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I wonder if there was a "didn't want to be here" mentality in the game. I hate it when people use that excuse, but I know it exists.

Credit to BC. They made it happen and Fenway is great. I wish they could have played there when I was living in Boston.

Gotta love knee jerk reaction. I mean JJ? Really?

I can't get it out of my mind, June Jones wearing a Hawaiian Leis on the SMU sidelines.

leopold wrote:I wonder if there was a "didn't want to be here" mentality in the game. I hate it when people use that excuse, but I know it exists.

Credit to BC. They made it happen and Fenway is great. I wish they could have played there when I was living in Boston.

I didn't see a lack of interest or attitude at all. The players were into the game when you saw it in person. The field was mush and eliminated athleticism and speed. It was a slog fest, and their QB ran for a ton of yards and was the difference in the game. Jennings is athletic and scrambles to buy time to pass the ball. That wasn't as effective in those conditions.

Our OL hasn't been to the point where it can enforce its will in a bad weather game in a LONG time. All of our coaches since the DP have struggled in bad weather games, and it isn't a mystery - those games are won on the line. The BC OL dwarfed our DL in person and they pushed us around in the second half.

We need to do a better job of dealing with adversity. I'm not talking about QB1 going down adversity, I'm talking about adversity like when it's not 65 degrees and sunny with light wind on a perfectly maintained grass field or million dollar field turf / indoors while you have a copious supply of your favorite flavored gatorade chews (cool blue) and strong wifi.

mtrout wrote:We need to do a better job of dealing with adversity. I'm not talking about QB1 going down adversity, I'm talking about adversity like when it's not 65 degrees and sunny with light wind on a perfectly maintained grass field or million dollar field turf / indoors while you have a copious supply of your favorite flavored gatorade chews (cool blue) and strong wifi.

The field condition took away our offensive advantage and gave it to BC, simple as that.

I hope no one close to the team would ever speak that mindset. So now when it rains on grass we lose?

mtrout wrote:I hope no one close to the team would ever speak that mindset. So now when it rains on grass we lose?

No, just the odds are lower of winning. Especially if the other team has a running back like B.C.'s QB.

Now that I know that B.C. almost beat FSU, I think they might be the best 6-6 team around.

JJ did a lot for us, and has a lot more accomplishments than Lashlee. Maybe he should've resigned after the Arizona fiasco, or been fired.

mtrout wrote:I hope no one close to the team would ever speak that mindset. So now when it rains on grass we lose?

For the ND/USC annual game, USC never goes to South Bend to play in November. There’s a reason for that. I’m not saying we should be scared to play in the elements, of course not, but you can’t argue it didn’t have an impact on our style of play to essentially play an away game in late December in strong rainy conditions with a field that you could see the small ponds of water on the field against a team that is built on a running QB. We are built on speed and throwing the ball, and when your slipping and sliding and the balls is slipping from your hands, it will have some type of impact. My biggest issue was the lack of play adjustment. You could see BC linemen pinning their ears back knowing that we would throw the ball, there were no screens, no delayed draws, to counter this, at least that I remember. We kept waiting for the long developing plays and long passes, which are very difficult to make work in these weather conditions. Having freshman QB in his second start throw that may times is a recipe for a sure loss.

Hop Sing wrote:

mtrout wrote:We need to do a better job of dealing with adversity. I'm not talking about QB1 going down adversity, I'm talking about adversity like when it's not 65 degrees and sunny with light wind on a perfectly maintained grass field or million dollar field turf / indoors while you have a copious supply of your favorite flavored gatorade chews (cool blue) and strong wifi.

The field condition took away our offensive advantage and gave it to BC, simple as that.

I’m just explaining what the adversity was. Had they not fumbled on the first drive, dropped so many passes, and run the ball more in the 2nd half they probably would have overcame that. I believe we cover the spread easily against that team on a non muddy field. It’s fine if you don’t believe that.

Or ... and hear me out ... sometimes the other team also wants to win, prepares well and plays better.
We had a great year, and the future is bright.

A lot of excuses - some logical, many emotional. Empirical data: Our offense vs. P5 schools this year: Oklahoma 11 pts; TCU 17 pts; BC 14 pts. When upgrading to P5, we stumble. Next year will be very interesting indeed.

I disagree that we had a great year. We finally played in a conference that was downright awful and managed to avoid horrendous losses along the way. We couldn't beat a 5-7 TCU, 6-6 BC, slightly above average OU, etc. If we played a normal AAC season we would have won 7-8 games, not 10.

The loss against BC also really sours the season for me. Had we won, we would have at least been ranked to end the season with great momentum moving to the ACC. Now, there are doubts about whether we can truly compete. We can’t do anything about the weather or playing essentially an away game or being without our starting QB, but I was disappointed with the lack of preparation for the game, and it showed from the onset. I think the coaches need to own it. Part of the narrative is we lost to the three P5 teams we played and while all were away games (I’m including the bowl game as an away game from being played at the opponent’s city), we should have won this last one and I would argue the game against the toads.

We must expect better. Too much has been invested to not perform better.

I like RL (I believe he truly wants to be at SMU), but he has also shown lack of HC experience at key moments when we play more talented teams and we’re not running up the score. I hope he learns from it because we will have to bring it week in and week out next season.

I’m still thankful for winning the conference in our last year, that made me truly proud. But, this last loss on top of the decision to leave us out of the NY6 bowl opened us up to criticism, and that is truly unfortunate.

Looking at our schedule next year, I still believe we can and should expect to go bowling next year.

Home:Boston College, Cal, Florida State, Pitt
Road: Duke, Louisville, Stanford, Virginia
Non-Conference: BYU, Houston, HCU,TCU, team to replace Vanderbilt

Certainly disappointed in the ending, particularly with the coaching staff as that second half was on the them in my opinion. We survived the first half with the lead but we did not adjust to the circumstances and needed to either refocus Jennings (injured?) or put in Padilla to stick to the shorter ball control passing game or get creative with the running game. But this was a really, really good year and a fun team to watch. Winning the Bowl game would have made it great in my opinion. But I disagree that we would have only won 7-8 games during a ‘normal’ AAC season. That’s just not fair to this team or reflective of its accomplishments this season. We beat good Memphis and Tulane teams on the road and from the games I saw we would handle both Cincy and Houston.