BullyPulpit

2 hours ago, jchem1995 said:

Penalties are a growing concern. Look at that stat.

Penalties were horrendous for the first two weeks. Bama was a pretty clean game and then we got sloppy again against Rice. It's a work in progress and something that we will hopefully continue to clean up. We are currently 126th out of 130 teams in penalty yards per game. It isn't that much of a shock that a team full of Naval cadets are the 3rd least penalized team in the country. Army is 4th and Air Force is 11th. Says something about discipline. 

WKU: 11-100

FAMU: 14-114

Bama: 5-40

Rice: 9-89

26 minutes ago, Mike Stuben said:

The Athletic has the Bulls dead last. 

The Blue Bulls

21 minutes ago, Bulls On Parade said:

Gotta take care of Navy...most important game on schedule now.

Like our dline to take the run up middle away and make Navy play east to west.

If offense can put up 28+ like our chances. 

Having a plan to stop the triple option is paramount. Given how stiff our run defense has played (top 20 nationally), I have high hopes for this game. Navy does appear to be throwing the ball a bit more this season than in seasons past, but I have to believe that we can stop them. 

16 minutes ago, CousinRicky said:

I wouldn't bet a lot of money on that happening. Unless there are only 3k student seats there will be empty seats for opponents like Rice.  Same excuses will still be there other than "It's too far to get to Ray Jay".  It is too hot. It is too early (noon starts), It is too late. It might rain.  Beer is too expensive inside the stadium.  There will be tailgating outside but not sure they make into the stadium. It will be THE thing for the first year. But win only 1 game that year and the following year you'll start seeing issues.

I have full faith that our years of winning only 1 game are behind us now. The level of competition wouldn't seem to allow for it. 

FWIW, The Athletic (paywall) has us ranked 69th. We jumped 27 spots with the win over Rice. 

The Athletic 133: How much does Ohio State jump and Notre Dame fall?

THEATHLETIC.COM

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The biggest lesson we learned is that Florida State is truly back to being one of the best teams in the country.

Talk about a sight for sore eyes....Moustache McDouchebag projects USF playing Auburn in the Gasparilla Bowl. I have to imagine that it would be well attended. Maybe Brian Battie can switch sides again prior to the game? 

Week 5 College Football Bowl Predictions: Brett McMurphy's Projections With Projected Spreads

WWW.ACTIONNETWORK.COM

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Check out Week 5 college football bowl predictions, including Brett McMurphy's projections with Action Network's projected spreads.

Atkins is a good possession receiver, Simmons showed himself to be a decent down field threat tonight. Would still like to see someone else step up, but improvement was needed and improvement was found. 

4 hours ago, GoBulls84 said:

He was not hurt, but he did in fact know he was transferring and sat out to avoid getting hurt. Jimmy Horn also knew he'd be transferring out but played till the last snap. One player quit on the team for his own good, the other continued to battle with his team until the bitter end.

Just curious how you know definitively that he was not injured. 

On 9/19/2023 at 10:58 AM, GoBulls84 said:

Agree on Horn. Weaver quit on the team with games left on the schedule, so I can't pull for his success.

He was injured and knew Scott was gone and that he was almost assuredly going to be leaving. I don't fault him. 

I do wish we had the vision and cajones to have paid up for Deion. Colorado just announced that they sold out every game for the first time in school history. He is a media magnet and it is possible that USF gets a Big 12 invite with him at the helm. Oh well, let's go CAG!  

11 minutes ago, CousinRicky said:

Never watched TN.  Did they have that stuff in their playbook?  If so, you are probably right and we'll add things as we go.

From what I saw and read, they had a few interesting wrinkles, but they also had solid o-line play and a starting QB that completed 70% of his passes. They also had WR that could beat man-to-man coverage. At some point, we need to adjust the offense somewhat to fit what limited skillsets we have. 

4 hours ago, GoBulls84 said:

I don't think it's that at all. I think the biggest part is likely that they're true freshmen and haven't yet grasped the offense. The offense puts a huge onus on the receivers and QBs being on the same page and reading the D the same way. I don't think Goach is the type to hold guys back for the sake of maybe having them available for an extra season.

