moving before snap on third down May have been the difference. Those sorts of things are killers.

Lack of poise

Like I said before, for a program that hangs its hat on the intelligence and diligence of its players and on the experience of its coaching staff, we sure don't act the part on the field.

Look at Army for example, who's in a semi-similar boat. Sure, they're not as good as they were last season and they run a different scheme, but I don't recall ever seeing this kind of sloppiness from them.

Great 2nd half effort. But too little, too late. Can spot a good team, and drain your defensive players.

Zander, in defense, we are playing a number of young players on defense. And then we burnt them out with continual 3 and outs.

Tough one to swallow. This ND team was good but definitely a team we should beat. Nothing fancy about their offense. We just don't have the dogs on D.

Discipline. We have a little more of it and we are potentially 5-1 and not 2-4. It's the little things that makes championship teams and we lack that.

The improved second half effort was only when compared to the first half IMO. Defense went from nonexistent to okay and offense went from pretty bad to inconsistent. Special teams got a little worse.

I hate to be a downer but there has been exactly one season I could actually be happy about in my entire history as an Aggie fan (UCD is 1 for 7 for winning seasons in that timespan and getting perilously close to 1 for 8). I can see the writing on the wall that this season isn't going to add to the "happy column".

This season has been very disappointing so far. We should not have fallen this far off the tracks considering the number of players we brought back. The coaching staff just doesn't seem to have that edge that they had last season. Play calling is strange, total lack of discipline, lack of focus. By all intents and purposes we should have been able to be a playoff team again this season. Very very frustrating to say the least.

The dogs were there in the 2nd half. Why?

don’t think today was on coaching staff. Apparently good second half adjustments. Players need to execute and not make dumb mistakes. That motion penalty was inexcusable. I think if Crawford had been available the last quarter things might have turned out differently. He’s their best possession receiver.

Stats of note.

3 Interceptions. Back breakers.
4 of 15 on 3rd down.
81 yards rushing.
8 penalties.
9 fewer TOP minutes (turnovers, 4 of 15).

I disagree: consistent, similar penalties across multiple players across multiple games seems like it should be on the staff. If your players collectively aren't learning something then it's a teaching problem.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I don't think the coaching staff had the team ready to go in the first half. Offense was majorly inconsistent and defense entirely non-existent. I think that has to be somewhat on the coaches and the preparation through the week leading up to the game.

On D, terrible first half and the return to our normal in second half, makes me think we weren’t prepared or couldn’t adjust without halftime. I don’t buy the offense ineptitude wore them out when you give up an 80 yard drive to open the game. The whole game impression is that they were prepared for us, and we weren’t prepared for them.
The thing that stands out to me is that once again a mediocre running team was too much for us to stop, e.g San Diego, Montana, and now this game.

On the other side of the ball. Gilliam alone isn’t enough.

North Dakota went through us like a knife through butter, while our offense looked like we were cutting steak with a spoon.

Who brings the firey pep talk? We could fly in Coach Foster every week. Solid second half, another 'unintended lesson'.

Edit: another huge game for Eaton, 9 tackles. Did Venable go out? He played, has size, no tackles. Unusual for him, he's been productive. DE Cade Peacock played, his first action this year. Do we possibly have injuries on the D line we don't know about?

FWIW, Maier threw 10 picks last year in 13 games.

This year, 9 picks in 6 games.

Rushing, we averaged about 166 YPG last year, about 95 YPG this year.

I think it transcends motivation. We’re too small on D, except for D line, We seem so willing to give up 5 yards on first down. How many times were they 1st and 15 after a penalty and the next play gain 5 plus yards?
On offense we have no go to plays that we can rely on to get 4 yards. We need some plays that work without relying on deception. We have a lot of plays that check down to throwing a pass for a two yard loss, and we have a lot of pass plays that even if complete don’t gain four yards, Net result is that we have difficulty putting a regular drive together converting third downs and moving the ball the old fashioned way.

Agree. We've become predictable. Handoff for no gain, pass behind the line for no gain, then desperation and they tee off. The CC WR pass is no longer a surprise as of last year.

What happened to the TE over the middle, short dinks over the D line, going deep on 2nd and 2?

Great catch by Babb, true freshman LB Mouisett also contributed again. We had 2 tall WRs (6'6"?) we let go. Is Peacock playing due to injuries, or belief he'll bring QB heat?

And I REALLY don't understand short field kickoffs.

This season is toast. Just beat Poly and J Street Tech please, thanks.

Have a solid season, salvage recruiting. Give Rodriguez and others some snaps. Compete for the Big Sky title. Aggie Band-uh there would help, no doubt.

https://www.galvnews.com/news_ap/sports/article_c1716ebd-8339-52de-8c5a-b0ab1b72aaaa.html?block_id=531919

I’m beginning to think this years team is regressing to the mean. In other words, we were good last year due to several aberrations or one time events (Doss, Bland, Moe White playing together well and the biggie: our opponents were underestimating us in a major way). Maybe also that our coaches were not over confident like they appear to be now. I’m not saying we are a bad team, just that last years team was apparently very good for aberrational reasons. I hope we can pull out of this skid.

agreed, should be noted that last year's schedule had some decent teams but aside from EWU and Stanford (accounting for 100% of the losses) didn't have nearly there quantity of good FCS teams on it. (We've probably had three FCS playoff bound opponents already, maybe 4 this year).

Just now catching up on all this after not having cell coverage most of the afternoon. I saw parts of the first half then nothing further. Without a big analysis, we simply have been over rated and we are not very good. I got beat up a little when i predicted an 8-4 season. At this point we would be lucky with that record. Suc and poly are going to be hard for this team to beat. Hope to be home for homecoming.

Don’t look now, but Poly is trying to come back in the 4th quarter against Montana State at home, and the Hornets are up 13 on EWU in the 2nd quarter.

Barriere appears to be hurt. Visitor stands empty at sac state high.

Tie game, headed to OT.

Al Poly loses in OT. A little like Aggies game. Came back but came up short.

rushing is definitely a problem. The concerning thing to me is that we are losing Maier next year. He can’t carry the team all the time. I know he’s thrown some picks, but today I think 2 were of deflections our of Aggie receivers hands. He did throw for almost 400 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Sac state 34 EWU 14. Looks like EWU is regressing too. Barriere back on game but I think Sac is the better team. Big Sky is crazy. I know Idaho lost, but how did they score 35 on Weber. Shaping up as Montana, Montana State, Weber and Sac as the ones to beat in Big Sky.

Just as I say that EWU scores.