Thoughts on the Rice game

[JasonB]

Wow, that was a close one, and it really, really shouldn't have been anywhere near that close. I will point out what happened below, and do what I can to not comment on the refs or the announcers.

- The announcers thought the SMU defense struggled. 290 yards allowed, 3 forced turnovers, 4 sacks, and 9 tackles for a loss might disagree with that. On the rice touchdown drives, they made unsustainable plays - the throw by Daniels on the first TD drive to the left side for 30 yards against blanked coverage was just a great throw. And the last TD drive the crazy throw and catch to the outside. Freak plays. The defense wasn't a problem. The objective was to hold them under 300 yards, and they did it.
- So how in the world did Rice you get 31 points? Well, blocked punt TD, a KO return that led to a 39 yard drive, and then a FG that came off of a 55 yard run. The 55 yard run was a shock - that and the screen pass that got called back came when the SMU defense stopped rallying to the football and looked slow and tired. Even though the final numbers were okay, that was the first game the defense didn't feel in control this year.
- Before the injury to Daniels, the front 4 dominated the line of scrimmage, as I thought they would before the game. Outside of the TD drive with the fluke passes, Rice had a total of 55 yards in the first half (39 of those on the TD after the KO return). Next to nothing. When Daniels went out and the backup was in, our game calling completely changed. Instead of continuing to play our base defense against that offense, we were really over-aggressive. We blitzed heavily with tight coverage, and it left 1v1 matchups all over the field. IMHO, there was no reason to do it - against our base defense, their running game wasn't going anywhere, and there was no way that kid was going to hit passes consistently. The blitzing turned it into more of a playground game, and he was able to make some plays. The 55 yard run and the screen that got called back were situations where we played over-aggressive and got caught. Hopefully this is a big lesson to both the staff and the players to take the game seriously and not get out of the great defensive techniques that got you here.
- Offensively, 484 yards isn't bad. 223 yards rushing isn't bad. But man, that was shaky. Lots of stalled drives, and lots of field goals. Some of that was due to holding penalties, which were a problem for the first time this season. But the other issue we have is that when a team drops 8 and forces us to run the ball, our running game isn't consistent enough to dominate the entire drive, and our passing game makes too many mistakes to run it twice and pass once. Daniels made a great catch on his TD, going after the ball aggressively. But Kerley waited for a ball to fall into his lap instead of jumping towards the ball and allowed the defender to break it up. The very next play I think Smith went up too soft and the defender broke up another TD pass. We had fourth downs that we should have completed. LJ dropped a ball in the flat and could have ran for a while. There are just too many mistakes in the passing game for the run-first approach to be effective.
- Preston took way too much time before making decisions. Dropping 8 certainly makes the decision making more complex. But you have to get rid of the ball quickly, when receivers are in the flow, and let them make some plays. I think we have seen the last two weeks when Preston is getting the ball out on time, there are a lot fewer drops. When he holds the ball and everyone is in a scramble drill, we see a lot more difficult passes and drops. We also played a ton more H-Back and RPO than we did the past two weeks, and Preston doesn't process things as well in that look. He is clearly at his best when RJ is in one slot, we have three WR and a RB. We aren't doing great with the RPO, and the H-Back just takes another good skill position player off the field.
- When we were ahead 14-7, we forced a punt, failed to connect on a 4th and 2, and then missed a FG after a fumble. We had the chance to blow them out in that sequence and missed the opportunity. Everything is completely different if you put the game away on those drives.
- In my game preview, I completely ignored the third part of the game - special teams. Blocked punt for a TD, a horrible failed fake punt that didn't cost us, A long KO and penalty that led to another TD, a missed FG, and a missed PAT. 18 points and a completely different game.


Lots of missed tackles, some drops, and bad special teams.... SMU got away with it, winning a game in conference on the road when they didn't play well at all. Hopefully this serves as a big time wakeup call. North Texas isn't good, but they put up yards against everyone, and if we mess around like this, they will punish us more than Rice did. And Memphis will definitely beat us if we do that stuff. Tulane only has UTSA left, and will have 0 or 1 loss at the end of the conference season. UTSA has Tulane and Rice, but odds are finishes with only 0 or 1 loss. Memphis has SMU and then two gimmies. If SMU gets a loss in conference, it is unlikely that we make the conference championship game. It would be a real shame if the best team SMU has put together since the death penalty can't get that done.

