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What a terrible second half.

- Lost the turnover battle again, 2-0. The defense isn't coming up with any turnovers, that is becoming a huge concern.
- Crossley didn't play, and we rotated to a single high safety look to add another player in the box. Even played 4-3 at times and put another LB on the field. That worked in the first half. Malzane did a great job as an experienced coach waiting for halftime to make an adjustment, and then took advantage. It prevented a second adjustment by our coaching staff. Without the second high safety, the corners were protecting the line and the slant was open. Perfect adjustment, honestly.
- Defense played hard and physical and ran to the ball in the first half... and then didn't do any of it in the second half. Really disappointing performance defensively in the second half. No physical engagement.
- We are getting killed on the jet sweep. The DEs are playing okay against the standard run play and don't get pushed back, but there is no push up the field to set the edge against the sweep. Our LBs are not fast enough in pursuit to burst forward and make a play, and then, wow, 13 really messed up on the long TD run. The LB and safety play against the run continues to let the team down. Playing 13 and a not quite right Massey at safety is a big difference from 1 and a healthy 0.
- At corner, playing with a 1 high safety exposed 5 a little bit. 26 is okay, but nothing special. 25 has great length, but he doesn't have the hips to adjust to the slant and his speed isn't amazing. The group has been protected a little by the two safety look but they were exposed tonight.
- We did a good job of forcing Plumlee to beat us with his arm. But he sure beat us.
- The meltdown defensively was just really disappointing in the second half, and with our problem handling assignments, the sweeps, and the physicality, I really am NOT looking forward to Navy.
- Offensively, I want to see the numbers, but I don't think Bissinger had a great game. I think being forced to move JT to tackle with Condon out really hurt us. This was the first game this year that we weren't able to run the ball up the middle consistently. If you take the one long run out, our running stats were awful. And it absolutely killed us in the redzone.
- Again, need to see the stats, but I don't think we tried to hurt them deep enough. Mordecai completed 60% of his passes, which is great, but 6.6 yards per attempt is not. Lots of drops though, unfortunately, which is absolutely not on him. The Siggers drop, two Rice drops, the Corrales drop in the endzone. The deep ball to Maryland that went off the player's helmet, If Maryland jumps forward, he reaches over the player head and either makes the catch or draws the PI. Just really, really sloppy game offensively.
- I didn't like the missed 4th down calls. It is one thing if you are winning the line of scrimmage like we were the first four games of the season, where we could get a couple of yards up the middle if we needed it. But we weren't. I thought going for it on 4th down deep in your own territory at the start of the second half set kind of a panic tone for the team. And then when we were in the redzone, I have a couple of problems with it. First, kick the field goal and it is a one score game. Second, If you are going for it on 4th, then on 3rd and 5 you call something that is going to get you at least a couple of yards and put you in a 4th and 2 scenario where the other team has to respect the run.

Growing up I always heard that sometimes the difference between winning and losing is that good times find a way to win games, and bad teams find a way to lose. With the dropped passes, losing the turnover battle again, and just the give up in that second half, right now this is a bad team that is finding ways to lose games. TCU,. Maryland and UCF are all good teams, but the way we ended the Maryland game, started the TCU game, and the second half of the UCF game... those are bad moments. There is more talent on this team than they way they are playing on the field, and if they don't get their act together quickly, this season is going to fall apart really fast.

Disagree about the offensive line shuffle. Thomas is at least a good as Condon. Neither is great.

I think the team is already going to fall apart. Will give it one more game against Navy, if that’s a loss, this might be a 3-9 year.

JasonB wrote:I thought going for it on 4th down deep in your own territory at the start of the second half set kind of a panic tone for the team.

It was an idiotic decision. On the 1 to 10 Moron Level, it’s pushing an 8.

There, I fixed it for you.

And as to your other play-calling observations, I wholeheartedly agree. They were such head scratchers that for the first time in our honeymoon phase with Rhett, i have pause for thought about his abilities.

Perhaps Dikes was right. He had taken SMU as high as it can go.

Mentors/Teachers 2 Mentee/student 0

SoCal_Pony wrote:

JasonB wrote:I thought going for it on 4th down deep in your own territory at the start of the second half set kind of a panic tone for the team.

It was an idiotic decision. On the 1 to 10 Moron Level, it’s pushing an 8.

Lashlee has made a bunch of terrible FG/"go for it" decisions all season.

Arkpony wrote:Perhaps Dikes was right. He had taken SMU as high as it can go.

We can only hope that's not the case. This team is obviously not going to compete for an AAC Championship with UCF, Cincy & even Houston in the fold but hopefully by the time the next generation AAC is in place SMU will be more competitive. My fear is that teams like UTSA, FAU & UAB (who I consider up and coming programs) will join Memphis and start beating our guys with regularity. We probably got lucky to have the bowed out of the bowl game vs UTSA after what FAU did to our guys in Boca Raton

DanFreibergerForHeisman wrote:

SoCal_Pony wrote:

JasonB wrote:I thought going for it on 4th down deep in your own territory at the start of the second half set kind of a panic tone for the team.

It was an idiotic decision. On the 1 to 10 Moron Level, it’s pushing an 8.

Lashlee has made a bunch of terrible FG/"go for it" decisions all season.

Have to believe he thought the game would become a track meet and lots of points were going to be needed. He was right in that regard after UCF carved up our swiss cheese defense for 41 points

giacfsp wrote:Disagree about the offensive line shuffle. Thomas is at least a good as Condon. Neither is great.

I'm not saying JT versus Condon. What I am saying is that JT was the only lineman who got a passing grade in the running game last night. If you have him at guard instead of tackle, the dive run up the middle is much more effective. JT and Hickman actually graded out pretty well as a whole.

