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When Sonny first came in, he had some good assistants and good coordinators. Over his time here, some of the assistants and coordinators left, and we all felt that the coaches he replaced them with were a step down.

The staff we have under RL is outstanding, and it really showed last night. Some things that show up:

Our corners had higher ratings on PFF than any game last season.

OL was much improved over last season on PFF, specifically Osborne, Bryant, and Thomas. Hickman was much better than last year also.

Last year against UNT, TM was 2/7 with a QBR of only 14.9 on passes over 20 yards. In fact, last season, he had only 1 game of 8 attempts of 20+, 3 of 7, 4 of 5, 2 of 4, 1 of 3, and 1 of 2.

Last night he attempted 10 passes over 20 yards, completed 6 of them and had a QBR of 143 on those throws. Massive difference.

The point is that while a lot of credit certainly goes to the head coach and players, having the right coordinators and assistant coaches is equally as critical. I expect that we will continue to see the team improve as long as they are in the presence of this great staff.

agreed….this is the best FB coaching staff we’ve had in a long time.

Hopefully they will all stay for more than a year or two.

I want to agree, but UNT was horrible, and therefore not much of a measuring-stick game. Let's see what happens against Maryland and TCU and UCF.
But yes ... looked damned good last night.

Ikus wrote:I want to agree, but UNT was horrible, and therefore not much of a measuring-stick game. Let's see what happens against Maryland and TCU and UCF.
But yes ... looked damned good last night.

UNT won last week @UTEP. And we won @UNT by more than OU beat UTEP in Norman. I know, the transitive property doesn't really mean much, but I don't think UNT is awful. 3rd in CUSA in terms of composite points on 247, just behind the UTSA team that Houston struggled to beat yesterday.

I hope NTSU has a great season. It is hard to tell whether thy have a good team or not based on Sat. results. The biggest difference in the game was SMU has far more athletes than NTSU. The biggest difference in the game was athleticism. NTSU may have a great CUSA team. They don't have the Horses to compete 4 quarters with the talent SMU has.

ponyte wrote:I hope NTSU has a great season. It is hard to tell whether thy have a good team or not based on Sat. results. The biggest difference in the game was SMU has far more athletes than NTSU. The biggest difference in the game was athleticism. NTSU may have a great CUSA team. They don't have the Horses to compete 4 quarters with the talent SMU has.

This was the same argument we had against TCU for years with Patterson. We could hang with them 2.5 quarters until depth and talent won out. Such a good feeling to be on the flip side.

redpony wrote:Hopefully they will all stay for more than a year or two.

I'm trying not to let my mind go anywhere near that. If RL and company stick it out here and really grow this thing, it has so much potential. I'm letting myself get excited, knowing that disappointment is just around the corner, but man...Saturday night was extremely fun to be on the other side of just seeing our team flat out better in all phases.

JB, I agree.

The play calling was way better. And that’s independent of who our opponent was. Play calling was bolder with more shots down field. It also included a better job of setting up plays.

The tackling in the secondary seems improved. That is an element of coaching that has to be examined over several games to truly assess. But so far, so good.

I’m also interested in watching the corners’ and safeties’ technique: positioning, angles they take, space they give off the line of scrimmage, etc. I just about lost my mind watching those aspects of the team last year. I’m hoping for a big improvement there. First game was definitely better than any last year.

They looked very sharp in all phases, well coached and practiced. UNT was not ready for the up tempo, including the head slapping attempted substitution which ended up as a 12 men on the field penalty.

Schedule gets tough after Lamar!

Yes. Coaching matters and we could see that all summer and fall as well as last night.

I think TM is not getting the credit he deserves for improving his long ball. That was the biggest weakness in his game last year and why many thought Preston could take the starting job this year. But Tanner has obviously made a concerted effort to improve that in the off season and it showed.

OL didn't play badly although I didn't like that TM was having to get rid of the ball quickly at times and he did take that big hit. Correctable, and the OL will need time to jell. Run blocking was excellent and it seemed that we could have rushed for 200+ easily. I was very impressed that there were no false starts or other mental error penalties. Shows great coaching and discipline by the OL.

One great example: Did you notice that, on the NTSU offsides where TM had the free play completion to RR, the OL didn't even leave their stances? Receivers ran the route but the OL never moved. That was extraordinary!

I can not thank Sonny enough! He realized he was out of his depth coaching at SMU and had to leave to make room for a more talented coaching staff. I'm just glad he found a lower tier program with lesser talent that is a better fit.

I was bummed out when Sonny left, but now I can see we really upgraded all around.

Can we win in November and December? That's the test.