ETSU SUMMARY

[gofurman]

Thoughts?

Positives’
1). We WON!!! That’s what matters. On road. Conference game on road

2). What won this game was Defense and the DL of Furman. Which I loved !! Creating turnovers and all that pressure on their qb Riddell. That’s what won the game. Allowing only 14 points. We just keep punting to them and they couldn’t do anything with it. Awesome!

3). DL!! Wow. Wow. So much pressure to flush Riddell out of pocket. And all over Saylor

4). So proud of overall gut check win. I was super worried when we had three turnovers from them and a whopping 6 points.

5). OL protection. Love it. ETSu knew we had to throw on second and third and etsu got very little pressure.

6) Having Huff at QB and loving that he is a true dual-threat QB. It is an extra option on offense.. Love it. Do they not spy and we get yards if he pulls the ball from the belly of RB. If they leave a spy they have lost a coverage guy. Great weapon.


Areas to improve ‘
- Also we did play a little safe on O. So many runs on first down for 1 yd. Throw on first! After all the throws at Clemson I felt we were a little conservative tonight on first down. Even if you wanna run Roberto to keep a D honest you don’t have to always do it on first down. To be fair ETSU did much the same. I think both coaches may look at tape and wonder if they shoulda thrown a few more on first down. My opinion. But to back this even the great and wonderful FUBEAR thought we would win with 35 points. Give ETSU DL and LBs credit. They SHUT DOWN our RB position

- basic run game. Even if outnumbered at LOS we should a get three yards Occasionally. Literally every time we gave it to a RB it was one yd. Gain

- clearly we missed a few throws we hit last week. Just a little off before he warmed up more. Good we could win anyway. But yeah few throws were a foot or so too far in front or whatever

- few catches we have to make. Few that we caught last week and dropped this week. Man that one for a TD we dropped (long pass right on money) worried it would haunt us but we kept moving and I think scored that drive. Few TE n WR catches we need to make to keep moving

- saw Blackshear leave and not return. Hope he’s ok

- oh, damnit - NO freakin taunting penalties. Please. Penalties of effort (PI etc) are ok. They happen. But just to lose your head, can't do that

[purplehorse]

HUGE WIN! Lose tonight and the conference would have been an uphill battle. We are off to a good start. Things to improve on but I think offense and defense have great potential. Sweet to beat ETSU son the road.

[apaladin]

Wonder how much ground we will lose in the polls? Everyone will drop ET from the polls so again we won’t get any credit.

[gofurman]

Wonder how much ground we will lose in the polls? Everyone will drop ET from the polls so again we won’t get any credit.

i hear ya. oh man I hear ya

[The Jackal]

Defensively
We looked strong. We were active up front, got our hands on the football, created some tight throwing windows, and stopped the run. Saylors is an all american and he really had nowhere to go in either the running or passing game.

Statistically, we are surrendering 16.3 ppg after having played Clemson and ETSU on the road. That will play at this level. It really never felt like ETSU was going to sustain a drive yesterday without our help.

Offensively
It wasn't the best I had seen us, but it was respectable. The Bucs defense keyed hard on our running back, which seemed to surprise us. The counter to that is pull the ball and run to the edge, which we did with good success. We can also play action and throw some slants behind the linebackers - that worked well at times too, but we misfired on a few throws. I can't remember a game where we had as much trouble getting the ball to Miller, who had a few drops himself.

Joshua Harris really stepped up. I've enjoyed watching him get better every week. With as much attention as ETSU paid to Miller and the backs, someone was going to need to step up in the passing game. Harris routinely beat his man inside and made some nice catches in traffic.

I was a little surprised we didn't air it out downfield more. We had two incompletions on long passing attempts - Dean dropped a catchable ball in the end zone and on the other the ETSU DB made a spectacular play.

I know they are 0-2 in the conference, but ETSU is going to beat most of the SoCon teams they face, I think. They are a good football team. I think we are a better football team.

[The Jackal]

At first blush, this play seemed like a mental mistake. On a 4th down, the better idea is to knock the ball down and gain some 30 yards of field position back.

At second look, it's a really impressive play by Morris. Huzzie is known for just jumping over defensive backs to high point the ball. Not many DBs out jump him, and that's sure enough what happened here. I'm not sure if Morris attempted to knock this ball down instead of catch it that it wouldn't have been a completion.

[FUBeAR]

Shoulda knocked it down

[FUBeAR]

Don’t see Furman cracking most of the Top 25 Polls until after defeating ChuckSouth AND Samford…and that’s if, a BIG IF, Samford beats WCU this coming Saturday.

