Acker, WRs, and other thoughts

[JasonB]

- The defense was fine, this loss is all on the offense and special teams.
- Acker has been fantastic for two straight games. He played an amazing game yesterday.
- How many WRs are we down? In order for Ace to start, that means DT, Nelson, Taylor, Lancaster are all hurt. Ace gave the team nothing yesterday.
- On that note, did Gaines play at all yesterday?
- Two things happened to the offense in the second half. Gotshaulk got hurt; in turn, the offensive line started getting roasted. And TCU stopped worrying about a running game and just killed us in pass coverage and on the blitz. The lack of a playmaker at receiver is just a killer in these games.
- The delayed run is completely gone so far. Not even trying it. I think there are three reasons for this. 1) The o-line can't hold a block for long enough for a delay to develop, 2) we weren't able to run the ball effectively last year until we played with a larger receiver inside, which means a lot of Gaines and a lot less DJ, and 3) with the shorter routes on offense, we aren't running 4 receivers deep to create a gap for the RB or GG to take advantage. I believe the schematic changes in offense have absolutely killed the running game from the RB and QB.
- This has been a criticism of JJ teams every since the Sugar Bowl, but it is obvious that physical teams just destroy our receivers. Tons of times yesterday where a little bump throws us completely off balance, and it resulted in at least two picks yesterday.

- I have been on the record with this thing stating that 8-4 should be an expectation this year with the talent we have on the team. Obviously, we are going to most likely have a record less than that, and it should be taken as a disappointment. Tech and TCU obviously, aren't that great. An average team should split Tech and TCU, and beat Montana State, Rutgers, Memphis, Temple, UConn and UCF. And a good team would win one of the three games against Cincy, Houston, and UCF. Good football teams don't commit 15 penalties or turn the ball over 5 times. Bad football teams find ways to lose ballgames. As I said in my prediction before the TCU game, right now we are a bad football team.

I think at some point this season, we will stop with the mental mistakes and start playing better. But I don't know when that is going to happen. It certainly doesn't look like it is going to change in time to save JJ's job. The manner in which we lost the Tech, TCU, and A&M games is disappointing to everyone involved.

As much as I think it is crazy from an outsider perspective to say that someone should be let go after 5 straight bowl games, I think the team has to finish at least 7-5 and look very good doing it for Jones and the staff to stick around. Otherwise they are not going to be around. For the offense to still be a cause of our problems this long into his tenure is not going to be acceptable. We have had a couple of seasons to recover from the extremely poor WR and OL recruiting from 2-4 years ago. Things should be better by now. And from a talent perspective, things are better. The offensive linemen and receivers on the team right now ARE better players than we have had there the last two season. We just aren't showing it on the field.

[mavsrage311]

"The offensive linemen and receivers on the team right now ARE better players than we have had there the last two season. We just aren't showing it on the field."

Jason, I agree with almost everything in your post, but the above is simply not true. Especially in regards to our receivers. You're telling me our receivers right now are better than guys currently in the NFL...Beasley, Robinson, DJ?????? I think we both know our receivers are a huge reason why we are struggling so badly. I don't think our offensive line is better either, but that is more debatable.

[ALEX LIFESON]

Lancaster had surgery, should be able to get medical redshirt. Taylor was out with an injury, should be back this week. Nelson played on special teams. The other 20 wr's on scholarship are spares. Defense played pretty well the first half, but all of the missed tackles are nuts. The talent level of all of our o-linemen, looks like a D-2 level. The chickens have come home to roost.

[SMUer]

It takes three would-be SMU tacklers to know the guy off-balance enough that he falls down by himself...sometimes

[PonyKai]

The other 20 wr's on scholarship are spares. .

hahaha...but true. Painfully true.

[Lebanese4Life]

agree with mavsrage. our current OL and WR are not even close to what theyve been in the last 2 years.

[Rebel10]

You predicted 9-3.

I still like my 9-3 prediction.

[AusTxPony]

MY COMPLAINTS:
Terrible decisions by GG. He was making slow decisions, should have tucked and run the ball a couple of times but hesitated and no gain. No excuse for that. At least 2 horrible passes right to the defender. He looked like a Freshman again. Sad. And all of that in the first half. Luckily, I had to leave the TV and didn't see the second half.
No running game. Prescott did not impress. Can only hope that Shead does better.
Is Ashcraft still around? Did he pan out?

