A football season where picked to win the conference outright with on paper superior talent. The current year's football team has self destructed and embarrasses themselves in losing games to teams that they should be destroying.

While most teams improve as a season goes on, this team's execution has dramatically gotten worse...…..


Moreover, a lot of the offensive play calling is VERY suspect.

Three defensive questions stand out:
1. why does the opposing quarterback able to run free like a Heisman Trophy winning running back every week?
2. how come the defensive backs can not tackle and just ride the receiver for 5 to 20 yards after a reception?
3. when will the defense start defending crossing patterns? (and why isn't those routes in the Toledo offense's playbook?)

Can someone please go find the team that went toe to toe with Kentucky at the start of the years and beat BYU & Colorado State!!!!!!!!

WASTED FREAKIN' YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have no answers. Very valid points. Our only hope is to outscore our opponents because we certainly cannot stop them. We are 6-4. More than likely end up 6-6. Just think how bad Ohio feels. They are 4-6 and were supposed to play UT in MACC Game. I can see our recruits who were red-shirted entering the Transfer Portal. I'm sure the weather last night had something to do with the attendance or lack thereof, but, the team's performance didn't help. I bet the 50/50 pot turned out to be just that $50.50.

Is it basketball season yet??

(11-14-2019 07:52 AM)UTerry Wrote:  A football season where picked to win the conference outright with on paper superior talent. The current year's football team has self destructed and embarrasses themselves in losing games to teams that they should be destroying.

While most teams improve as a season goes on, this team's execution has dramatically gotten worse...…..


Moreover, a lot of the offensive play calling is VERY suspect.

Three defensive questions stand out:
1. why does the opposing quarterback able to run free like a Heisman Trophy winning running back every week?
Because we don't assign anyone to the QB and don't practice it.

2. how come the defensive backs can not tackle and just ride the receiver for 5 to 20 yards after a reception?
Because we don't practice the fundamentals of tackling. Anywhere on the defense, when we do tackle it is way too high. We are not breaking down to make the tackle.

3. when will the defense start defending crossing patterns? (and why isn't those routes in the Toledo offense's playbook?)
Apparently our DC doesn't know how to teach inside shade and bump and run.

Can someone please go find the team that went toe to toe with Kentucky at the start of the years and beat BYU & Colorado State!!!!!!!!

WASTED FREAKIN' YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(11-14-2019 08:17 AM)BrianNowicki Wrote:  

(11-14-2019 07:52 AM)UTerry Wrote:  A football season where picked to win the conference outright with on paper superior talent. The current year's football team has self destructed and embarrasses themselves in losing games to teams that they should be destroying.

While most teams improve as a season goes on, this team's execution has dramatically gotten worse...…..


Moreover, a lot of the offensive play calling is VERY suspect.

Three defensive questions stand out:
1. why does the opposing quarterback able to run free like a Heisman Trophy winning running back every week?
Because we don't assign anyone to the QB and don't practice it.

2. how come the defensive backs can not tackle and just ride the receiver for 5 to 20 yards after a reception?
Because we don't practice the fundamentals of tackling. Anywhere on the defense, when we do tackle it is way too high. We are not breaking down to make the tackle.

3. when will the defense start defending crossing patterns? (and why isn't those routes in the Toledo offense's playbook?)
Apparently our DC doesn't know how to teach inside shade on bump and run.

Can someone please go find the team that went toe to toe with Kentucky at the start of the years and beat BYU & Colorado State!!!!!!!!

WASTED FREAKIN' YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I want to add one more...why do opponents continue to flood one side of the field with more receivers than we have defenders?

On more than a few plays, NIU had 3 receivers to one side, and we had 2 defenders...on one play, we had 1. ONE! And if we were counting on a "LB" to slide over, it never happened. Not once.

And other teams have been successful throwing the ball against us in the same manner.

(11-14-2019 08:27 AM)bcunn3128 Wrote:  I want to add one more...why do opponents continue to flood one side of the field with more receivers than we have defenders?

On more than a few plays, NIU had 3 receivers to one side, and we had 2 defenders...on one play, we had 1. ONE! And if we were counting on a "LB" to slide over, it never happened. Not once.

And other teams have been successful throwing the ball against us in the same manner.

You can always tell if a defense is playing man or zone based on how they adjust to overloads like that, or motion. Based on the info you just gave, it sounds like we were playing zone. The defense should have shifted a bit though so that a LB or Safety could pick up the player entering their part of the zone quicker.

I would also like to know why our defensive player nearly murdered their QB after he had fallen down.