The exception to this could be if a bunch of #18-#25 ranked Teams lose to unranked Teams next week.

Furman not in the Top 25 is stupid and wrong and Poll voters know it, but they would rather twist up some kind of pretzel logic to keep ‘preferred’ Teams/Conferences ranked high/higher because they know these polls do matter when the Playoff Committee gets around to handing out At-Large Bids & Seeds exerting as little mental/analytical effort as possible.

[The Jackal]

In the vein of "why do we keep running up the middle," this is why:

ETSU has 7 in the box and actually drops their safety into the box off the snap to give them 8. They outnumber Furman up front. ETSU's game plan last night was obviously to force Furman to throw the ball.

Huff reads the linebacker. When he steps up, he pulls the ball and throws behind him. This was open all night. We completed a few for nice gains. A few others were just a little off target, but still open.

[AstroDin]

Guys, we have a QB that just played his third game in what two years? Add in the factor that we just played arguably against the best DC in the conference.

The upside of this offense and the players is scary. I don't think anyone will want to play us late in the season.

Another note about the game, mentioned by the radio crew-we had several players (Devin Abrams) slip consistently on that turf. Not sure what that was about.

We need more Hicks!

[The Jackal]

Guys, we have a QB that just played his third game in what two years? Add in the factor that we just played arguably against the best DC in the conference.

The upside of this offense and the players is scary. I don't think anyone will want to play us late in the season.

Scored 27 and it felt like we left points out there all night.

[Davemeister]

Scored 27 and it felt like we left points out there all night.

That's the biggest negative from last night's game.

For the second week in a row, we failed to cash in on multiple scoring opportunities. Three first half ETSU turnovers should have converted into more than 6 points.

Game ball goes to the Defense, no question.

Watching the 4th Quarter last night was like viewing a re-run you've seen all too many times before. Good Guys have the lead but can't put the game out of reach. Bad Guys get the ball with 2 minutes left, march smartly down the field and score the winning TD. Just like last year. Only THIS time the D edits the film and we have a Happy Ending!

Amazing how good that first cup of Java tasted this morning with fond memories of a WIN to go along with it. Like Coach Lombardi said: "Winning isn't everything, it's the Only Thing!" Hope we make it a habit like it used to be.

Well, enough of my stream-of-conscious ramblings. Aren't the Charleston Southerns called "Buccaneers" too? First time in our history we've had the chance to make pirates walk the plank two weels in a row.

[gofurman]

Scored 27 and it felt like we left points out there all night.

That's the biggest negative from last night's game.

For the second week in a row, we failed to cash in on multiple scoring opportunities. Three first half ETSU turnovers should have converted into more than 6 points.

Game ball goes to the Defense, no question.

Watching the 4th Quarter last night was like viewing a re-run you've seen all too many times before. Good Guys have the lead but can't put the game out of reach. Bad Guys get the ball with 2 minutes left, march smartly down the field and score the winning TD. Just like last year. Only THIS time the D edits the film and we have a Happy Ending!

Amazing how good that first cup of Java tasted this morning with fond memories of a WIN to go along with it. Like Coach Lombardi said: "Winning isn't everything, it's the Only Thing!" Hope we make it a habit like it used to be.

Well, enough of my stream-of-conscious ramblings. Aren't the Charleston Southerns called "Buccaneers" too? First time in our history we've had the chance to make pirates walk the plank two weels in a row.

Game ball to D. Absolutely. Three turnovers caused by D early !!! … O made only 6 points with that. You can’t ask more of the D. Area for improvement there on O.

As Astro pointed out Huff and WRs only has three weeks in new OC system. I was a little concerned with pre-season. Any system
Takes time to learn and perfect. But I am glad Quarles is at ETSU. glad to have Roper!

[saltyshaker]

biggest concern for me was our inability to convert on 3rd down and 4th down.after going 10-18 vrs clemson we were only 3-14 vrs etsu.and some of these were quite short yardage.conversely our defense only gave up something like 5-15.nonetheless we made the plays we needed to make at crucial times and pretty much shut down their offense in the 4th qtr.

[FUBeAR]

Another note about the game, mentioned by the radio crew-we had several players (Devin Abrams) slip consistently on that turf. Not sure what that was about.

A Mercer WR slipping/falling untouched on a route cost Mercer the INT that kept the Bears from icing ETSU in the 4th quarter last year, led to ETSU going ahead, and winning the SoCon Championship instead of Mercer winning it. FUBeAR thinks the FoothillsFelons are happy with their slippery turf.