[SMU_Alumni11]

MY COMPLAINTS:
Terrible decisions by GG. He was making slow decisions, should have tucked and run the ball a couple of times but hesitated and no gain. No excuse for that. At least 2 horrible passes right to the defender. He looked like a Freshman again. Sad. And all of that in the first half. Luckily, I had to leave the TV and didn't see the second half.
No running game. Prescott did not impress. Can only hope that Shead does better.
Is Ashcraft still around? Did he pan out?

C'mon, he didn't have a chance in hell with our pansy crappy Oline and our horrid WRs. We would have a better shot recruiting the weight training team and put them as Oline and get a bunch of track stars and put them as WRs...

[Charleston Pony]

MY COMPLAINTS:
Terrible decisions by GG. He was making slow decisions, should have tucked and run the ball a couple of times but hesitated and no gain. No excuse for that. At least 2 horrible passes right to the defender. He looked like a Freshman again. Sad. And all of that in the first half. Luckily, I had to leave the TV and didn't see the second half.
No running game. Prescott did not impress. Can only hope that Shead does better.
Is Ashcraft still around? Did he pan out?

C'mon, he didn't have a chance in hell with our pansy crappy Oline and our horrid WRs. We would have a better shot recruiting the weight training team and put them as Oline and get a bunch of track stars and put them as WRs...

did you watch the 1st half? he had plenty of time and some wide open running lanes to at least keep the chains moving. I just don't think the guy sees the field well and I agree he is slow to make decisions. Not want you expect from a guy who has been around as long as he has

[Rebel10]

Seems our best receivers and offensive lineman were PB recruit. Now we are fresh out of PB recruits.

[SMU_Alumni11]

MY COMPLAINTS:
Terrible decisions by GG. He was making slow decisions, should have tucked and run the ball a couple of times but hesitated and no gain. No excuse for that. At least 2 horrible passes right to the defender. He looked like a Freshman again. Sad. And all of that in the first half. Luckily, I had to leave the TV and didn't see the second half.
No running game. Prescott did not impress. Can only hope that Shead does better.
Is Ashcraft still around? Did he pan out?

C'mon, he didn't have a chance in hell with our pansy crappy Oline and our horrid WRs. We would have a better shot recruiting the weight training team and put them as Oline and get a bunch of track stars and put them as WRs...

did you watch the 1st half? he had plenty of time and some wide open running lanes to at least keep the chains moving. I just don't think the guy sees the field well and I agree he is slow to make decisions. Not want you expect from a guy who has been around as long as he has

I watch the whole game til we were down 21 pts. What I saw in the first half were decent plays and has some high hopes that we would continue to push having a lead going into second half and try to get the guys think goal line offense but once tcu realize we had a crappy o line and we weren't going to run the ball they blitz and attack hard sacking Gilbert like 7 times. Just painful to see our QB get killed like that. We have a serious O line and WR problem.

[PonySnob]

What about Deon Jr?

[PerunaPunch]

To throw a little defense to JasonB, I think he probably meant that guys like Gaines and Taylor are better recruits/prospects than Beasley and DJ. How they pan out, it of course, another matter. None of our Mustang WRs currently playing in the NFL were highly regarded.

Anyone with eyes in their head will agree that our current linemen "look" the part. Problem is with the exception of Ben G., none of them should be playing yet (goes back to poor recruiting from a needs standpoint). When you have (what should be) redshirt freshmen OLs breaking all-time team strength records, maybe the recruiting is finally headed in the right direction. You can only run 3-4 WRs at a time. You need at least 5 OLs? Right now WRs outnumber OLs 21:14.

[Rebel10]

To throw a little defense to JasonB, I think he probably meant that guys like Gaines and Taylor are better recruits/prospects than Beasley and DJ. How they pan out, it of course, another matter. None of our Mustang WRs currently playing in the NFL were highly regarded.

Anyone with eyes in their head will agree that our current linemen "look" the part. Problem is with the exception of Ben G., none of them should be playing yet (goes back to poor recruiting from a needs standpoint). When you have (what should be) redshirt freshmen OLs breaking all-time team strength records, maybe the recruiting is finally headed in the right direction. You can only run 3-4 WRs at a time. You need at least 5 OLs? Right now WRs outnumber OLs 21:14.

I know you are a hard core JJ supporter but no our recruiting is not headed in the right direction no matter how you try to spin it. Bennett had redshirt freshman lineman and wide receivers played better than this. JJ still has not found a QB for the most part. No running back in this class. No nose tackle in this class. Not many players with BCS offers in this class. Have you seen our current incoming class?