with him and I really don't believe it with CLF (for different reasons of course).

Now, did CLF pull out every play in his book? Probably not. But I just don't think you blame the poor showing by UC on this whole "it was on purpose" stuff....I just don't buy it.

To early to tell based on one game.

I predicting 6-7 wins prior to the onset of the season and will stick with it.

(09-04-2017 08:41 PM)Bearcats#1 Wrote:  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't buy this "staff showed vanilla to make it super tough on the next week's opponent" bull. You win one game at a time and losing to AP would have really started the CLF regime off on a bad note.

I know the loonies over on Bearcat Sports Journal said Tubbs showed vanilla (seems like for about every other game) but the reality is, tubs sucked. He wasn't smart enough nor did he care enough to mastermind some grand "I'll show a vanilla play calling scheme this week so the team we play next week won't have anything to prepare for". I didn't believe it with him and I really don't believe it with CLF (for different reasons of course).

Now, did CLF pull out every play in his book? Probably not. But I just don't think you blame the poor showing by UC on this whole "it was on purpose" stuff....I just don't buy it.

I have no doubt UC played the Austin Peay game with pretty basic playcalling and basic strategy. I'm sure it was an opportunity to work on their base stuff (much like NFL teams use the preseason). That doesn't make the performance any less disappointing or worrying. I'm sure Kelly's teams played those type of games the same way and they ran those squads out of the building. It's only 1 game and it's game 1 with a new staff in a new regime, so I'm not going to overreact, but vanilla or not vanilla, when you play like that against an Austin Peay type team it's cause for concern.

I am not going to give up on this team so quick. I do think Austin Peay may have a better offense than 4 of our scheduled opponents. Misdirection offenses are hard to stop when you haven't played many. If we are able to take care of Miami, Marshall, UCONN, and ECU then we only need to find one more win. Temple looked beatable, and I think we can beat Tulane or SMU. It is a very weak schedule, which should help our team grow.

Style points mean nothing this year...we just have to grind out 6 wins.

It would be one thing if our DL and OL were just pushing the AP lines around but all were doing is sending 4 guys on D or running HB Dive on O, but our line wasn't getting any push at all. That is frightening and has nothing to do with calling plays.