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Right, Navy gets killer athletes and run the most successful offense in college football. They don't run the option because they generally have smaller, inferior athletes who hope to gain a slight advantage through deception and speed. The fact that they were able to get 4v2 on the sideline almost every play during their first offensive series tells me everything I need to know about their game preparation.

Ok. You are right. I give up. SMU has the best defense in football. It is proven. They just all get put in the wrong place which means they are always chasing the other team or getting knocked on their [deleted].

just gonna have to wait 3 years to learn about turning a program around-I'm not gonna talk about the 2015 Defense any more. Go watch video of McLauren, Badejo, Demarack Gary,Jordan Ward, and some of the DBs which is worth more than hoping these guys get it.

Stallion wrote:just gonna have to wait 3 years to learn about turning a program around-I'm not gonna talk about the 2015 Defense any more. Go watch video of McLauren, Badejo, Demarack Gary,Jordan Ward, and some of the DBs which is worth more than hoping these guys get it.

I totally agree. I have no idea if Malone is good or not. It is like building sand castles with dry sand. No way to tell what you have without the right ingredients.

I hope you both are right.

I'm tired of excuses of why we are not seeing competent football. Phil is nice. We are just lucky too have June. We don't have an IPF. Malone doesn't have any players. Etc.

didn't expect see a competent defense this year in the first place. Same players minus 3 of our best from last year-no real young players contributing. 4 players who came to SMU as walkons playing substantial minutes. Undersized and slow across the board. Lawler is the only one who might someday make 3rd team All-Conference

Just got back home after driving back from Annapolis. On the positive side,the Mustang Club tailgate was a lot of fun. There was a very large crowd and it was a beautiful day - just a bit chilly. Glad we went. Need Chad's recruits to get here sooner rather than later. Very tough watching us stop them on 3rd down just to have them run wild on 4th. One of the best Navy teams I've seen. What a fantastic atmosphere! Emotional watching the Midshipmen march in with the French flag along with the US.

I think before ripping into the coach and company you have to step back realize its the first freaking year. Given how June sunk the ship because of our idiotic admin (or lack of funds) to get rid of him; Chad is dealt with the toughest hand to play with. I'm shock we were able to score 40+ points in some of our games with D-3 players we have. I'm looking forward to 2017!

Announcer Randy Cross said that SMU needs to recruit defense in this class. Echoed Stallion's thoughts.

Uncanny observation

- The great thing about playing a triple option is that it gives you a real chance to evaluate player potential. Lots of 1v1 battles all over the field.
- Lack of speed and size at linebacker is obvious, as is the lack of speed at safety.
- Tackles did a good job against the dive for the most part.
- One really important thing when you play the option with a 4 man front is that the DEs have to be able to be disruptive from time to time. When they push up on the edge, it forces the QB and the pitch to go back from the line or to delay the pitch. The lack of impact on the game from our DEs was telling. Lawler I think has potential to be an all-conference end, and they spent a lot of time running away from him, but even he didn't have the impact he needed to have. For the most part we got zero push at end, which exposed our lack of speed at LB and safety even more, because it makes the running play develop faster.

That said, the scheme didn't exactly play to our strengths. Playing the MLB deep off the line, the other two LBs close to the line was odd. They were basically having the off-side OLB take the dive, the near side OLB try and take the QB, and the MLB was required to run to the edge from the middle and cover the pitch. That is why you saw Tui chasing to the outside so much and Cox was making a lot of tackles on the dive. With our personel though, it really put a strain on our weakness at LB. When the QB kept, Yenga would either take the tackle-guard gap or the off tackle gap and the Navy QB would wait for a commit, and just take the other gap. None of our OLB are big enough to take on a blocker and force the QB to go a way the defense wants him to. So that was a lose. And none of our MLB are quick enough to get outside on the pitch. The result was a lot of 5-7 yard games, and Navy could go for it every fourth down because they knew we wouldn't get a negative play.

The safety play was a bit odd as well. Typically, you see the option side safety creep up and help against the run, and the offside safety rotate over to cover the deep ball over the middle. We had the pitch side safety actually running away from the ball side to the other side of the field several times, which lead nobody covering the slot receiver. That is what happened on the first long TD throw. Weird scheme.

JasonB wrote:- The great thing about playing a triple option is that it gives you a real chance to evaluate player potential. Lots of 1v1 battles all over the field.
- Lack of speed and size at linebacker is obvious, as is the lack of speed at safety.
- Tackles did a good job against the dive for the most part.
- One really important thing when you play the option with a 4 man front is that the DEs have to be able to be disruptive from time to time. When they push up on the edge, it forces the QB and the pitch to go back from the line or to delay the pitch. The lack of impact on the game from our DEs was telling. Lawler I think has potential to be an all-conference end, and they spent a lot of time running away from him, but even he didn't have the impact he needed to have. For the most part we got zero push at end, which exposed our lack of speed at LB and safety even more, because it makes the running play develop faster.

That said, the scheme didn't exactly play to our strengths. Playing the MLB deep off the line, the other two LBs close to the line was odd. They were basically having the off-side OLB take the dive, the near side OLB try and take the QB, and the MLB was required to run to the edge from the middle and cover the pitch. That is why you saw Tui chasing to the outside so much and Cox was making a lot of tackles on the dive. With our personel though, it really put a strain on our weakness at LB. When the QB kept, Yenga would either take the tackle-guard gap or the off tackle gap and the Navy QB would wait for a commit, and just take the other gap. None of our OLB are big enough to take on a blocker and force the QB to go a way the defense wants him to. So that was a lose. And none of our MLB are quick enough to get outside on the pitch. The result was a lot of 5-7 yard games, and Navy could go for it every fourth down because they knew we wouldn't get a negative play.

The safety play was a bit odd as well. Typically, you see the option side safety creep up and help against the run, and the offside safety rotate over to cover the deep ball over the middle. We had the pitch side safety actually running away from the ball side to the other side of the field several times, which lead nobody covering the slot receiver. That is what happened on the first long TD throw. Weird scheme.

The players probably came up with the scheme, so it's on them.

Malone doesn't have much to work with, but we can't afford a long learning curve for him and the D coaches. So far I'm not impressed.

Rebel10 wrote:Announcer Randy Cross said that SMU needs to recruit defense in this class. Echoed Stallion's thoughts.

The Navy Radio team thinks that Sanders Jr has a NFL/CFL future as a kick returner.

1) Navy's stadium is exactly what Ford should have been built like;
2) watching the Midshipmen fill sections of the stadium was really cool;
3) all Navy fans were nice to us; and
4) my kids loved playing on The Hill during the game.

In two years, my family will be back and in better seats.

Simple fact was Navy controlled the line of scrimmage. They made what 4 fourth and 2's. You win games in the trenches. We had no tackles for loss that I recall. One hurry on a throw. That's it. On offense, they pretty much kept up with our wideouts which surprised me to some extent. The wind such as it was probably had some effect on Davis' accuracy, but all in all Navy was in position to break up passes or challenge passes on our wideouts. Davis was hurried repeatedly. So, until our front lines mature and get better, we have to expect this type of game. After the last three recruiting classes, none of us should be surprised by these results.