(11-14-2019 08:17 AM)BrianNowicki Wrote:  

(11-14-2019 07:52 AM)UTerry Wrote:  A football season where picked to win the conference outright with on paper superior talent. The current year's football team has self destructed and embarrasses themselves in losing games to teams that they should be destroying.

While most teams improve as a season goes on, this team's execution has dramatically gotten worse...…..


Moreover, a lot of the offensive play calling is VERY suspect.

Three defensive questions stand out:
1. why does the opposing quarterback able to run free like a Heisman Trophy winning running back every week?
Because we don't assign anyone to the QB and don't practice it.

2. how come the defensive backs can not tackle and just ride the receiver for 5 to 20 yards after a reception?
Because we don't practice the fundamentals of tackling. Anywhere on the defense, when we do tackle it is way too high. We are not breaking down to make the tackle.

3. when will the defense start defending crossing patterns? (and why isn't those routes in the Toledo offense's playbook?)
Apparently our DC doesn't know how to teach inside shade on bump and run.

Can someone please go find the team that went toe to toe with Kentucky at the start of the years and beat BYU & Colorado State!!!!!!!!

WASTED FREAKIN' YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is most frustrating about this is that all of these are issues week in and week out, year in and year out. We never seem to address any of these issues. The coaching on this team, especially on the defensive side, it really lacking. It will be interesting to see if there are some changes to this staff in the offseason. I truly believe there is more than enough talent for us to have a pretty darn good defense. We need a staff that can coach these kids up.

(11-14-2019 08:27 AM)bcunn3128 Wrote:  

(11-14-2019 08:17 AM)BrianNowicki Wrote:  

(11-14-2019 07:52 AM)UTerry Wrote:  A football season where picked to win the conference outright with on paper superior talent. The current year's football team has self destructed and embarrasses themselves in losing games to teams that they should be destroying.

While most teams improve as a season goes on, this team's execution has dramatically gotten worse...…..


Moreover, a lot of the offensive play calling is VERY suspect.

Three defensive questions stand out:
1. why does the opposing quarterback able to run free like a Heisman Trophy winning running back every week?
Because we don't assign anyone to the QB and don't practice it.

2. how come the defensive backs can not tackle and just ride the receiver for 5 to 20 yards after a reception?
Because we don't practice the fundamentals of tackling. Anywhere on the defense, when we do tackle it is way too high. We are not breaking down to make the tackle.

3. when will the defense start defending crossing patterns? (and why isn't those routes in the Toledo offense's playbook?)
Apparently our DC doesn't know how to teach inside shade on bump and run.

Can someone please go find the team that went toe to toe with Kentucky at the start of the years and beat BYU & Colorado State!!!!!!!!

WASTED FREAKIN' YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I want to add one more...why do opponents continue to flood one side of the field with more receivers than we have defenders?

On more than a few plays, NIU had 3 receivers to one side, and we had 2 defenders...on one play, we had 1. ONE! And if we were counting on a "LB" to slide over, it never happened. Not once.

And other teams have been successful throwing the ball against us in the same manner.

an example:
How about the 40 plus yard touchdown pass in the southeast corner where the receiver was so wide open behind the defense along the sideline where the closest man to him was another Huskie who was 10 yards to his right also behind the defensive backs, wide open. and the closest defender was 5 yards to his right of the 2nd receiver, near the hash mark...….

Could be worse... You could be Ohio fans

(11-14-2019 11:18 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  Could be worse... You could be Ohio fans

Ohio would beat us by 3 TD's, like they did a couple of years ago.

Ohio Fans don't understand what winning a title is since most haven't experienced it in their lifetime.

We are now the Michigan of the MAC.

(11-14-2019 11:18 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  Could be worse... You could be Ohio fans

As an institution and fan base we have given this staff and players MORE than enough resources. I agree that we are becoming the UM of the MAC. Hope that there are U Hall discussions on what must be done to reverse this mess. We have seen the BG fiasco and the worst 1/2 of FB (Ball St) in 40 years. This board has provided way too many legitimate observations of a program in free fall. The "you could be Ohio" line rings hollow. Why aren't we at LEAST App State for heavens sake! WASTED FREAKIN' YEAR!!!

After BYU, I really thought 11-1 was within reach. We were set for a New Year’s day appearance. I saw improvements between the CSU game and that game. Really still scratching my head about the BG performance, but from the attitudes of the players in the second half of that game, I could see that it was going to carry forward to Ball State.
I would love to know what happened internally that precipitated this collapse. Are the players just snowflakes that can’t respond to adversity? As disappointed as I am, I think I’m more confused.

(11-14-2019 07:52 AM)UTerry Wrote:  A football season where picked to win the conference outright with on paper superior talent. The current year's football team has self destructed and embarrasses themselves in losing games to teams that they should be destroying.