This is why you create a limited package of plays for talented/athletic freshmen that play to their strengths early on in the season. Then, as time passes, you incorporate them into the offense more and more if they earn it. I really get the sense that CAG's focus is on getting the basics of his offense in place. To me, it appears that he is doing this at the expense of placing some of our guys on offense in the best position to win. Where is a rollout pass for BB? Where is a halfback wheel? Where is a jet sweep? So far, the only real creativity I have observed was the Atkins WR pass. I hope this changes as we enter conference play. 

12 minutes ago, GoBulls84 said:

Bama plays a sound, physical defense. Probably not the time to break out 5'10" 170 lb JeyQuan Smith for some end arounds and such. Going forward, I think we'll start to see he and Tyree Kelly get in the game a little more.

May also be a matter of better grasping the offense for both of them, because they've both got some good physical traits (Smith's speed, Kelly's size at 6'3" 198 lbs).

We've definitely gotta get more out of our receiving corps though. Byrum hasn't been completely in sync yet, but it's not like he's had a boatload of wide open receivers to hit.

You put them out there are select plays. These are guys that should be seeing 5 or 10% of the offensive snaps at this point. I don't necessarily mind saving them for conference play, but we better see some new blood out there on offense against Rice if we struggle to move the ball. 

29 minutes ago, Gatorbull325 said:

If I wanted to compare both seasons after 3 games then I would have simply stated it was a "comparison after 3 games". You will not see the same stats in every game b/c it fluctuates due to different factors. Which is why I didn't compare it game by game. I am basing it off of last year's TOTAL. Which part of total are ya'll missing? The To or the Tal? Also, by us being a deeper team defensively means we have a better chance of still being productive through injuries. 

But you are using the first 3 games of this season to extrapolate to a season's total. The other poster made a good point that our defensive stats through the first 3 games last year were much better than the end of season stats. That could be the case again this season, although I doubt that. This defense seems more determined, competent, and deep than last year's iteration. 

1 hour ago, Mister Armstrong said:

Some coaches adjust their schemes to their players ability instead of forcing a scheme on their players that don't fit, this is the difference between being 3-0 and 1-2.

100%. It seems that CAG seems to have made the decision that he is going to install his offense this season and the players are going to have to figure out how to make it work for them. I don't like this approach as it can cost us games early in the season, but it could also win us some later this year and next. 

The real issue is that I don't see how he could change the offense much to suit our WRs skills, or lack thereof. The only thing I could like to see is maybe a jet sweep to Joiner and  some BB rollouts. He can try to give him more time to throw, but it won't matter if the wideouts can't get any separation. We could probably also benefit from selling some play action a little bit more/better. 

3 minutes ago, Gatorbull325 said:

We have 9 games left, 10 if we make a bowl game. We had a drop-off toward the 2nd half of last year due to the depth and limitations of the players we had. This year we are playing way more players on defense due to our depth. I'm not comparing last year's "after 3 games" b/c this is a different team and set of opponents. I'm comparing it to last year's total and that we have plenty of games left to not only surpass last year's total but reach even higher goals. I am not comparing it game by game. 

He makes a good point though. You don't want to compare season to season over 3 games because it doesn't suit your narrative. I agree that this defense feels and looks different and vastly better than last year's version. However, injuries and lack of depth could rear their ugly head again at some point. I am encouraged by what I have seen, but I think we can all agree that the real season starts on Saturday. Have to carry over the positive defensive momentum from Alabama. 

2 hours ago, Rizman said:

Tell me, how did our QB go for 21 out of 21 passes last year vs. Tulsa and this year in the Alabama game the WR was open in the middle in 1st quarter heading to the end-zone and over threw him.   It seems to me something with this system has his timing all off.  Also, I do think the WR's this year are not the caliber we had last year.   Thoughts?

