Thoughts on the game

[papawasamustang]

It was a total [deleted] kicking. Baylor's D dbacks & LB's , especially Hagar were awesome. They were head hunting,no doubt. Their team speed was very impressive as well.

The mistakes by the D on the first drive & the missed FG set the tone for the entire game IMO.
As the season progresses, I'd like to see someone returning kicks that has the ability to take it to the house. Currently, no speed there. I'd also like to see us ALWAYS have a return man for a punt.

Very disappointing effort both on the field by the players, & on the sidelines/press box by the coaches.

On the positive side, ZLine is a warrior.

[The PonyGrad]

Officiating was horrible. While it was not the reason we lost, it was horrible.

It was the non-calls that were the worst. The fumble was a fumble but there should have been a call vs. Baylor for helmet to helmet that stunned DJ causing him to lose the ball.

There were blocks in the back on long plays and a lot of holding down-field. All not called. And tell me it is not legal for a receiver to push a DB out of bounds and then catch the ball.

And on and on.

I will say that SMU was the beneficiary of a couple of calls.

[TidePony]

Great comments by everyone. Bottom line is SMU was not prepared, we were out coached at every level, and the refs were awful. You can't win games at any level when this is the case.

The new AD likely saw all of the same things we did, heck anybody could! I was highly pissed last night . It was like going from the penthouse with Bama and to the outhouse with SMU. But, this Baylor team is good. They will likely beat Texas again this year. They are well coached.

Hard decisions will have to be made at the end of the season. It's like when Mike Shula who I went to school with at Alabama (solid quarterback beat SMU in that frigid Sun Bowl) became the Tide's head coach. He is a great guy, with great plans, but could never beat Auburn or Tennessee (that's when I was in Grad School at SMU made me crazy) so he had to be fired because he couldn't take the team to the next level. Is SMU in this same place? Let's see what happens the rest of the season. I love my Tide and 'Stangs - Let's GO!

[GiddyUp]

I just seems to me that Jones has the NFL mode of college coaching. He uses the first few non conference games as tunes ups for the conference, as preseason games are in the NFL. He just does not seem to ever have the team prepared for opening day. He uses NC games to get the kids used to the speed and pressure rather than at least trying to emulate it in practice with full speed scrimmages. Lots of bad timing, bad angles, poor tackling etc that will all be better as the year goes on but looked very bad last night. I still think we are positioned to win CUSA but we need to be aiming a little higher in my opinion.

so true, our teams don't seem to be ready at all for the first game at all, even on Defense. June wants cupcakes that first game to adjust and whines about it. Funny how Bennett scheduled this game for us 5 yrs ago and it happened to be against him.

[78pony]

Mrydel, good call. The problem is the vast talent drop off between our 1st and 2nd units. Unless we run 1 vs 1, we don't get much competition. Our scout teams...They may show a look, but that's about it.

We are never ready for game 1. Somebody should let jjones know that Nick Sabin and Less Miles and others with the ribbons understand this is the college game, not the NFL. Square peg, round hole. Fun to try and make it work, except it doesn't.

When you have a moment and can stand disappointing news, look at the 2 deep, go beyond, and then look at this year's verbal commitments. Hide the women and children. Talk about falling off the cliff. Hope we can enjoy this year because the long range forecast is for devastating storms.

[Hoop Fan]

agree that the 2 deep looks scary. where did all the numbers go? better get some Jucos committed now.

[JasonB]

Great comments from mrydel.

I think it is a combo of two things. I think that there is a drop from 1st string to 3rd string (second string is okay, but the scout team is the third string). That hurts prep.

I think there is also something to the comment about preseason. The defense last nightt was not the aggressive defense we normally see. Very passive, LBs not involved. Also, not a lot of deep plays at WR, we didn't run post patterns at all. I can remember one post patter run by Ace and he got a step but Gilbert checked off. It seemed like we were basic on both sides of the ball in order to use the game for evaluation more than anything else. I don't know if expected Baylor to be bad, but it definitely had a preseason vibe to it.

The way the schedule sets up, I think we will add more stuff against SFA next week and kill them, then play a&m close, then do the bye week competition for frosh to try and win jobs before TCU.

I think Montes and Randolph are in the mix by TCU time. As for the comment about speed in the return game, I think Stewart will be worked into that mix at the end of the SFA game and then will be our kick returner and punt returner by the TCU game.

[GiddyUp]

Good point. We certainly didn't see the long ball hardly at all which was very weird. We typically throw at least 6-7 bombs a game and didn't even attempt. I guess they were closely covered all day.

[The PonyGrad]

Baylor only rushed three, lined up the LBs deep and played the DBs off the line. That is not ideal for deep throws unless there is no pressure.

I was particularly impressed with how fast the Baylor LBs responded to the handoffs to Line.

[LakeHighlandsPony]

I wish we had another package in the redzone. i would love to see 2 back sets. There is no where to throw inside the 5 and we have 4 or 5 receivers. I wish Wembley could get in front of Zach Line-that would not be fun for a defense.

[mrydel]

I wish we had another package in the redzone. i would love to see 2 back sets. There is no where to throw inside the 5 and we have 4 or 5 receivers. I wish Wembley could get in front of Zach Line-that would not be fun for a defense.

This is something I have never understood. Most teams, college and pro have a goal line package. The pass on the one yard line for a loss of 4 was the epitome of our goal line offense,

[Topper]

Good point. We certainly didn't see the long ball hardly at all which was very weird. We typically throw at least 6-7 bombs a game and didn't even attempt. I guess they were closely covered all day.

JJ was calling quick out and short release passes to take pressure off of the inexperienced OL. I think that protecting Garrett from the rush was goal 1. Worked pretty well. : Receivers weren't breaking free after first touch although they did a pretty good job of catching the passes that came near.

[GiddyUp]

I wish we had another package in the redzone. i would love to see 2 back sets. There is no where to throw inside the 5 and we have 4 or 5 receivers. I wish Wembley could get in front of Zach Line-that would not be fun for a defense.

dont forget those ridiculous attempts at taylor thompson and however else lined up on the ends within the 5 yd line. Our red zone offense needs some work and always has.

[PonySnob]

Nothing like Keith Chiles in the backfield during the Rossely days..........

[SMU21TCU10]

Weren't we down 45-3 at one point in the game? That is pathetic.