While most teams improve as a season goes on, this team's execution has dramatically gotten worse...…..


Moreover, a lot of the offensive play calling is VERY suspect.

Three defensive questions stand out:
1. why does the opposing quarterback able to run free like a Heisman Trophy winning running back every week?
2. how come the defensive backs can not tackle and just ride the receiver for 5 to 20 yards after a reception?
3. when will the defense start defending crossing patterns? (and why isn't those routes in the Toledo offense's playbook?)

Can someone please go find the team that went toe to toe with Kentucky at the start of the years and beat BYU & Colorado State!!!!!!!!

WASTED FREAKIN' YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, but I think many of us overestimated the talent and coaching on this team and had unrealistic expectations of their potential this season. Its a wasted season when potential is not met, I don't think this team had a high potential to begin with, we were just blind to it.

The shine is off

(11-14-2019 12:24 PM)PaulJ Wrote:  

(11-14-2019 07:52 AM)UTerry Wrote:  A football season where picked to win the conference outright with on paper superior talent. The current year's football team has self destructed and embarrasses themselves in losing games to teams that they should be destroying.

While most teams improve as a season goes on, this team's execution has dramatically gotten worse...…..


Moreover, a lot of the offensive play calling is VERY suspect.

Three defensive questions stand out:
1. why does the opposing quarterback able to run free like a Heisman Trophy winning running back every week?
2. how come the defensive backs can not tackle and just ride the receiver for 5 to 20 yards after a reception?
3. when will the defense start defending crossing patterns? (and why isn't those routes in the Toledo offense's playbook?)

Can someone please go find the team that went toe to toe with Kentucky at the start of the years and beat BYU & Colorado State!!!!!!!!

WASTED FREAKIN' YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, but I think many of us overestimated the talent and coaching on this team and had unrealistic expectations of their potential this season. Its a wasted season when potential is not met, I don't think this team had a high potential to begin with, we were just blind to it.

I agree with this...when you consider that we are a handful of plays away from losing all or most of those 1-score games that we won, then we are much closer to being a 2-win team than we are to being a 9-win team.

Summing up the year:

Will likely end up 6-6 with no bowl game.
- MAC losses were to 3-7 BGSU (with 1 of those wins against a FCS team); 3-6 NIU (prior to beating us); and 4-6 Ball State.
Kentucky loss by "only" 14 doesn't look so great when you consider their other wins on the season were against EMU, Missouri (decent win), and Arkansas (2-7 and headed to 2-9)
- We are 11th in the MAC in yards per game allowed. Only Kent State is worse - and we barely beat them. Even BG is better.
- we are dead last in the MAC in passing defense - allowing 266/game. Best is Miami at 191. BG is at 229.
- we are 9th in the MAC for rushing defense at 199/game.
- 118th in the nation in total defense. Only Kent State is worse in the MAC. 30th in the nation in Total Offense.
- shockingly only 47th in the nation in penalty yards/game at 51.7/game. Best in MAC is EMU.
- defense is only 6th is giving up points/game (so that justifies "bend don't break philosophy"?). We are 2-2 against teams that give up more pts/game.
- we are tied for 106th in the country in turnover margin at -5. Only Ohio and Akron are worse. NIU is also -5
- tied for 115th in the country in turnovers gained. NIU, Akron, and Ohio are worse in the MAC. Such an aggressive defense being coached. Can't tackle or strip the ball out.

No stat available for most inefficient use of the game clock... Seems 130th is a lock.

Can now justify a push for the DC to get a raise and an extension on his contract. Top recruits? This is what we have pulled out of that talent?

stats are only through 11/13/19 - so will drop in a number of areas.

(11-14-2019 07:52 AM)UTerry Wrote:  A football season where picked to win the conference outright with on paper superior talent. The current year's football team has self destructed and embarrasses themselves in losing games to teams that they should be destroying.

While most teams improve as a season goes on, this team's execution has dramatically gotten worse...…..


Moreover, a lot of the offensive play calling is VERY suspect.

Three defensive questions stand out:
1. why does the opposing quarterback able to run free like a Heisman Trophy winning running back every week?
2. how come the defensive backs can not tackle and just ride the receiver for 5 to 20 yards after a reception?
3. when will the defense start defending crossing patterns? (and why isn't those routes in the Toledo offense's playbook?)

Can someone please go find the team that went toe to toe with Kentucky at the start of the years and beat BYU & Colorado State!!!!!!!!

WASTED FREAKIN' YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One play stands out lastnight. NIU ball carrier was being tackled and I believe it was ******* in front of them and he stood there and they ran into him. He wasn’t even trying to tackle until he was ran into. It looked like he didn’t even know what he was supposed to do