This one is easy. Our offensive line was much better last season. Additionally, we had real playmakers and gamebreakers at the WR and RB position. While our RBs have been solid, none of them are Battie. Likewise, X and Horn are just amazing WRs. They are a big part of the reason why Colorado is 3-0. If BB still had those guys to throw to, I am certain that we would have beaten Bama. Our wideouts do not have the ability to get separation. Atkins, a former walk-on, is the only consistent one among the group. CAG needs to start looking further down the bench in hopes of finding a guy who can be a true #1. 

For Battie it is a shame that he ran off to Auburn. They don't know how to utilize him in their offense. I really think we could be undefeated right now if the three of them had just stayed in Tampa. 

I love that he took ownership of the interception. I 100% agree with him that wasn't the time to go deep. 

Have to love everything he says and the way he handles himself. We are getting there. Let's hope the wins start coming. With that level of effort that we saw today they most certainly will. 

Like most on here I'm happy with the competitive l this team showed, but I'm disappointed that we didn't try anything on offense. No trick plays, no jet sweeps, nothing. I know we don't have playmakers on offense, but I would have expected that we try something to catch Bama off guard. This game was winnable. 

1 minute ago, Gismo said:

Our offense in the first two games got plenty of yards. We just don’t have the speed to match this defense. They just line up man coverage and our QB has few options. We’re left with short passes, and even with the gimme passes we can’t get yards offer catch because their defense is there in an instant. 
 

We’ve had some success running, hopefully we have some creativity to break away from their defense because I don’t think we can do it with our receivers alone. Need misdirection, blocks, screens, etc. 

Great points. Our receivers are just not good. Three big drops so far. They can't get any separation. We need Bama to make some defensive mistakes to have any chance in this one. 

10 minutes ago, El_Toro_86 said:

They changed the rules to shorten the game and the end result was the opposite.  I can watch 4 hours of football and enjoy the hell out of it.  What I don't like watching is 47 minutes of football and and 3 and 13 minutes of other ********.  You can only see so many car commercials.

It doesn't seem to be fazing the average consumer, as TV viewership appears to be way up over last season, and that is with a dearth of top 25 matchups. 

Is next year the year fans tune out college football because of the 'disaster' that is NIL?

SPORTS.YAHOO.COM

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If anything, the era of NIL and the transfer portal is leveling the playing field at the top of college football.

3 minutes ago, Bull94 said:

I thought that's what paying for tickets was for.

personally I wish they would just scroll advertisements. Sure at the end of the quarter or during halftime go at it but don't stop the game for commercials.

There's this thing call TV coverage. You are paying for the right to attend live and that money doesn't go to the networks at all. Others are paying for the right to watch remotely. It's a necessary evil. No sense in getting upset about it. 

5 minutes ago, Rocky Style said:

Again, not arguing a binary that they should exist or not. Aware of economics.

Then what would be the point of people complaining? 

1 minute ago, belgianbull said:

If its a USF game I really don't care how long the game is, but for me who is more of a casual sports watcher, and don't really watch professional sports except for occasional soccer and UFC its off putting when a game on espn (or whatever channel) starts at 7:30 pm, and you know the game will run past midnight. Most times I don't even bother watching it since I know I will be in bed before the game ends.

Now if I was attending a game life I wouldn't care at all how long a game goes.

I have gone to recording games and then fast forward through them and it is mind-numbing how much commercials there are.

UFC you say....the company that has a half-hour between fights and has events that go past 1 am? I know the events are less frequent, but there is a ton of downtime in the UFC. 

1 minute ago, Rocky Style said:

No, but the thing people are noting there are more stoppages, not that commercials should not exist.

But the stoppages (commercials) need to exist in order to pay for the product that we are consuming and line their shareholders pockets. This is sports capitalism at its finest. It may be frustrating to some, but nothing is going to change it. 

3 minutes ago, Rocky Style said:

I've seen different initial data on week 0 and 1. But maybe they are fixing this after all the complaints.  

The title of the thread says "game lengths" but I think no one is arguing about the game length, but rather the actual "clock time" it takes to get through a game with all the stoppages and TV timeouts.