Back home and some time to digest the game a bit.
Offense
It's hard to complain about 426 rushing yards. WCU for most of the game wanted nothing to do with Dominic Roberto. The offensive line was blowing their group off the ball over and over again. Outstanding effort by that group.
We can't turn the ball over like that in the fourth quarter. Watching the replay, the Roberto run had blocking, and we missed a guy. Block that guy, and he may have run for another TD.
The passing game was not eye-popping, but efficient. 3 touchdowns on 7 completions. Huff again used his legs to pick needed first downs at various points.
I thought the flow of the game sort of put our play calling in a difficult spot. We got uber-conservative in the 4th quarter, but it was hard to fault that considering how well we were running the ball. I felt at times we had them set up to really try and take a shot, it was just hard to deviate from a run game that was both successful and draining the clock.
Defense
This was not a banner day for the defensive unit. They seemed ill-prepared for WCU was going to do on offense. We didn't pressure the QB, didn't tackle well, didn't cover the pass well, didn't do much anything well.
I do think some of the long TD plays this season have been the product of a high press style of football our defense wants to play. Perhaps we are asking too much of our CBs. We lead the nation in turnovers, and to some degree, that aggressive style is going to leave you exposed at certain points.
I don't know if it was execution, play calling, or we were just getting greedy or what, but we absolutely cannot let WRs get behind us with a lead in the fourth quarter. That cannot happen, much less happen several times.
I have faith our coaches are going to get that fixed. Hendrix seems to indicate those are unforced errors, so hopefully they are solvable.
Special Teams
Certainly seemed to win the game for us. Furman appeared to have a clear advantage here. We need to stop missing xpts, though.
Not sure I completely understood the squib kick with a minute left on the clock after 4th quarter field goal. I realize it makes a return less likely, but it gave WCU really solid field position for a final drive. I will say that it was quite windy according to the flags, so that may have played a role in trying to avoid kicking it deep.
Referees
I think both sides were equally annoyed by the refs for reasons already stated.
Overall
It was an odd game. If you had told me Furman would have won this game 47-40, I'd have assumed it was a standard WCU/Furman game. So many of them have felt like shootouts.
We all feel a little iffy about it because it felt like it should have been a blowout at least twice, and we just sort of fell apart.
Bottom line, though, is that football is a team game in three phases where scoring points, not accumulation of yards, is the operative measure. We did a better job of scoring points than they did.
