Do we get Porter and Rex back next week? My blood pressure can't take this! My new coworker is an SDSU alumni and we're enjoying talking FCS football. He just texted me with a giant PHEW!
Ags performed basically as Massey predicted — favored against SUU by a FG. Course that doesn’t tell the whole story of spotting them the pick six, SUU’s missed FG, etc.
Thus might turn out to be a bit of a quality win though if SUU solves their special teams problems
Phew. Just finished the game. LOTS of thoughts. A win is a win. Trying to get David Meyer on this week. Will save the nuggets for the POD, but heck we are 2-1 somehow.
Things I liked
- Lan Larison continues to show why he's going to go down as an Aggie legend. 88 net rushing yards, 92 receiving yards, and the TD to put us up in the 3rd quarter.
- Miles Hastings' completion percentage was much better than it was coming into the game. I criticize MH a lot, but I try to be objective about it so I will at least give him that he was more efficient today.
- Team defense only gave up 14 points to a team that dropped 27 on a (really bad) FBS team last week. They held their key player, Lambson, to less yards on more carries than UTEP did as well.
- Hunter Ridley has been money the last 2 games.
- No real special teams errors that I can think of off the top of my head.
Things I didn't like
- There's no way getting around talking about the pick 6. Plough trying to use the shadows on the field as an excuse, but we all know and see it that Miles rarely looks past his first read. He almost threw a 2nd pick 6 on basically the same play in the same area of the field. Big Sky DBs are licking their chops knowing that they will be able to jump routes when they see Miles looking at their side of the field.
- The defense has been beat up with injuries and were getting gassed by the end of the game, but there at the end of the 3rd quarter and into the 4th quarter the tackling looked pretty rough. That hasn't been a consistent problem this season, but I didn't like seeing so many broken tackles at the end of the game.
- Continued question marks about just getting the ball into the end zone. Just 1 TD from within the red zone. We can't rely on FGs and 60 yard TDs to win games once conference play starts.
A win is a win! Go Ags! Bring on the Trailblazers!
Not long ago we were losing the close games. At least now were winning the close ones. My take on the red zone struggles- we’re too predictable. We’re trying to be the physical team and run it up the gut. Its not working against a stuffed box.
We've definitely got some areas that need urgent improvement but I think this win is a proud one for the Aggies. The score at the end of the first half was disappointing after the early pick 6 and our continuing struggles to score TD's when we get into the red zone but we came out on fire in the 3rd quarter and then our banged up, tired defense hung on enough for us to get the win.
We've got a lot of room to get better and that's actually a good thing since we're a pretty good football team right now and the best is yet to come.
The soft part of our schedule comes up w 3 of 4 very winnable games. I really hope we give our youngsters some needed PT.
- we've only played 2 RBs. Fisher is a stud, give him some carries!
- we haven't thrown to Dobbins since Cal
- we're throwing to a senior-heavy receiving group - can we get the underclassmen some experience?
- is CJ Millican now a WR?
- have we abandoned the jet sweep?
- we need to improve our 3rd down execution
I don’t think we abandoned the jet sweep entirely. I think Dobbins ran once and got grabbed by the foot.
Number 18 on offense is Trent Tompkins, not CJ Millican
At least we’re playing a lot of guys on defense, different philosophy on that side.