I saw on Facebook that we're wearing the throwback winged helmets. I hope they bring luck.

Who is going? I'll be there.

I'm of two minds here. It's homecoming weekend - sometimes, the best results come on homecoming weekend.

And then I remember 4 years ago, against USM. And that somehow didn't mark the end of the Bailiff era.

I have a feeling this one will fall in the latter category - lots of points for Marshall, not much for Rice.

With the throwback winged helmets, will we see some new triple option plays reminiscent of the Ken Hatfield era? Couldn't hurt!

Bold prediction. Mac calls offense. Johnson starts.
Marshall- 30
Rice- 24

(11-01-2019 01:44 PM)Ourland Wrote:  I saw on Facebook that we're wearing the throwback winged helmets. I hope they bring luck.

Who is going? I'll be there.

Oh crap! Bad memories of the Liberty Bowl game and those &^%$#& cowbells.

I thought they burned those helmets or was that just wishful thinking?

(11-01-2019 09:07 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(11-01-2019 01:44 PM)Ourland Wrote:  I saw on Facebook that we're wearing the throwback winged helmets. I hope they bring luck.

Who is going? I'll be there.

Oh crap! Bad memories of the Liberty Bowl game and those &^%$#& cowbells.

I thought they burned those helmets or was that just wishful thinking?

No, the Hatfield-era wings. Those were good. The only difference is that they're blue, not silver. A little harder to see on the blue she'll, but still nice.

(11-01-2019 10:39 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(11-01-2019 09:07 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(11-01-2019 01:44 PM)Ourland Wrote:  I saw on Facebook that we're wearing the throwback winged helmets. I hope they bring luck.

Who is going? I'll be there.

Oh crap! Bad memories of the Liberty Bowl game and those &^%$#& cowbells.

I thought they burned those helmets or was that just wishful thinking?

No, the Hatfield-era wings. Those were good. The only difference is that they're blue, not silver. A little harder to see on the blue she'll, but still nice.

Yeah, I’m not sure why they didn’t make the wings gray on the helmets for today; gonna be hard to see - missed opportunity, IMO.

I’m trying to work up any enthusiasm at all for today’s game. Most of my optimism has evaporated over the past several weeks.

Points of interest for me:
- since our QB situation for this game is more shaky than usual and it’s getting late in the season, I’m hoping to see some new faces at that position.
- hoping for some creativity in play calling to revive our DOA offense.
- can our usually stout D hold Marshall to a season low in scoring and give our anemic offense at least a glimmer of hope to steal this one.

Early on, this game was penciled in for me to travel to Houston for Homecoming. However, I’ve chosen to trek to my place in Southern New Mexico to hole up and watch on Facebook/Stadium....WTF??? How did that happen?..

Marshall 28 Rice 19

I think what we've seen this season is that we got our hopes up over some closer-than-expected performances against a couple of quality opponents early. Unfortunately that has not translated into victories against much weaker CUSA opposition. I see a few takeaways:
1) Improving on defense and special teams offers the best opportunity for an under-talented squad to stay in the game against a better team.
2) If your offense simply cannot do anything at all, you're going to have a hard time winning against anybody. We aren't quite good enough on defense to outscore our opponents from that side of the ball (few teams ever are) and that means we have to play SOME offense to win. I don't see how we can consistently move the ball with our talent without more sophisticated run AND pass schemes. I've talked a lot about the old Hawaii hybrid system, which I still like because it has just about everything and is still concise enough to be teachable, and can be executed without all 5-star players. I still think the Stanford system needs at least 4-stars on the o-line and at QB. I think Stanford is finding that out this year.
3) We really need to work on game-winning skills as well as football-playing skills. This is one thing about a transition from a career assistant to a head coach. The tendency is to think that if we just get good enough at basic skills, that will carry us to wins. We need the basic skills, but we also need game awareness and understanding how to handle situations like clock management. And those have to be practiced on the field, not just covered in meetings. One of the things I really like about the RUOwls approach is that he puts a ton of emphasis on awareness and situational understanding, and IMO that carries over to all phases.