Sadness Accrues

At the beginning of the season, I noted that this page ranks on the front page for the term "sadness accrues."

Sigh.

Tough loss yesterday at Ford Field. You miss a makeable FG, fumble on the 2 yard line, throw an early pick....you make it harder to win.  And then you lose your starting QB and you're playing a hungry team.  BG gets 12 special teams points in the second half and one offensive touchdown to get it to one score, but can't stop the Aggies in the last minutes....as they converted 3rd downs to keep the ball and run the clock out.

It was disappointing.  But nothing was a great surprise.  It was a pretty decent picture of who we have been this year.

A couple notes.

First, a sad ending for Matt McDonald.  In what will probably be the last time he will play football, he was injured on a cheap shot early in the game and did not return. He took a lot of criticism as QB.  He's a true warrior, playing through injuries multiple times.  He took a lot of hits on a lot of really bad teams.  I don't think we'll forget the image of his father leaning over the stands to comfort him.  Very tough way to finish your career.

Second, Coach was interesting in the post-game presser. He said, more than once, that we will be able to run the ball and defend the run next year, "come hell or high water."  Not sure which one we had at Ford Field, but our two backs had 3.8 yards per carry...and the Aggies main backs were over 8 and 5 and then QB runs on top of it.

Loeffler guaranteed a strong running attack next year.  That's going to be interesting.  Yes, Terion Stewart is expected back, but the issue isn't just the backs.  He would clearly help, but I don't see us moving the line of scrimmage very much. We were 11th in rushing and PFF has us 10th in run blocking.  Assuming our line starts next year looking more or less like it did this year...let's just say he could need all of the spring practice he pledged to fixing the problem.

More to come, but the rebuild is still tenuous.  We did reach our goal this year and I have said all along  that the best thing for the program is for Loeffler to finish the rebuild successfully.  So, 0 wins, 4 wins, 6 wins...the trip to 8 might require the most improvement of all.