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Surpises and disappointments for the season

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Surpises and disappointments for the season

Postby indianmustang » Wed Nov 30, 2016 9:17 am

now that the season is done ,which players surprised or disappointed .

For surprise ,i would say the number of takeaways this team generated
disappointments: offense in few games
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Re: Surpises and disappointments for the season

Postby Charleston Pony » Wed Nov 30, 2016 9:56 am

on defense, Demerick Gary, Jordan Wyatt & Darrion Millines

On offense, West (how durable he was), Freeman and I'm going to say Hicks because he wasn't expected to see the field and after watching his 1st game, I wasn't sure we would win the 2 games I thought were as sure a thing coming into this season

In the trenches, I will throw in Zelt Minor on D (good to see him finally contribute) and Jerry Saena on the OL (for the same reason)
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Re: Surpises and disappointments for the season

Postby Digetydog » Wed Nov 30, 2016 10:10 am

Offensive Surprise: Jerry Saena (considering how many positions he played) did a much better job than I expected.

Defensive Surprise: Zelt Minor did a nice job most of the season.
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Re: Surpises and disappointments for the season

Postby ojaipony » Thu Dec 01, 2016 8:48 am

Biggest surprise: we won 5 games, including Houston, without 2 of our best 3 offensive starters playing and while starting a rs freshmen at qb who during the spring and his first start looked like garbage quite frankly. Looked quite impressive by the end of the year IMHO. Also, the takeaways on defense. I hope that trend continues.

Biggest disappointments: 3 non competitive blow out losses to tcu, Memphis, and navy.
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Re: Surpises and disappointments for the season

Postby peruna81 » Thu Dec 01, 2016 11:49 am

we didn't pencil in any losses...that was a win.
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Re: Surpises and disappointments for the season

Postby Fresno Mustang » Thu Dec 01, 2016 12:01 pm

I agree with all of the above about West and Hicks etc so won't go into that again. These are a few of my takeaways:

Offense:
- Lack of emergence of younger wide receivers outside of Proche (Honey & KT most notably). The walk-on Rolfe was playing more than those guys at the end of the year. Castille did start coming on at the end with some big catches which was good to see.
- After Temple I thought the season was lost b/c of how bad the o-line play and figured the staff would burn redshirts like KD Smith and turn this season into a learning experience but I give the O-line a ton of credit for bouncing back in the middle of the year and delivering some great performances like the UH game
- Gaines was a solid contributor which we desperately need in order to redshirt Rau and having to medically retire Henrdon

Defense:
- Emergence of Richardson and Wyatt and forcing a lot of turnovers. We fell apart the last part of the year but the defense had a nice swagger to it for a big portion of the year and won us some games

Special teams:
- I thought the Australian punter would be effective based on the videos we had seen
- I thought we would have a better kick & punt return game with Proche
- Lack of adjustments on kick returns killed us
- special teams was a major disappointment
Coaching Staff:
- I thought Morris had the opportunity to be more creative with redzone packages and get Freeman in the wildcat w/ Kevin Johnson, West, etc. but the staff was surprisingly conservative down there which was disappointing
- Surprised that Morris wasn't more aggressive on fourth and short throughout the year - disappointment
- Loved the move by the staff to go all in and have 300 kids on campus for the UH game and then get a win, gutsy move that paid off on the recruiting trail. I hope and expect this staff to improve year over year with in game coaching but even if the improvement is marginal, we are recruiting to a level that will allow us to compete for conference titles.

Overall, 5-7 is inline with a lot of projections by people that follow this program closely. We are continuing to improve and I think this season was a success, especially given the surprising amount of major injuries we had. Hicks was solid once he got settled in, with Davis we might have gotten one more win somewhere. The Navy and Memphis games left a sour taste along with the Baylor / Morris drama but overall we improved.
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Re: Surpises and disappointments for the season

Postby JasonB » Thu Dec 01, 2016 12:24 pm

Surprise: Saenna, Natour before getting hurt. Ben Hicks' progression the second half of the season. Small ball theory. The Houston game.

Disappointments: Special teams. Davis and Jones getting hurt - that would have been a couple more wins and a bowl. Not winning one of the last two games to get to a bowl. Memphis and Navy and Temple non-competitive showings. Losing the Tulsa game. No young linebackers stepping up to play a larger role. Briggs and Wilds at RT.

Things I expected that went well: the play of the defensive line and secondary. Lawler and Sutton. Evan Brown and McCarty when healthy.
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