[ponyte]

Ghost of Mustangs past visited us last night. The problem was we didn't make one 3rd stringer a Heisman candidate cause we too busy trying to make ALL of them Heisman candidates.

Special teams looked like a post DP team. Real huge difference in the game. As Jason pointed out, we could and should have buried this team in the first quarter. Special teams and poor O execution killed that opportunity.

Stone took too much time. Would like to see both and the coaches start to concentrate on quick short passes and make the Defense run all over the field. Rice's D was getting tired in the 4th quarter and we didn't take advantage of it.

On the plus side, SMU played by far its worse team effort game of the year and still found a way to beat Rice on the road. We haven't seen much of that post DP.

[Charleston Pony]

The bottom line is that this SMU team has not beaten a team with a winning record and lost to one (TCU) that has a losing record. Let's see how they respond against UNT because that's another team with a losing record that has been competitive in their losses. These guys need to show me something or I'm going to stick with my pre-season prediction that we will lose one conference game and based on what I've seen so far I think that loss comes at Memphis.

[PonyME]

Glad to see a decent SMU crowd in attendance.

[EastStang]

On the flip side Jennings played adequately. He underthrew the first pass. But looked sharp otherwise.

[mtrout]

The best team since the death penalty? On paper?

[carolina stang]

The best team since the death penalty? On paper?

I’m not qualified to say, ( Like Jason, PonyTE and many others) but after following the team since 1976, I’ll offer this: Overall defense without a doubt best since DP and the offensive line likely. We’ve had obviously a few better individual players at quarterback, running back, receiver post DP, but the talent level is pretty impressive and tops for any team since the DP.

[Charleston Pony]

The best team since the death penalty? On paper?

I’m not qualified to say, ( Like Jason, PonyTE and many others) but after following the team since 1976, I’ll offer this: Overall defense without a doubt best since DP and the offensive line likely. We’ve had obviously a few better individual players at quarterback, running back, receiver post DP, but the talent level is pretty impressive and tops for any team since the DP.

This team is probably the best but is definitely the deepest team, especially on the DL and at RB of any I've watched since the death penalty. With NIL, lots of G5 teams are upgrading their talent and have become much more competitive

[mtrout]

Our schedule is so weak it's hard for me to tell. We've played Oklahoma and TCU then a bunch of teams ranked worse than #100 on Sagarin.

[bubba pony]

https://www.espn.com/college-football/s ... 9-oklahoma

three of our victories are from schools in the bottom ten. Plus Prairie View A&M which I never hear of.
Rice game was close and a bit of luck to win.

We are not ready for the ACC, yet.

[Topper]

In terms of overall size, speed, athletic ability, and depth this our best team since the dp. In the old SWC it would have been a mid level team which is where some people say we would land in this seasons ACC.

[RunningStang]

Looking at the bright side and based on results against Rice on the road, SMU should beat Tulane by a field goal. Tulane is in the top 25.


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[TidePony]

Just got back in town from attending the game.

1. Fantastic attendance by SMU (and I mean a lot of loud engaged fans, I don’t how it looked or sounded on tv) - our fans were incredible. Thank you Houston area Ponies!
2. First half was a nightmare, special teams… I’m still shaking my head. Hideous.
3. Refs were egregiously bad
4. Rice played dirty, period
5. It felt like a rivalry game
6. We won it, time to focus on some buzzards

I like this team!

[redpony]

I do not expect any of the officials to do us any favors. It was obvious last night. Perhaps the 'word' is out that the conference does not want us to win since we are leaving.

[PonyGirl]

Don't do that. Sounds like every UT fan who thinks that whenever the Longhorns get called for anything, it's because the Big 12 is "out to get them."
Let's be better than whiny UT fan.