It will be Maier for sure.
Dr Mike,and anyone else at the game...Give us a report of how the svelt version of Tehran looks from a running back perspective. It seems he added a lot of weight between high school and last year and has since dropped 15 lbs and is back near his HS weight
With the young lads dialed into Hawk and Speckman after grinding it out between the tackles (ugh), it will be very interesting to see what they come up with ... can they execute consistently?
Will we see Carson Crawford, Livingston, any of the true freshmen? Cade Peacock? We've got 2 talented WRs back ...
Bruce Gallaudet has written a wonderful article about the remarkable journey of Namane Modise from the tough streets of Oakland to UCD football with a degree in mechanical engineering on the horizon:
concern about young offensive linemen; we do have a lot of redshirt freshmen and freshmen linemen plus a few sophomores. But on our two deep depth chart we’ve got 7 upperclassmen and we have returning starters at three of the five positions.
Author takes Hawkins literally on the twenty passes to Doss. He interprets that as completions. That’s tough to do if you run the normal number of plays but hopefully we’ll run more due to hurry up no huddle offense.
Plough/Speckman/Hawkins are not going to be one dimensional given the other ball handlers on our team.
Well it looks like either Bruce or the media department misidentified Modise's ME major...it's either mechanical engineering or managerial economics..either way, his story is one of resilience and determination and a great example of the kind of opportunity that college sports, done the right way, can give young men and women.
Well, the Spartans are saying they have all these 3,4, and 5 star guys. All we got are a few NFL caliber players on our team. Doss got no stars as I recall, so he must suck. And we have only a few 3 star players. So, they must be so much better than us.
Hahaha I'm pretty sure SJSU has 0 five star players. They are almost exclusively for power conference teams. I saw that over on their fan forum that a lot of people are a predicting a spartan win by several TDs. We'll see tomorrow, but they don't have much evidence to think that they should blow us out of the water.
I always have high expectations this time of the year. During the Gould era, the Aggies sucked for the first 4 or so games, then seemed to improve. Last year Hawk seemed to have them prepared early in the season. But tomorrow will be a great litmus test for us. One of the posters on the Spartan site predicted that they would take control of the game in the second half, I suspect bc of the size difference on the lines. While I hope that prediction is wrong, it is a reasonable speculation.
There is not a major difference in the size of the lines. They have one massive guy on defense and a couple of offensive linemen who outweigh ours by less than 10 lbs which is less than 3%. Their number two OL guys are smaller or the same size as ours, depending on who we start.
We are used to playing bigger teams than San Jose
I too have had high expectations that haven’t become reality.
This game will tell us a lot.
We have a lot of positive answers to questions most teams are struggling with, but we have a few things we need to prove:
Do we have some semblance of a running game? Do we have to throw the ball on third and three, or are we a threat with the run?
Can we get consistent stops on D? Is their punter going to make a regular appearance?
Their QB probably left because he lost the job.
I checked San Jose OL size vs our last opponent Sac and Sac is bigger. Not to mention the really big guys in the Big Sky.
On defense we need to get the ball back somehow. Takeaways or punts.
Extrapolating from the move of a safety to linebacker and a linebacker to defensive end that we are trying to have more speed on defense.
i heard their coach on KNBR this morning. he feels the strength of their team is the seniors on the DL. they will present a challange to our running game.
odd that they were ranked 129 against the run even though they had two linebackers with prodigious numbers of tackles, both of whome either graduated our moved on to give pros a try.
Not saying they won’t be a challenge for us. Except for our last game everyone was. Hoping we continue the running success we had against Sac, although maybe that was partially due to their lead
That was the FIRST Thing I looked at when comparing positions and guessing possible outcome for this game.
From there can our Offensive Tackles contain? They are both JR's and I don't know if they are JC transfers or came up in the system. The SJSU DLs are all returning seniors and starters.
..If not...no passing game.
If no passing game then our run game will be put to the test. 3 of their LBs are returning starters which may cause some challenges for the Aggie run game.
If our OL Tackles can stop the defense and pass block then our pass duo can torch the DBs because the SJSU defensive backfield is vulnerable.
So is it true that we run the “hurry” no huddle offense? I watched some games last year on tv and never noticed a the “no huddle”. I do know that this is a very difficult offense to run consistently but maybe our smart guys can pull if off.
Reading the San Jose stories in the Mercury news or mountain west coverage they expect to dominate because FBS vs FCS
They think their defensive line, which was the weakest part of their defense last year, to be better because they say it will. Early in camp the idea was that their seniors would provide senior leadership, but help was coming from recruits.. Now suddenly those seniors are the strength of their defense.
They think they'll win because their schedule gets tougher so they have to not only win but dominate.
A lot of wishful thinking. I hope their players have that same mindset, thinking they will dominate us, because when they don't they'll feel the pressure,
The concern about our offensive line experience may be well placed.
From our depth chart, which I think isn't too reliable, at left offensive tackle we have a red shirt freshman, and the Sac CC transfer from last year who played defense at sac city college, and was recruited as an offensive lineman here. He added 50 lbs according to roster. So two guys who've never played.
In regard to offensive line weight, a comparison from our game notes, our smallest guy is listed twice:
UCD Offensive line
LT 290 285
LG 305 296
C 277 290
RG 277 300
RT 300 298
San Jose Offensive line
LT 307 287
LG 308 284
C 284 285
RG 303 280
RT 289 275
If we lose it will be due to better players not bigger players