For Those Who Witnessed This W,

[FordtoTolbert]

how about a little perspective for those of us who where not there. Did we pound Plano East High School, basically, or Slippery Rock Tech??

My mind set is ...a close game but a loss to TT coupled with convincing wins v. NTSU and Slippery Rock would have me somewhat fired up......but that is not anywhere near what happened....I am having trouble being pumped right now about this football team..

Someone educate me....

[The PonyGrad]

Hard to totally say how this compares to Div IA competition. Our offensive line seemed to have their way openning holes and pass protecting. Our receivers seemed to get separation without too much trouble, especially vs. their man coverage. In any case Willis definitely staked his claim for the QB job.

The defense put a lot of pressure on their QBs and coverage was good though, especially late, they were able to get some runs on us.

What does it mean? We shall see.

[mrydel]

My question would be who is better....Slippery Rock or Plano East? We had dominate line play which allowed Willis many seconds to seek and throw. I do not think we can count on that much time in the future. SHSU ran 1 option and gained 30 yards. SHSU had great success throwing 10-15 yard out patterns that were being covered very soft. Our speed as compared to SHSU was evident. That will not be as evident in the future.

I see this as a pure confidence builder. If our OL can block as well throughout the season as they did Saturday, we can improve greatly. I just have doubts if they will have the same success against better teams. The secondary is very tentative and overly cautious of being burned. That is not necessarily a bad thing but we need to be sure we can stop the run if we continue the bend don't break philosophy.

There were some spectacular plays such as the Givens (?) catch in the end zone and the Muse interception.

[DallasDiehard]

Sam Houston is god-awful, but it's not like we haven't underperformed before against poor teams. Yes, we clobbered a team we should have clobbered. But it wasn't just because of mistakes on their part. We have ironed out some kinks -- many more to go, but the improvement has started. The young receivers (Sanders/Givens) are exciting to watch, and you might have heard Willis was sensational. It was a vast improvement over the performance against UNT, but the enthusiasm has to be tempered by the recognition of the level of opposition. We need to play better next week, and from here on out.

[Stallion]

well I wouldn't be too tough on them-after all we've had QBs under Bennett who couldn't have gone 18-19 against the Kappas or Pi Phis. You still have to pitch and catch-something for Willis and the WRs get an A+.

[93Mustang]

Very tough to gage where this team is. The offense looked very good. Willis had all day to throw; he made nice passes; the receivers caught everything including a spectacular TD reception by Sanders; RBs looked good; and line dominated. On defense, the thing I noticed was how small we are. They played well this week, but I'm concerned about what happens when we play a team with a big line, big RBs, and/or big receivers. With the exception of the front three, all of our LBs and DBs look to be about the same size. My take is Bennett wants to be fast on D, but we're very small on that side of the ball. My gut reactio is that SHSU is really bad and we really needed a win so we played with a sense of urgency - too bad they didn't bring that kind of intensity against Tech or NTSU.

This week will be a better measuring stick. Arkansas St. beat Army who gave the Aggies much more than they expected. Willis should have a lot of confidence coming off of what was a very easy win. The trick is keeping the sense of urgency the team obviously felt following the NTSU disaster. The collapse of Tech the last two weeks and NTSU's performance this week have me very worried, but I'll reserve judgment until Saturday night at 10:30pm.

[DallasDiehard]

.... You still have to pitch and catch-something for Willis and the WRs get an A+.

Absolutely. 18 of 19 is hard to do in the back yard, much less in pads with guys chasing you.

[mrydel]

.... You still have to pitch and catch-something for Willis and the WRs get an A+.

Absolutely. 18 of 19 is hard to do in the back yard, much less in pads with guys chasing you.

Might point out that on the one incompletion, the receiver was well covered in the end zone. Willis could have thrown it up for grab and our receiver was tall enough that he could have won the battle. Willis, however threw the ball well to the outside (the defender was to the inside) where only our kid could have caught it had he been able to get to it. A very good decision on a first down play.

[crazy horse]

well I wouldn't be too tough on them-after all we've had QBs under Bennett who couldn't have gone 18-19 against the Kappas or Pi Phis. You still have to pitch and catch-something for Willis and the WRs get an A+.

When I coached the Pi Phis, they had a pretty stout defense with a great pass rush and a lot of speed in the secondary. 18-19 would have been pretty tough. The Kappas however...

[BRStang]

I was out of town for most of last week, and I just got back from Dallas yesterday after making the game. Earlier today, I was having trouble accessing the site, so I am just now catching up with all the banter on this board.

First, let me say, the Mustangs looked great. Part of me wants to believe they've battled back and can play that well on a regular basis, but the other part tells me that SHSU being 1-AA is a big factor. I don't know, walking out of Ford, it felt like I had eaten a small dinner salad as opposed to a steak from Bob's. At any rate, it had been a long time since I left Ford feeling good about SMU.

I'm still wondering--do we have a team that can beat Ark. St.? And, the bigger question--who is going to play running back in addition to Mapps? Has the loss of Demyron and Fitz hurt the team irreversibly?

[mrydel]

Turner looked pretty good for about 70 yards.

[BRStang]

Turner looked pretty good for about 70 yards.

Wow, I must have been in dazed and confused by all those passes and touchdowns...I didn't realize Turner ran for that many yards. In fact, I only remember him on a couple of carries. A-ha--was he the one who had the nice breakaway run?

[ponyte]

Send a thank you note to Copeland for scheduling SHSU. Willis looked good because our receives were much better athletes than SHSU's corners. We scored one TD on a pure blown coverage. Yes we went deep because our receivers were much faster than their defenders. We were able to throw long because we simply had better athletes. We will not have that luxury again this season. We have not stretched the field before this game because TTU and NTU had better athletes in the secondary than SHSU. Willis threw some very nice puffy fluff balls that floated through the air as if the ball had helium. That will make many of our future opponents’ D backs salivate.

The Defense just simple didn't tackle. Nobody seemed to be able to put a hat on the SHSU players and wrap up. However, the defense did swarm the ball. Had it not, SHSU players would have broken many an arm tackle and still be running.

We beat SHSU because we had better athletes and simply a better team. But we have many areas to improve. Willis has to put more on the ball. Nice soft lob passes will not cut it for the whole season. The Defense has to start tackling better.

I am excited that we won and won like we should have won. But we need this team to step it up a notch against Arkie State or we are in for another NTSU night.

[jtstang]

Willis threw some very nice puffy fluff balls that floated through the air as if the ball had helium. That will make many of our future opponents’ D backs salivate.

I wondered if anybody else noticed that.

[SMU Football Blog]

Send a thank you note to Copeland for scheduling SHSU.

No. Thank Bennett. Bennett has been wanting to schedule a game against I-AA since he got here. Copeland would have rather had the money the school would have received by having the team get its brains beaten in by playing somebody on the road for a nice check.