ETSU Game Thread

[tim]

You can accept a bad physical night, but not a bad mental night, especially at Furman

EXACTLY. It's the mental that killed me.. not knowing a RULE??? inexcusable.

Hate to say it but Furman was dead in the water before that catch.

[furman88]

Hate to pile on but I cant believe what I just watched. We were beaten in every phase of the game. Some hope first half but looked helpless in the second half. I've taken my purple glasses off and what I see is a very mediocore to lower half team of SOCON. May not win a game this year. I'm sure the team and staff are hurting but I can't find any consolation in any part of this. From riches to rags. Sun will come up tom hope this ship can turn directions before it sinks.

[gofurman]

Furman was an 88% favorite in this game, even at ETSU and even after the Elon beatdown.

There's no silver lining here. As fast as the program looked to be back, it's completely disintegrated.

There are going to be those that talk about how it's far too soon to be really concerned, but the unfortunate reality is that the program is at a dead end. Last year was a fluke driven by a very talented, senior QB and Cronic as the OC. Neither of those conditions will be replicated any time soon, and neither will a successful season.

Well coached teams in the 2nd year of a staff just don't look like this in 2 straight weeks. Doesn't happen. Folks can deny reality for as long as they want, years, just like has been the case before.

I do laugh at how we here will only criticize AFTER a coaching regime is gone... Like they admit Lamb's recruiting failures (great skill players but no OL / DL trench guys) only after he is gone... and how Fowler only giving lip service to the running game after promising he was all about running (also having some weird OL blocking that never worked)... but people would gloss over it on here until those coaching staffs were gone. Now they admit it. I hope we aren't looking at something we will be having to talk about in a few years

I do allow the OL is SOOOOO YOUNG - 4 soph and 1 junior ? But still

I mean, ETSU was LUCKY to beat VMI. VMI who many said couldn't compete with anyone this year. VMI coulda beat this team that didn't just beat us tonight.. they took our best shot and came storming back w 23 unanswered points from 27-6 to 29-27

Makes you wonder about playing the other QB and possibly leaving points on the field??????

What if we have Roberts in the whole time and get up 34-6? But what the hell was that pass defense too? Staggs, what the crap was that?


Look - Hopefully we are fine long-term.. you know i am such a passionate fan.. just too much of this sh*t lately. Hoep we have the right guys in place to turn it around. May just be a bad year.. which is odd with our D talent - 9 of 11 D starters return.. plus Trapp.. we should be nasty on D. and we are at times. I know, this ETSU team rolled up a lot of O last year too. It's just we scored 50+ on em last year.

[purplehorse]

I do not remember such a terrible loss in watching FU football for 50 plus years (as far as blowing a late lead).

We dominated for 3/4 of the game.

Pass interference on the next to last play.

Amazing it was like the tale of first 3/4 and last 1/4.

I would blame the kneeling at the 2 on the coaches not the player.

I was still confident after our first two games but a conference loss to ETSU really hurts our conference chances. Beating Wofford is now a must-win.

I am still hopeful.

[dins13]

Relax. It's a terrible loss on the heels of another terrible loss; defined by being a young team in a head coach's 2nd year after the program was left hanging for years, first by administration with a good head coach, then by a good man who just didn't cut it as a head coach. That was rough tonight. It was ugly. I hated it. But goodness, relax. CCH and co. will be fine. Will it be a long year? Probably. Do two games mean we suddenly need to blow up the program, the stadium, the locker rooms, and start from scratch? Absolutely not. Give him time. Relax. Go 'Dins!

[FU3]

We are a young team on the road and get up on a team that looked several times like they wanted to quit. It is inexplicable why we would put a true FR QB in when we had this team on the ropes. Our play calling in the 4 th Q was just about as bad as you can get. We ran the speed option pitch and never had it stopped ... didn’t call it once in the 4th. I still believe in this staff but this is painful to watch.

[Paul C]

I usually don’t post after losses like this. Let the emotions cool off. But went into the stats and noticed this...

With 8:19 to go in Q3 we scored a TD to go up 27-6.

From that point on we had 5 offensive possessions that generated 7 net total yards (and 6 were on the last possession).

