Let's not be USiF

[kastofsna]

i'm reading a ton of reactionary threads this morning talking about officiating and other things, and the over-positive folks pointing to the fact that we barely lost, blah blah blah.

scoreboard.

we lost. period. i don't care how "close" we were.

and, by the way? we weren't that close. outplayed in every single phase of the game. let's look at the checklist:

Offensive Passing game - Rutgers. Grothe passed better than Teel, but the 38 sacks negate all of that. Teel had all day to throw, Grothe rarely had a chance to do anything.

Offensive Running game - Rutgers. duh.

Overall offense - Rutgers. Rice did everything except score. Grothe looked awesome at times, but he can't do everything, as much as he tried.

Defensive Passing game - Rutgers. just relentless pressure all night on Grothe. blitzing on every single play. we had some awful tackling on that long TD pass by Teel. awful.

Defensive Running game - Rutgers. again, duh.

Overall defense - Rutgers.

Kicking game - Rutgers. we blocked one of their field goals, but we missed one ourselves and had another blocked. their fake field goal was executed just about perfectly.

Punting game - Rutgers. Alvarado is NOT a good punter, let's end that myth. too many horrible touchbacks, and never put Rutgers in bad field position. their fake punt also ices this one.

Kickoff return game - Rutgers. they had several big returns, and we were tackled before reaching the 20 several times. great.

Punting return game - USF. so far, the only phase of the game we won, simply because Rutgers muffed two punts. oh, and we didn't take advantage.

Overal special teams - Rutgers. those fakes were great, and humiliated the defense. they had great kickoff returns and kicked the field goals that matter.

Turnovers - USF. Ray Rice fumbled, and there were two muffed punts, and we got a TD out of it. and if you include the blocked punt, that's still just 7 points. and they were all in pretty **** good field position. so who really won the turnover battle?

Coaching - Rutgers. BIG time here. all the fakes worked, all the blitzing worked, Ray Rice's 66 carries worked, everything worked for Schiano's team. we have a loaded backfield, and we HAVE to run those guys, we just HAVE to, simply because you can't make one player win the game for you. Rutgers is way too good and way too well-coached to let that happen. run Mike Ford more. keep Amarri Jackson off the field. actually attempt to put pressure on the QB on 3rd downs. etc. etc.

Penalties - Rutgers. obviously there were some iffy calls that went Rutgers way, that's the way it goes. and after the bogus call on the punt return in the FAU game where all the USF fans just said "that's part of the game," then you must accept it here as well. not every call goes your way. Jackson pushed off, anyone who thinks he didn't is misleading themselves. you could see the DB's body get pushed as Jackson's arms extended. that is a TEXTBOOK definition of pushing off by a wide receiver. as for the forward fumble thing, i hated as much as any USF fan, but so it goes. didn't take advantage of the blocked field goal after the penalty.

Overall - Rutgers. scoreboard.

let's stop talking about "what if" in this game, okay? we lost to a team that outplayed us, outcoached us, outeverythinged us. this is not a moral victory.

of course, despite all of this negativity, i'm not actually THAT upset over the loss. i've followed the program closely since the beginning, and to be ranked #2 in the country was an amazing experience. absolutely wonderful. our QB is still a sophomore, and our loaded backfield of great runningbacks have two freshmen. our O-Line is still young. our defense will lose some talent after this season, but we know they'll be replaced by great players. we're going to be awesome next year, and i truly have reason to have expectations for a national championship.

this year, all i really wanted was to compete for the Big East. and we're doing that. we're right in the thick of the race, and i hope our players don't abandon hope and still have that Big East trophy in their sight.

i will say this, if we only lose this one game, then it's good to lose now, more than any other time of the year. our bandwagoners are probably jumping ship now, but if we lose to Pitt or Louisville or one of those other later games, they're not getting back on the bandwagon. so we have plenty of time to keep winning and win that Big East, and they'll be back when we play in a BCS game. if we lost earlier in the year, then all the bandwagoners wouldn't have jumped on ship to begin with because we wouldn't have had all the national title talk.

also, as far as the team goes, it's actually kinda GOOD to lose in such a dominant fashion. hear me out....all of our weaknesses were basically exposed last night. now, we have an extra long week to work on everything in the film room and on the practice field. i know Leavitt won't be talking about "if you only did this...or if you only did that..." no, he's going to point out how much we were OWNED. and we'll be better for it.

so, the point i'm trying to make with all of this convulated text is....we lost. and i don't want to see our fans sink to the level of UCF fans and start spouting off crap about "if" or "we almost won!"

also i encourage anyone to point out if i made a mistake in this post. pretty heated at the moment, as is the rest of Bulls Nation.

[Rizman]

We have to fix the problems I agree.

[Guest Melissa]

I've brought up that it was a "close" game but I've only meant in score... I don't particularly care for rankings or anything, but when it comes to the voters that just vote on score alone... a 3 point loss looks a lot better on paper than a 13 point loss. I know many people lately have been so focused on the rankings and such, so it's natural to bring up that it was "close" in score at least.

I've been negative/realistic about the game, heck, a few people I normally talk to after the games refuse to talk to me now because I basically said we had our chance to turn the game around and didn't do it... no fault of anyone but the team (players and coaches included).

But... the game is over... you can't change it... so be positive and look forward to the next game. Hopefully the team will re-evaluate somethings and up their game for UConn.