who knows what’s up with Tehran? Hopefully he’s not one of those Arizona recruits we can’t keep on campus. But he’s not a silver bullet. I think he has good speed for his size but if he had great speed for his size he’d be in FBS, his HS heroics were pretty well advertised. We do not have the personnel to be a good running team.
That said, I think we can do better against IDSU than we did against Poly. They allow almost 5 yards a carry. I’d like to see us play like we did before NAU and have a mix of plays.

The first four touchdowns show a difference between this year and last. I just can’t picture us putting up those points last year.

We should expect to win this week and against Sac. We should expect to lose against SUU. We could win or lose any of the three. This is the make or break portion of the year.
If we only beat Sac the year is a success. We will have shown improvement and swept California FCS schools.
If we only beat SUU the seasons a success, we will have established a rep in the big sky as a team that can knock of anyone in the Big Sky
If we only beat Idaho State it will be a good but unsatisfying year. We will have only beat the lowest tier teams in Big Sky. Still improved over recent years though.
If we lose all three the season will be disappointing

Basically we’ve played to form, no upset yet and no loss that can be considered an upset. Losing this week would be a mild upset; it would drop us in the rankings quite a bit.

I think we can run against Idaho State. Our run stats against NAU were not terrible, they just stopped us in key situations. NAU is good defensive team.
Idaho State gives up 4.9 yards per carry, while Cal Poly gives up 3.9.
CJ did throw a touchdown on a roll out against NAU. And we had a fumble against Weber I think on a handoff. I like the wildcat, we could run some non wildcat plays with CJ in there as well. Execution needs to be good like is true for everything else.

So this week is our most favored matchup remaining with us being only a slight favorite if at all against Sac..... Puke.

But not Moore’s playing time

He seems to be quite an athlete, so the coaches should find a way to use him. Don't know what's the story is this last week. Hopefully all is well with him and he is adjusting to college life. I hope he has a long and successful career with us.

There is a need for what TT can offer. Hopefully he'll get a chance. He is more of a fullback type, so maybe he lacks sufficient speed to be the primary RB.

I know you're just disappointed with results. No question our passing game is better than our running game. I think the coach conceded they ran too much early.
But... we have to at least do enough with the run that they play us honestly. We can all agree we should run some but not too much, wherever that line is drawn.
I think it was the Montana coach who said regarding the fly option that they wanted the defense to at least have to guard against the fly sweep because it limited what the defense could do. That’s how it is with us and the run generally and the fly sweep in particular, plus we have to be able to pick up fourth and inches.

Well, there seems to be much disappointment with running game, so in that regard;
What do we think of Tehran Thomas? Has had some success in spots but dropped that fourth down screen. Should we feature him more?

Two out of the first three series featured an incomplete pass. On the first series we got a first down despite the incompletion. In only one of the first 3 series did we not pass, and that series the qb ran the ball.
Then after an interception we got a touchdown with some productive plays. So we were unproductive in the first 3 series, but not because we didn't pass. We didn't complete the two passes we tried.

I’m also in favor of being pass oriented. However, they probably thought we could successfully run the ball based on film. They were wrong in the sense that we couldn’t when it counted. We have to look at ourselves and see if we were too predictable in certain situations. We were not terrible statistically for the game as a whole but got stuffed whenever it really counted. Fourth and inches for example. But overall we were 4/16 on third down, and some portion of those were pass plays. We just didn’t succeed in key situations generally.

As a person who watched more football years ago before they got so protective, the penalty that resulted in ejection looked pretty questionable to me. A defensive player collides with a passer who is also running toward the defender. The defensive player is reaching out with both arms to interfere with the pass and then they have a pretty innocuous collision. They call targeting based on the bumping helmets. Roughing the passer maybe but an ejection was kind of extream.

We are much improved. Just not yet at level of our last two foes. Now we have an easier schedule so let’s see how we fare. Winning against Poly and Sac would make the season a success and we have a good chance of doing that.

OldAggie is right about the D. We gives up far too many big plays which reflects lack of athleticism. Every game features a routine play or plays where a ball carrier gets a little space and then its a TD or huge gain.
On offense we seem to have the horses, except on the offensive line, and are somewhat deficient compared to conference foes at running back.
Movielover, I think we played a lot of players on D due to the altitude.

Problem was that their defense was able to stop either run or pas at critical times. 4 for 16 on third down. Stopped on fourth and inches on one running play and then again on 4th down when running back dropped the pass.
On the other side we gave up a running play that went up the middle for 43 yards and I think that was third and long. They converted too many third and long situations.
The big plays against us are our major problem.

Three weeks ago, beating NAU would not have been seen a big upset, but they have looked real tough the last few weeks. This now looks like the least likely win on the rest of our schedule. I think have made great progress, you list our wins, but the EWU loss shows progress as well. I think our offense is now a big concern to the teams we play. We may just need a little more athleticism to stop some of the big gains. Hard to win when you give up the long plays we have.

Regarding the importance of this game, I think its hugely important because its next. I'm excited to think we might win. I don't think we're really a solid team that will put together a long win streak, and if you look at it as though we're just competitive with the other league members, and will win about half of those games, does it really matter which ones? I don't want us to lose any, but I think the most important thing is to sweep all FCS teams in California by beating cal poly and sac. Our team is getting better each week as its a new situation that players and coaches are adjusting to. Maybe EW is too big a test this soon, but maybe not.

I think for an FCS team our secondary is pretty good, although we don't have much of a pass rush without blitzing. I'd prefer we play a pass oriented team than one that is very strong rushing. Famous last words. We are going to have to score above our average to win this week, I think.