You could see that coming with the rush. Good play.

The color guy on tv really knows his stuff.

This is becoming a route. But good to see things clicking so well - and gaining confidence.

Hope Teddy Buchanan is back soon. Gonna need him. They do seem deep at linebacker though.

Amen.

Get rid of the ball. Just throw it out of bounds. Plenty of time.

Go Gilliam.

Who is the guy doing color on tv? He is good- better than Marsh in my opinion. The best radio combo would be Wong and this guy.

Montana State down 34-14 at half. Oregon State just looks faster with more weapons. Montana State’s weakness is lack of a real passing game. They really haven’t played stiff competition till now and they have just stepped onto the field to a different level of competition tonight.

Sac up on INI 21-7. 10:00 second quarter. Sac looking pretty unstoppable.

Sac draws first blood in the UNI dome. Scataboo is a load.

Cal Poly QB Jones injured early in game. Looks like a fairly series lower leg injury. No weight on foot as helped off field. 14-7 South Dakota midway 1st quarter. Brasch in as QB for Poly. USD moving. Poly giving up too many big plays.

Ags beat them 53-7 last year and USD ended up with a tie for best league record. Not saying this result will be matched, but anything less than a convincing win will be concerning in my opinion. Ags at the least absolutely need to get a number other than a placeholder (my pet peeve about the newly allowed Jersey “number” of 0) in the win column.

Watched the NAU Sam Houston game. Sam Houston is not the sam team without Eric Schmid at QB. NAU defensive front did well. RN Martinez looked good. Very nice long ball.

A couple thoughts:
Don’t take anything for granted in college football. The Aggies can’t mail this one on. I watched the Illinois State (MVFC) vs. Valparaiso (bottom tier Pioneer league) game and Valpo almost won. iSU won 28-21.


Cal Poly passed for 385 yards on the Torreros. It is very strange to think Poly may have a better passing game than Davis. The Ags would normally shred something like this. If the passing game doesn’t pick up this game, it does not bode well. Optimally, there would be enough of a lead that would allow some snaps for another quarterback later in the game.

I am beginning to think that the limited playing time of Babb has more to do with not being in good favor with coaches than anything else. He is a real play maker and has good speed. Sitting out last year might have hurt him not so much with lost experience but with coaches maybe thinking he wasn’t committed to the team. I have no evidence of this, just a thought. Anyway, in my opinion he should have more playing time. I think he could do what CJ Hutton does and could be more of a deep threat in addition.

After watching the game on Tuesday, I have the folllowimgs thoughts/observations:
The O-line did a very good job of protecting Hastings. Run blocking was not so great - but this was a very stingy run defense the Ags were going against.

Gilliam continues to be the best overall and most consistent weapon the Aggies have. His pass catching and runs after catch were quite impressive. Even when there was no where to go on rushes, he consistently made defenders miss. There were several jock straps left on the field from his spin moves.

Kicking game still needs to step up. Not sure if blocked extra point was kicked too low or if defender punched through. The missed field goal wasn’t egregious IMO as it was 43 yards and it hit the upright (with plenty of distance to spare). I did notice that there were a couple of snaps/holds that weren’t very clean. Lola like they have switched to Reich for punting. Punting was ok - really miss those sky scrapers of Whelan.

Rex Conners is a player. Super good at ball hawking and quick/powerful downhill tackling. Looks like he is playing some sort of river position which seems perfect for his skills.

Hastings was ok. He seems to be playing just good enough to keep others on the bench. I noted about 11-12 inaccurate throws, 3 dropped passes, and 2 opportunities for a passing TD that were off target. Larison was open for a TD and he threw behind him instead of throwing him more open. There was another TD opportunity with Davis. Other than the 68 yard TD to Larison (more than half of that a run) the longest reception was 25 to Castles (Gilliam a 25 reception but mostly run). Still not stretching the field and very inconsistent long ball accuracy. This facet needs to get better. There was also a pick on a penalty that negates it. Still need development in vision and looking off defenders.

Overall a good team effort and good defense. But if you don’t get the win it still goes on the L column. Getting “over the hump” still somewhat of a plague.

Wide open castles for big gain and pass behind him. Radio silence for wedding.

Conners looked very good. Don’t know that you change anything up with him.

If the Aggies are to have a reasonable chance of winning, I think there are some keys:

- got to improve on yards per passes. This has been meager since midway of last year.
-I think Gilliam is going to carry the team on his back. He seems to be the one offensive weapon that is consistent.
-Get pressure on QB. This will take pressure off of DBs
- take care of the ball. No more than 1 turnover.
- special teams - improve on both punt distance, and maybe more importantly on height - and don’t miss extra points! And kick the ball into end zone. We know now how much of a weapon Whelan was. We lost the field position battle at Cal.

I think SDSU offense was limited last Saturday by a few factors; loss of Pierre Strong (that guy was something), new offensive coordinator, and Gronowski not having live game experience for quite some time. Of course iowas defense looks to be very good and their punter is something else.

But heck - what do I know. The only think I feel relatively confident of is that it won’t be as bad as last time, and I think run defense will be better (couldn’t be much worse than last time in Brookings).