My take on the season so far.

[Bull-by-Marriage]

The first game: everything that could go wrong did.

 

The second game:

 

Offense:

The running game looks decent, if we had any kind of passing threat, it would look even better. As bad as our passing game was if a few catchable balls were actually caught, the game would’ve turned out quite differently (The pick six was just a couple of plays after a dropped pass that would’ve resulted in a first down).

 

Defense:

They played well enough to win. They appeared to play more disciplined, they all took care of their assignments. The only points we surrendered were on a very short field. Yes, Michigan States’ offense isn’t their strong suit, but our offense didn’t help our defense at all.  

 

Special Teams:

The kick returners need to follow the “plant your heels on the 10 and don’t go back ruleâ€. That error led directly to their first D TD. Even with the horrible punt Ciabatti averaged 40yds. Kloss is solid on KO’s and FG’s.

 

I don’t know what will happen the rest of the season, but I don’t think that we are as bad as some on here think we are.

[BDYZR]

I agree.

It'll be interesting to see if we "play to the competition" this week. That's been a problem on this team for a while now. I think that if we truly see improvement on this team, this game won't be close.

[Skingraft]

Fully agree man...  We need to keep improving and we will be ok for the future...  We go spoiled, and we do deserve to win, but lets do this right and be setup to win in the future....

 

Look around college football, the big boys are falling right and left, DC at Texas fired, KState is hurting, OU and WV are having issues....  CFB is a cycle, just like in life, we will be back....

 

Heck, I have set through miserable season openers for the Dolphins, and finally we put together a solid team and we looked pretty good yesterday...  it took time, and its finally going to pay off...

 

USF will take time... all we can do is fans is show up...

[usfgrad84]

I think there at least 4 to 6 wins in there as long as we get some sort of, at least even marginal, production from the QB.

MSU's offense is bad, but at least some credit is due to the defense for keeping them down.

Mcneese was s crappy display in their first game. The worst ever by a USF team, perhaps. MSU's defense is one of the best in the country. I think we start to see what this team can do against FAU. Given that the MSU game was winnable, I am honestly not sure to make of the Miami game yet.

One thing I was thinking about, realizing these are 18 year old kids, Under the circumstances (first road game, Big Ten opponent, first National TV game, from his end zone in a pressure situation in front of 70,000 opposing fans) I am willing to give Ciabatti a pass on that 15 yarder. I'm hoping he got the nerves out of his system now. If he keeps making punts like that under pressure then I will be concerned.

[raptorcj]

Good thread, good comments. I agree everything is fixable except maybe our offensive line, and we may can work around that. Too right about the returners, I think Hopkins just thought too much about that one kick--he won't make that mistake again.

[ajusf16]

Our O-line was getting blown up, QB had no time to make a throw.  The D lookedsolid and to only give up one touchdown and not until 10 mins or so left in the game was really promising.  Granted they are going through a qb battle as well.  

I legit thought we had a chance to win that game.  There were some questionable play calls in my opinion but we are on the right track of getting better.

[Bulls1181]

I agree with all the comments... We have some good pieces on this team but we have to play better as a team. Watching film and continuing to expand the playbook will only help. Both the offense and defense are pro style and unfortunately they take time to learn.

 

The O-line's strength seems to be run blocking, their weakness is pass protection. I hope that we start rolling out the pocket a little more. The only way we can do this effectively is by playing Bench...I would love to see more WR/RB screens and more involvement from the TEs.

 

On Defense we can't blitz as much as we did against McNeese State. IMO its one of the main reasons why we lost. Our secondary is the weakest position in our team. We can't leave these guys on an island.

 

Looking back on Michigan State we were only a few plays away from possibly stealing that game. A couple of interceptions were dropped.... the 4th down play which they definitely held DD on that play...Dropped passes

 

I can't wait to see how we look this Saturday

[Orlando Bull]

The way to mask the offensive line issues is to hit some quick slants, screens, ect. Our QB apparently can't do that and the coaches don't have confidence in him (them) to do so. Hit some quick plays and suddenly the defense backs off.

 

I am not nearly as depressed as I was after the McNeese game. I don't think Eveld is the answer. I would have liked to see more of Bench, not enough there to evaluate him on. Giving him 1 series make me think that CWT is out of his league right now... like the pressure from the fans caused him to just throw him on the field just to say that he played. I saw in another thread, and I agree, I don't think Floyd is done. Wonder how they will look in practice this week and if CWT would give him another chance. I still think that if Davis goes all out for that 2nd deep ball in the first game, he maybe makes that catch for a TD and the whole story of Floyd is a different one.

 

Eveld is a game-manager at best, but, he is certainly not going to win many games for us.

[NCBull]

Eveld is a game-manager at best, but, he is certainly not going to win many games for us.

But he won't lose many either. It's a catch-22.

[BDYZR]

The way to mask the offensive line issues is to hit some quick slants, screens, ect. Our QB apparently can't do that and the coaches don't have confidence in him (them) to do so. Hit some quick plays and suddenly the defense backs off.

 

I am not nearly as depressed as I was after the McNeese game. I don't think Eveld is the answer. I would have liked to see more of Bench, not enough there to evaluate him on. Giving him 1 series make me think that CWT is out of his league right now... like the pressure from the fans caused him to just throw him on the field just to say that he played. I saw in another thread, and I agree, I don't think Floyd is done. Wonder how they will look in practice this week and if CWT would give him another chance. I still think that if Davis goes all out for that 2nd deep ball in the first game, he maybe makes that catch for a TD and the whole story of Floyd is a different one.

 

Eveld is a game-manager at best, but, he is certainly not going to win many games for us.

 

Agree. Great QB's need great recievers.