What a disappointment. You know, flash back to finishing last season, and we're 8-4 and most everyone is back, and you gotta think we have a shot at a MAC Title. Then we go to the bowl game and take the biggest loss in history, and then we lose some guys over the off-season, and the season starts, and you're kind of worried.
But, we navigate the pre-season 2-2, including a win @ Pitt, a decent performance at Boise, etc. And you think, OK, maybe we are ready to go.
Then the MAC season starts, and nothing works. We lose to EMU, barely beat Akron, and lose to Miami and NIU. Today we are in a very precarious position, but its going to be tough to salvage right now. Even if we were to win out (or win the East with four losses), its hard to imagine us beating BSU or CMU for the MAC title. In fact, its hard to imagine it not being a total butt kicking.
So, that wouldn't really salvage much. And that's the best case. Because right now, its hard to see how we beat anyone. Kent State did to Miami what we should have--they decimated them today. We play Kent next week, and with Eugene Jarvis and their running QB, we don't match up very well.
I guess we could beat OU. Or not. If we play as we have the last four weeks, I would expect us to win only one game coming home. A 4-8 record for the second time in three years. One winning season in the last four.
This is not the first time we had a senior-dominated team that we couldn't bring in for a landing. The last time was 2005, when we were 6-6 when we should have been able to win it all.
Of course, that was the year Omar got injured. So, there's an explanation (I guess). This year's team is healthy, with the exception of at RB, but you know what? We have the same RB that brought us to 8-4 last season. Yes, I know Ransom is out, Geter and Bullock and Barnes unehalthy, but the starting players at every other position have been very, very consistent.
No, this team has not been decimated by injuries. Just decimated. The East is so weak this year....an average team would be running away with it.
We now have to be realistic about where we are. Simply put, we have a team with 11 starting seniors (7 on defense), two years after we had to "rebuild" because of the hole in our recruiting class when Urban left, and today we are 3-5, the worst starting record of the Brand0n/Meyer era. And we have a coach who is signed for three more seasons.
Most frustrating of all is the offense. Supposely, our coach was the brains behind the great offenses of the Meyer years. That's getting hard to believe. Right now, it appears that we have no idea at all what we want to do on offense.
I know that part of it is that defenses have adapted to the spread. You hear that all over the country. But we are simply not producing on offense. I don't know where the problem is. But, my observation is that we are as careful and conservative as we were when Anthony Turner was the fill-in QB when Omar got injured. We throw behind the line time after time, and the defenses are just ganging up on it. Did I see that Partridge had four catches for no yards at halftime today?
Wow.
Its just a shame. It had the potential to be so much better. And something is wrong. Because it isn't that we're injured, and it isn't that other teams are better than we thought. If anything, they are worse.
Check out what Miami and EMU have done after beating us.
We're just not very good. And we're a lot worse than last year, with the same players, more or less.
The Nation is in an uproar. Of course, everyone wants Brandon's head, but that's just not going to happen. Next, of course, they want the QB's head. No player is ever more perfect than the backup QB.
We're just not a winning team. I don't think that its all the coaches, and I don't think its all the players. It certainly isn't all the QB. I don't think a player in America could execute today's game plan.
I don't think, really, that any element of this team is as good as it was last year. I guess that's almost obvious.
The season goes on. We can't do anything until we beat Kent. It would be a start. But, anything short of a December win at Ford Field, and I think this season is destined to be a disappointment.
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