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against the coogs, we may need 25 a quarter...

Any word about the return of Nick Natour? Any OL changes / adjustments anticipated to compensate for his possible absence or limitations?

I have to think that William Barnes who checked out might get some playing time had he remained.

Was Kadarious Smith's redshirt burned?

I thought Kadarious came in at least for one series.

What I mean by the 25 is that if our offense can move the ball consistently over the course of the game and convert with touchdowns, our defense is good enough to keep us in the game and make it close. Otherwise we are going to see the TCU/Baylor effect. Even against Liberty an inconsistent offense and inability to put the game away wore the defense down.

ALEX LIFESON wrote:Temple lost a lot of their defensive studs from last season. They gave up 231 yards rushing and a 5.5 ypc against UNCCharlotte. Most of their starters were pulled early in the 3rd, so I don't know how much of this was against the backups.

Most of them were backups, walk-ons, players who never played before, and freshmen. I wouldn't say we did a tremendous job or anything, but 66 yards came on one run alone. If we keep our starters in, we put up at least 60.

EDIT: Just checked. After we took out our starters, they rushed 18 times for 105 yards, which accounted for ~44% of their rushes not including Olsen getting sacked. When the starters were in, minus the one 66 yard rushing TD, they rushed for ~3.2 YPC which isn't great.

Going to be a good game for both teams.

JHG wrote:

ALEX LIFESON wrote:Temple lost a lot of their defensive studs from last season. They gave up 231 yards rushing and a 5.5 ypc against UNCCharlotte. Most of their starters were pulled early in the 3rd, so I don't know how much of this was against the backups.

Most of them were backups, walk-ons, players who never played before, and freshmen. I wouldn't say we did a tremendous job or anything, but 66 yards came on one run alone. If we keep our starters in, we put up at least 60.


You must not be paying attention, LB Tyler Matakevich, DL Nate D. Smith, DL Matt Ioannidis, S Alex Wells, were senior starters last year.

whoever wins this game will probably go bowling this year....the loser, not so much.

ALEX LIFESON wrote:

JHG wrote:

ALEX LIFESON wrote:Temple lost a lot of their defensive studs from last season. They gave up 231 yards rushing and a 5.5 ypc against UNCCharlotte. Most of their starters were pulled early in the 3rd, so I don't know how much of this was against the backups.

Most of them were backups, walk-ons, players who never played before, and freshmen. I wouldn't say we did a tremendous job or anything, but 66 yards came on one run alone. If we keep our starters in, we put up at least 60.


You must not be paying attention, LB Tyler Matakevich, DL Nate D. Smith, DL Matt Ioannidis, S Alex Wells, were senior starters last year.

I meant against Charlotte after the game was clearly over. Also, Alex Wells being out of eligibility was a positive.

docabel wrote:against the coogs, we may need 25 a quarter...

Houston has beaten one "decent" team[Or are they-OU] this year so far. Hard to judge how good they are or will be. Are they deserving of their lofty ranking-too early to tell but not yet.

I think the TCU game was a pretty good gauge of where we are.

Topper wrote:I think the TCU game was a pretty good gauge of where we are.

Defense is "ok", offense is terrible (mostly due to injuries IMHO, would be playing "ok" also if not for Matt Davis and Pursley and X Jones being out). Record still the same but would have beat Liberty by more and been more competitive against BU and TCU, thus giving us more hope about the season. I don't see us beating Temple, at Temple. Not with this QB play, sorry. Probably one more win somewhere.

On another topic, can you imagine if Davis gets a RS approved? Next year, he and the arky transfer battling it out with Brewer getting ready and at least an experienced Ben Hicks at probably 3rd string? Can't wait for next year, and I know we are always 2 years away but I can actually feel it this time. Will be another tough year, again mostly due to injuries, but next year we need to win at least 6 (and should/can).

Ok, so I rewatched the TCU game. I think Hicks played well actually, only 2-3 bad throws (the INT at the end was terrible, looked like it slipped, game was over anyway so). The 3 things that stood out for me were: (1) their DL just absolutely dominated our OL, very little push and a lot of rush (2) Millines going out took some of the wind out, he's clearly the senior leader in the secondary and some of the younger guys looked a little lost/sort of gave up (3) our kickoff return blocking SUCKS! No good returns put us in bad field position all night.

Again, losing Davis, Pursley, and X Jones really hurts us. We would still be at 2-2, but I actually think this team could pull out 4-6 wins with those guys playing at full strength. I was actually encouraged by Hicks play. I'm hoping we can win 1-2 more this year.

Not good when your QB has more interceptions than TD's

Welcome back Ojai.