| I'm glad Southern Miss is being argued- and hopefully the team reads the board.
Southern Miss has always had a more defensively than offensively minded program, and back when (Thompson? Johnson?) was their DC they were about the most brutal win on our schedule. There were never any injuries the scale of those we had against Air Force last year, but there were always a hell of alot of injuries that were bad enough to hurt us in later games. Their attitude seemed to be that nothing was as much fun as kicking Goliath in the nuts, then doing a Cool Hand Luke impression when it was payback time. No matter how they did against weaker teams, the big boys on their ticket always suffered for the W.
This year the teams matchup depressingly well:
They've got a really strong D line and good linebackers which should cut into some of our primary strengths- O line & running game- and gods help us if they pound Ainge enough that we have to rotate in one of our inexperience QBs.
They've got weak corners, but, then, none of our recievers has really stepped up as a go-to guy yet.
Their O line is a big question, but so is our D line, and they've got some great running backs. Thankfully, we've got some serious depth at LB, but if they can open holes on our line and force our LBs to make all the saves, then we're probably talking about a 3 ypc average, and that's too much.
We've got strong TEs to mix up the passing attack, but their LBs and DEs are pretty strong- no guarantee they won't do just fine on pass coverage.
Basically, I think it comes down to relying on our TEs and quicker RBs to mess with their coverage, give us quick pass options, and help our inexperienced WRs mess with their inexperienced CBs.
As it stands, it could be a fairly close game- bad for us and good for them. Right now, I'm scared the difference in the game will be that we have greater odds of pulling off a few big breakaway scoring plays than they do- I never like having to rely on good luck and big plays |