Football Season Begins Today

[MRuler 79]

Now that we've seen the good, the bad and the ugly lets begin the season over at 2-2.

Many of you have seen the games. I have only watched the second half of the Pitt and Morgan State  games. Most of you are more qualified to make commentary since many of you have been to the games or watched on television, computer etc. From the games I have read about Rhode Island was a dumpster fire. Rhody is improved but they are not 45-7 in the 4th qtr better, that was just a defensive abomination by us. The Morgan State game was a disaster from a QB standpoint. Impossible to win throwing that many picks and somehow we managed to get the W. If VT doesn't throw those picks we win 30-13. St. Francis is not awful and they are far superior to Morgan State. I was worried about SFU to be honest, they went toe to toe with Richmond. In fact I think SFU beat Morgan State a year or two ago soundly.

OK,  going forward it is clear our offense is finally clicking on all cylinders. Defense cant cover anyone. I think the LB play is ok, not great. DL needs more pressure and I think we need to bring along some RS Frosh to rotate through the secondary as they are terrible. If our D could play the way it did in the second half of the Pitt game we will be in business. Remember, we have never been great defending the pass just look to the last 30 years so this isn't a surprise. OK, here is the silver lining...with the exception of Delaware (overrated) and Maine (Tough as hell) the rest of  the schedule is soft. UNH has not won a game, SBU is overrated and will be exposed by Villanova this weekend, WM may not be as good as St. Francis, Towson is on our level maybe less, Richmond is bad. All of these teams will struggle to defend our offense if VT doesn't go into the tank. The worry of course is everyone will throw on us. If we can get our secondary to play at the college level and not the high school level we realistically could win 7 games. No, I am not drunk this morning. No kidding posters it could happen. Our offense is very good but the D is mediocre. The secondary kids that were hurt were nothing special last year so for them being hurt is really a non event. The next 4-5 games are VERY winnable. If we piss away the Wm & Mary game the season is over.

I wont point fingers or call for anyone's head...yet. 6-5 … 7-4 or better would be acceptable to keep this regime in place. 

 

 

[godanesgo99]

You should give Morgan State more credit. They beat North Carolina A+T this weekend. NCAT was #4 in the FCS rankings.

For what looked like a relatively easy schedule this season, the opponents have been better than expected so far (opposite of last years Basketball Schedule)

• Pittsburgh - ACC School
• URI - Much better than anyone thought. Almost beat UCONN, and beat Delaware who was picked high in the preseason. 
• Morgan State - see above win, and although it is their only win - they haven't played an easy schedule at all
• St. Francis. - Almost upset Richmond, and are actually a pretty good team

[reeder]

I absolutely agree that 6 or 7 wins is possible - we have a remarkably light schedule.  I think the defense does need to improve - we’ve struggled at CB for years, not sure we have the athletes to cover athletic receivers.  We also need improvement on the DL - not sure why they seem to be struggling.  Good news in Josh Wynn is back soon so that’ll help.

[Dane96]

Ruler with an honest, and fair post.  

Can't disagree with most--if any--of what you've written.  I do think, however, SBU is much better than people are giving them credit for this year.

The Morgan St game vs. NC AT&T either exposed AT&T or was a one off Any Given Saturday.  I'm going with the later.

[Clickclack]

I wholeheartedly disagree with the assessment that the D is mediocre. I think the D is outright atrocious. I don't see anything there that would give anyone hope. I think our secondary is absolutely abysmal. Corners in particular can't cover anyone and are constantly beat. As a unit I think the tackling including the LB is very very poor, they can' barely if ever wrap up, lots of arm tackles, missed tackles, poor angles on pursuits. The D line gets almost zero penetration. 

If you look at the statistics, scoring defense is ranked 10th, passing defense is ranked 10th, total defense is 8th, red zone defense is dead last the only area we are mediocre in is rushing defense. 

 

I think most likely area of improvement is LB play, maybe that can be mediocre with some more reps, practices etc. 

 

I fear the secondary is completely helpless...case in point last game, they got abused, kids were outjumped, fell down tripping over their own feet etc. I'm still wondering what the game plan is with playing 10 years off receivers at the line. They mus have zero ability to bump and run to throw off timing routs. Playing that far off receivers they are brutalized on quick slants. 

 

If you look at the offensive stats, I still have a lot of concerns about the offensive line. Their protection is mediocre at best. 

 

I think their best chance at a win will be either UNH or Bill and Mary...that's how I see them getting to 4 wins. 

 

I think my position is well known at this point so hopefully GG and crew prove me wrong. 

[MRuler 79]

To be fair to the Defense they did register two sacks and only gave up 74 yards rushing. The OL sprung both Hanks and Mofor for 100 yards rushing and gave up one sack. VT was upright enough to throw for 300 yards. One of our sacks was late in the game and shut down any chance of an SFU comeback. We will need 3-4 sacks to make up for a poor secondary. Like you, I am truly concerned for our secondary. If we can improve a just little in the secondary that might be enough to outrun/outscore our soft portion of the schedule. I stand by my 6-7 win prediction. No margin for error against this soft schedule. Maine will be a loss guaranteed. W & M, UNH and Richmond are awful this year. Lets see how it unfolds as many were throwing dirt on them at 0-2.