[Jasper]

To call whatever that was a disappointing loss would be a gross understatement. I cannot find a glimmer of a ray of sunshine in that terrible display by players and coaches. After opening up the playbook and building a nice lead against a pedestrian ETSU team, we played not to lose and, of course, we did. We simply are not a good team and with all the returning players from last year's exciting team, I find that hard to understand. The game was actually brutal to watch in all aspects. We had a glimpse of a potential problem in the intra-squad game and were assured that it was just practice and "situational" and didn't really matter. It did. I wish I had an answer to what ails this team but I strongly suspect that the now departed OC, Drew Cronic, did not get enough credit for last season's success. There is little resemblance now between the squads and that cant just be the absence of a few players - every team has attrition. I have no idea what the coaching staff does going forward.

[gofurman]

Next we get WCU - we can keep in mind that VMI was able to hang 50 pts on WCU. Heck VMI scares me a little - they have gone air raid and threw the ball 73 times today for near 500 yards.

[youwouldno]

The UFFP "it will be fine" routine is like a Monty Python sketch at this point. We've been assured this by various longtime posters with respect to Lamb and then Fowler, and Davis and even Jackson.

These claims are always supported by made-up rationales with zero basis in reality . . . it's because of the facilities . . . injuries . . . the 2nd year is the hardest (empirically false by the way). There's always something.

Of course, there's nothing that can be done about the situation, so even irrational optimism is an understandable choice, given the absence of alternatives. I just don't get a lot of satisfaction out of watching games like we've seen against Elon and ETSU, and am not really interested in a few more years of it.

[sluggo]

Makes you wonder about playing the other QB and possibly leaving points on the field??????

What if we have Roberts in the whole time and get up 34-6?

God forbid HR's helmet ever comes off and he has to miss a play; then we're DOOMED right?
Come on man.

[Jasper]

The UFFP "it will be fine" routine is like a Monty Python sketch at this point. We've been assured this by various longtime posters with respect to Lamb and then Fowler, and Davis and even Jackson.

These claims are always supported by made-up rationales with zero basis in reality . . . it's because of the facilities . . . injuries . . . the 2nd year is the hardest (empirically false by the way). There's always something.

Of course, there's nothing that can be done about the situation, so even irrational optimism is an understandable choice, given the absence of alternatives. I just don't get a lot of satisfaction out of watching games like we've seen against Elon and ETSU, and am not really interested in a few more years of it.

And therein lies the real effect of a game like this. It was brutal to watch and no one wants to do that.

[furman88]

Cannot put lipstick on this pig. I think the Elon beatdown was for real, no fluke and exposed the problems of this team and staff. This game for sure proved it. I totally get having bad games but too much pattern here. Gonna sleep on this and maybe tom I see things look better. This team is totally out of sync.

[apaladin]

When they changed QB's he threw for 202 yds in a quarter and a half. I thought we were supposed to be pretty strong in the secondary. Even after the safety and when we got the ball back were in decent shape with a first down at their 41. You just cannot take a sack in that situation.

[gofurman]

Makes you wonder about playing the other QB and possibly leaving points on the field??????

What if we have Roberts in the whole time and get up 34-6?

God forbid HR's helmet ever comes off and he has to miss a play; then we're DOOMED right?
Come on man.

No. I'm talking about THE STUPID (I said it during the game and it played out that way) decision to keep putting Grainger in for several series. Like in the second half. First series w Roberts. Result - TD. Next series - put Grainger in .... Runs two plays which get nothing and it Forces us to put Roberts back in for a third and long which was a known passing down. So forces Roberts into a bad situation. CMON MAN.

If you don't think QBs make a difference look at what ETSU did w the two different QBs, no???

But Sluggo. Look you know your stuff. You certainly do. But I also recall You said on the uffp that Roberts wasn't going to QB this year. You said that decision was obviously over since he hadn't come back since Clemson. That we were moving on w One of the youngsters. Hmmm. Cmon man

No worries. We are all just frustrated. Lots of blame in that game. Mental errors. Pass D gave up TONS of yards. Offense Gaines less than 20 yards in last 5 possessions.

ONE POSITIVE - we finally got a turnover. Finally.