Some interesting notes:
- PFF only credited our WR with thee dropped passes, which surprised me. PFF gave Mordicai an adjusted completion percentage of 70.5 considering the average depth of target and the drops. Drops were given to Rice, Siggers, and Corrales.
- In 47 drop backs, TM was pressured 5 times. In 11 dropbacks, PS was pressured 4 times. I think a little to do with experience and pre-snap reads...
- Tm was 1/9 on passes over 20 yards. Low number of attempts compared to other games this year, but also an awful completion percentage for the first time. Also interesting to note it was evenly split from left to right, other games were heavily loaded to the right. On passes over 10 yards he was 3/14.
- Corrales only caught 1 of 6 targets. The secondary receivers did not have a great night. With Bailey only playing 10 snaps and Daniels sitting out, it was time for Goffney to show up in the slot and he rated out very poorly on the evening.
- Maryland was in on the same number of pass plays as Redding, but only stayed in to block twice, while Redding stayed in 9 times.
- As we look at the running back rotation, none of the RBs graded out well, not surprisingly. Gardner had the only burst play, but graded out poorly otherwise. Interesting to note that in the passing game Wheaton graded out really well, Siggers very poorly, and that Gardner didn't run a single route for a pass. That is going to factor into some decisions. Gardner graded out very well in pass blocking, and Siggers committed the penalty there. That is also going to start factoring in. Siggers basically didn't run well, didn't catch well, and didn't block well. Might be some change on the horizon.
- Missed tackles: SMU 12, UCF 6.
- Safeties and corners graded out pretty poorly.

As many of you know I have been one of the biggest, irrational, supporter of our team this year. This team when playing at their ceiling is truly special and can win a conference championship and is easily a top ~15 team. So let's take a step back and ask ourselves WTF is causing us to constantly fall short of our potential and play at or near our floor during the last 4 games? UNT being the only near clean/ceiling game of the season.... We can peel the onion on these at infinitum so I'll just serve up the topics and sit back and hope folks engage and elaborate on what they feel is most relevant:

Factors:
*The head coach:
+Going for it on 4th down in enemy territory with plenty of time left in the game
+Electing not to put points on the board with a really good field goal kicker
+Poor clock management
+Bizarre play calling
+Misuse of talent
+Overall game management
+Team culture? That's a question mark because I'm not in the locker room or living the player's life.

**on a side note Jim Tressel eventually fell out out of grace at OSU but that man was one of the best game managers in the history of football in that he rarely allowed the team to beat itself. He played amazing field position football and may have been excessively conservative in some situations but he did win a national championship and IMO if our coaching staff channeled a little more sweater vest(Jim Tressel) we'd be 5-0.

*Injuries
+Every team deals with this so it's a bit of a cop out but we don't have the luxury of extreme depth of the P5 programs

*Defense
+I used to say our offense is electric, if only our defense could hold opponents to 30 or less we'd win every game.
+I feel our defense has actually improved considerably but they are being asked in some cases to make up for mistakes on the other side of the ball and carry the team a bit more than what is reasonable.

*Cleanliness of play
+Some of this goes back to the coaching staff and their game management
+Some of this goes to players and execution like the drops against UCF... those balls just have to be caught and routes have to be run cleanly, etc.
+At the end of the day every game we've lost this season we've lost the turnover battle and that is compounded by issues like poor route running, missed blocks, poor tackling angles, drops, etc.

I have to be honest in saying I'm heartbroken right now in that I put a lot of energy behind this team and really believed in them this year. At this moment I'm not sure how they transition from a very talented team playing at their floor to a team playing at or near their ceiling. I'll continue to watch but I'll guard my heart and you certainly won't hear as much from me. I am a ride or die Pony but I'm hurting right now.

I look forward to the ensuing responses and discussion. I appreciate each of you that I consider true loyal fans and alumni.

We have plenty of long suffering loyal SMU fans on this board, but we are all still here

I am less versed than others, but some things were glaring. UCF seemed to know what we were going to do before we did. On a passing down we run a jet sweep and there are four UCF players waiting. We ran multiple corner routes in the endzone which were covered. Why didn't we run a zig route instead? Rice had a bad game which he is entitled to once in awhile. We miss Kerley. UCF was giving us short passes and playing a deep zone and we weren't taking them. We can't seem to block well on 3rd or 4th and two or one. One thought that struck me since Levine has hardly played, I wonder if he could be switched to linebacker or safety? He has the build certainly and some speed. Otherwise, why isn't he our third and short back or at least run a power I? UCF kept putting in Bowser for short yardage and everyone knew who was going to get the ball and yet he scored every time. That's only the offense. Defense needs to work hard or Navy is going to run wild next week. Lashee and his coordinators need to go back to the drawing board. I do think they did well getting to the UCF QB and our DB's did a decent job for most of the game, until the wheels fell off.

My uninformed opinion. We were too often trying to make the big splash play instead of concentrating on making third down conversions and keeping the other team's offense off the field. Not taking points when they are available. Tanner constantly throwing into double coverage or to some one with a corner on his receiver's back. Again trying for the big splash play instead of making plays that keep our offense on the field and the other team's offense off the field.

I thought Siggers had another poor running game. I would have liked to have seen Lavine in some short yardage situations and TJ get some touches too (he's not hurt right?). We have been outcoached IMO the last 3 games and you are going to have that with a first time head coach and young staff. Hopefully they learn quickly.

The Defense has played with discipline and did so for most of the night, until we gave up that jet sweep. I'm not worried about our defense against Navy, but we have to fix our red zone offense and running game overall.