At some point pride will/should kick in. They need a convincing CAA win to restore their confidence. Bill & Mary provide that opportunity. A funny thing happens when a team wins a game in convincing fashion or beats a team they are not supposed to beat, self confidence is gained or restored. When we beat Buffalo two years ago, they probably won two more games alone because they thought they were better than they actually were. The same thing happened this year but in reverse, they got destroyed by a team they are on equal footing with and its taken two mediocre wins to get them back to feeling ok about themselves. A solid win at WM should do the trick. We win at W & M we will get to 6 wins. We will need to win one of those toss up games like Delaware or SBU to get to 7.

Remember, this years offense (Dev Holmes, Hanks, McDonald and VT) is starting to click and is light years ahead of that offense that beat Buffalo, I mean we now have a serviceable to good QB. Opposing defenses cant defend everything. They can't stuff 8-9 in the box and if they do Holmes will burn them. Our D is not there...yet.

As I stated earlier if we lose to W & M we are cooked as the bottom will drop out.

Edited September 24, 2018 by MRuler 79

[HOF2013]

1 hour ago, Clickclack said:

I wholeheartedly disagree with the assessment that the D is mediocre. I think the D is outright atrocious. I don't see anything there that would give anyone hope. I think our secondary is absolutely abysmal. Corners in particular can't cover anyone and are constantly beat. As a unit I think the tackling including the LB is very very poor, they can' barely if ever wrap up, lots of arm tackles, missed tackles, poor angles on pursuits. The D line gets almost zero penetration. 

If you look at the statistics, scoring defense is ranked 10th, passing defense is ranked 10th, total defense is 8th, red zone defense is dead last the only area we are mediocre in is rushing defense. 

 

I think most likely area of improvement is LB play, maybe that can be mediocre with some more reps, practices etc. 

 

I fear the secondary is completely helpless...case in point last game, they got abused, kids were outjumped, fell down tripping over their own feet etc. I'm still wondering what the game plan is with playing 10 years off receivers at the line. They mus have zero ability to bump and run to throw off timing routs. Playing that far off receivers they are brutalized on quick slants. 

 

If you look at the offensive stats, I still have a lot of concerns about the offensive line. Their protection is mediocre at best. 

 

I think their best chance at a win will be either UNH or Bill and Mary...that's how I see them getting to 4 wins. 

 

I think my position is well known at this point so hopefully GG and crew prove me wrong. 

Of course you do!

[HOF2013]

5 hours ago, MRuler 79 said:

Now that we've seen the good, the bad and the ugly lets begin the season over at 2-2.

Many of you have seen the games. I have only watched the second half of the Pitt and Morgan State  games. Most of you are more qualified to make commentary since many of you have been to the games or watched on television, computer etc. From the games I have read about Rhode Island was a dumpster fire. Rhody is improved but they are not 45-7 in the 4th qtr better, that was just a defensive abomination by us. The Morgan State game was a disaster from a QB standpoint. Impossible to win throwing that many picks and somehow we managed to get the W. If VT doesn't throw those picks we win 30-13. St. Francis is not awful and they are far superior to Morgan State. I was worried about SFU to be honest, they went toe to toe with Richmond. In fact I think SFU beat Morgan State a year or two ago soundly.

OK,  going forward it is clear our offense is finally clicking on all cylinders. Defense cant cover anyone. I think the LB play is ok, not great. DL needs more pressure and I think we need to bring along some RS Frosh to rotate through the secondary as they are terrible. If our D could play the way it did in the second half of the Pitt game we will be in business. Remember, we have never been great defending the pass just look to the last 30 years so this isn't a surprise. OK, here is the silver lining...with the exception of Delaware (overrated) and Maine (Tough as hell) the rest of  the schedule is soft. UNH has not won a game, SBU is overrated and will be exposed by Villanova this weekend, WM may not be as good as St. Francis, Towson is on our level maybe less, Richmond is bad. All of these teams will struggle to defend our offense if VT doesn't go into the tank. The worry of course is everyone will throw on us. If we can get our secondary to play at the college level and not the high school level we realistically could win 7 games. No, I am not drunk this morning. No kidding posters it could happen. Our offense is very good but the D is mediocre. The secondary kids that were hurt were nothing special last year so for them being hurt is really a non event. The next 4-5 games are VERY winnable. If we piss away the Wm & Mary game the season is over.

I wont point fingers or call for anyone's head...yet. 6-5 … 7-4 or better would be acceptable to keep this regime in place. 

 

 

Well stated!  

[godanesgo99]

When do we see our 6'7" fan favorite tight end...

Edited September 24, 2018 by godanesgo99

[Clickclack]

1 hour ago, HOF2013 said:

Of course you do!

You seem to be under impression that I like swapping coaches for the fun of it... Unlike you, I'll come and give credit if they earn it. 

You on the other hand are here for one reason... To spin like a top for gg. Even when it's ugly... You just out here telling us we are all blind and things are great. That's despicable... 

Morgan state shredded this defense... 300 yards in a half. 

If they manage to get to 5 or 6 wins I'll back off gg. The fact that we are all even praying for 5 or 6 wins with this weak schedule is an indictment in itself but I won't belabor the point. 

Really need Bill and Mary to have a chance at a respectable season. 

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by Clickclack

[HOF2013]

16 hours ago, godanesgo99 said:

When do we see our 6'7" fan favorite tight end...

Maybe he can't block.  Who knows.

[UA_MA_2000]

On 9/24/2018 at 3:46 PM, godanesgo99 said:

When do we see our 6'7" fan favorite tight end...

FREE # 32!!