Jnunn
Cautiously Pessimistic
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2013
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Butch Jones teams show a propensity for under-performing against teams they should beat. Often, against low to mid major teams, we just come out flat.
This trend started in 2013 when we let South Alabama hang around for an entire game before putting them away by a single touchdown, 31-24.
In 2014 we let a decent Arkansas State team hang with us for far too long before finally closing out the game, 34-19.
Last year, our defense was getting annihilated by a good mid-major Bowling Green team for three quarters before we finally shut them down. Bowling Green scored more points on us last year than Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma (in regulation), Northwestern, or Arkansas. We also let a very bad North Texas team hang around for awhile before winning comfortably. Maybe most egregiously we were pushed to the brink by one of South Carolina's worst teams of the past decade before winning on a fumble.
Finally, we have last night's game. That is at least six games where we have seriously under-performed against a team we should and were expected to beat comfortably. This begs the question: why?
I think the answer is two-fold. First, in all of these games we came out flat. As many others have pointed out, Butch seems to have trouble motivating a team when they feel the competition is inferior. We're lucky that this hasn't hurt us too bad, yet. If we keep this up though, I believe we will suffer a massive upset at some point, maybe this year.
Second, against the mid-major teams mentioned above we always come out extremely vanilla. Last night we patently refused to run Dobbs. I know they want to reduce wear and tear, but come on. Look at Louisville's first game. Their quarterback, Lamar Jackson (an extremely talented player), rushed 11 times, keeping Charlotte's D honest. This spread the defense out leading to easy scoring opportunities and allowing Jackson to sit the entire second half. Granted, Charlotte is much worse than Appy.
Additionally, we refused to give Dobbs enough opportunities to throw the ball downfield. The only two I can think of were the underthrown ball to Josh Smith and the beautiful bomb to Malone. The only way I feel he is going to become confident throwing the ball downfield is if we actually let him do it more than twice a game. I know he will never be the most accurate guy, but he is accurate enough to hit one or two a game to keep the D honest. I think we might have called a few more but Coleman Thomas ended up on his backside giving Dobbs 0 time to scan the field.
All of this is to say that I don't think last night means we are going to have an awful season now. The thing that concerns me most about last night is the performance of the offensive line. On offense the other pieces are all there. The defense picked it up when they needed to. The receivers looked serviceable. If we can just get consistent OL play, we should be able to still live up to our expectations going into the season.
TL;DR: Butch teams usually underperform against overmatched teams, because we come out flat and vanilla. Don't read too much into Appy State, as long as we can fix the OL.
This trend started in 2013 when we let South Alabama hang around for an entire game before putting them away by a single touchdown, 31-24.
In 2014 we let a decent Arkansas State team hang with us for far too long before finally closing out the game, 34-19.
Last year, our defense was getting annihilated by a good mid-major Bowling Green team for three quarters before we finally shut them down. Bowling Green scored more points on us last year than Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma (in regulation), Northwestern, or Arkansas. We also let a very bad North Texas team hang around for awhile before winning comfortably. Maybe most egregiously we were pushed to the brink by one of South Carolina's worst teams of the past decade before winning on a fumble.
Finally, we have last night's game. That is at least six games where we have seriously under-performed against a team we should and were expected to beat comfortably. This begs the question: why?
I think the answer is two-fold. First, in all of these games we came out flat. As many others have pointed out, Butch seems to have trouble motivating a team when they feel the competition is inferior. We're lucky that this hasn't hurt us too bad, yet. If we keep this up though, I believe we will suffer a massive upset at some point, maybe this year.
Second, against the mid-major teams mentioned above we always come out extremely vanilla. Last night we patently refused to run Dobbs. I know they want to reduce wear and tear, but come on. Look at Louisville's first game. Their quarterback, Lamar Jackson (an extremely talented player), rushed 11 times, keeping Charlotte's D honest. This spread the defense out leading to easy scoring opportunities and allowing Jackson to sit the entire second half. Granted, Charlotte is much worse than Appy.
Additionally, we refused to give Dobbs enough opportunities to throw the ball downfield. The only two I can think of were the underthrown ball to Josh Smith and the beautiful bomb to Malone. The only way I feel he is going to become confident throwing the ball downfield is if we actually let him do it more than twice a game. I know he will never be the most accurate guy, but he is accurate enough to hit one or two a game to keep the D honest. I think we might have called a few more but Coleman Thomas ended up on his backside giving Dobbs 0 time to scan the field.
All of this is to say that I don't think last night means we are going to have an awful season now. The thing that concerns me most about last night is the performance of the offensive line. On offense the other pieces are all there. The defense picked it up when they needed to. The receivers looked serviceable. If we can just get consistent OL play, we should be able to still live up to our expectations going into the season.
TL;DR: Butch teams usually underperform against overmatched teams, because we come out flat and vanilla. Don't read too much into Appy State, as long as we can fix the OL.
