So since I'm a glutton for punishment, this is all of the things that I said about this team in the first 3 games.

the right side of our OL is pretty bad. that #90 wore down in the second quarter, but in the 1st quarter he was living in our backfield. some of our best runs were when we let kasitati's guy overpenetrate and run behind him.
[+]This got corrected after the Texas game when they swapped out Samia at RT. Kasitati calmed down a little after that and we've been ugly but effective. I'd just like to state that if Ohio State sneaks into the playoffs, we are in for a really long day. I keep coming back to how bad we are at preseason evaluation sometimes. We are talking about going from worst OL in the country to pretty good with one player swap.

mayfield is going to send someone to the hospital this season during a TD celebration and it might be himself
[-] Luckily

where did we find this baxter kid? he is kind of a mini josh norman - someone who makes everyone around him seem better than they are
[+] Typical Juco kid on the receiving side (disappears for 8 games) but has been a consistent blocker out there definite plus

wide receivers are 100% better than last year (even with the drops). massive kudos for that move...
[+] yep

mayfield didn't really start playing well until that guy on the akron sideline headbutted him to slow him down
[+] this has been a trend through the season. The first time someone pops in him in the mouth he takes it to a new level (even against Texas).

mayfield resembles manziel in a lot of ways - bad mechanics, bad arm position, a cannon, logic defying great accuracy. he is only missing one thing - elusiveness - and that sends him from super exciting to "he's not going to finish the season" status. dude needs to stop running the ball.
So this was week 1, I corrected this in Week 2 after the Tennessee Game "A tennessee fan said it best - "Is Mayfield covered in grease?". He isn't elusive, he's slippery. Still takes too many hits though"

[+] I bet the browns wish Manziel resembled Mayfield in a lot of ways off the field

he hit a receiver in the chest north of 80% of his throws. so many drops
[+] We seem to have one receiver a game plagued by the drops

his best throw is still the back shoulder. unfortunately, only one receiver (neal) knows how to catch one of them.
[+] Neal is still the only guy who can catch this throw

both running backs are really good, but with this OL they'll be lucky to have many yards. In the first half, there were 2-3 DL in the backfield on every play
[+] It was correct based on the initial OL. I had no idea we'd get that much better by swapping one guy.

shepherd needs to start getting on the ground. he takes way too much awkward punishment for 1 extra yard. getting upended on that punt return, legs cut out of bounds, body slammed on that long reception...
[+] yep

tight ends got their quota of receptions for the year in one game
[+] One weapon we just still don't have

it is amazing how players don't really change over their career. sanchez has never been able to handle defensive success. we go 5 series without allowing a 1st down and then he falls asleep and bites on a double move.
[+] every single time. killer instinct holding on line 2

i'm upgrading our linebackers from bottom 2 to bottom 5 in the conference. they still can't finish plays on the opponent side of the line of scrimmage, but they made a couple of plays that would have previously gone for big yards. their tackling still annoys me (why do you always give them 3 more yards?). their getting off blocks still annoys me. but they are improved over last year. barely.
[+] so this ended up being one of the most surprisingly accurate statements I made. Our linebackers all year have been a jeckyl and hyde mix of the best duo in the country on one series and then stand around on the next series. There was one play in particular that stood out to me against Baylor - Alexander is playing strong side which forced Sanchez to roll into the box. All of the action shows that the run is going at Sanchez (pulling tackle, QB facing that way, nobody blocking Alexander). Alexander could have knifed into the hole and tackled the guy for no gain, but he just stands there and watches Sanchez get blown up by the pulling tackle and the running back walks into the end zone. If they could ever put it together, no one would run the ball on us.

when akron started running the ball, they went to the typical blueprint for success against us. leave 2 DL free and putting OL on the linebackers. one of the DL is blocked by scheme, the other is left 1 on 1 in space with a running back and no support. works. every. time.
[+] the last team to use this was Texas.

our pass defense is really bad. we were busting coverages left and right. had Bowden ran that Pohl guy all game they might have had 21+ points.
[+] this came back to haunt us against Tulsa. Traditionally with Mike though, our pass d has been pretty bad until Texas

  • Dimon did pretty well for being undersized, the question is whether he can keep it up against better teams
  • stryker may be getting the nickname "drive by" soon. he needs to hit the qb not run past them
  • DL overall was pretty good. we had some pretty good explosion into the backfield
[+] yep, yep and yep

secondary run support was pretty bad in the few opportunities they had to come up. hitting guys 15 yards downfield is not a recipe for success.
[+] If someone gouges us, this is how they are going to do it. Use the above to get past the LOS and then use our secondary's crappy run support against us. Jordan Thomas, Sanchez, and Ahmad Thomas can't tackle. I have never see Ahmad Thomas wrap his arms around a ball carrier.

You guys are overreaching here. Every year units improve or get worse. Under Stoops, the only unit that is an enigma after game 1 is the secondary - you just never know if they are going to get better or worse by game 7. The thing you are missing is that the OL doesn't have to be all that great with this offense since it is a take what they give you style. If the WR play continues at this high level, we may not have many early yards rushing, but we'll sure have them late.
[+] heh, secondary.

I did. What I compare is position groups from this year to the last (which is what i did in my post).

Me and Mosoon got into this long discussion about me saying that MT looked good but Thatcher was always out of position (he was of the opposite opinion). My point was the loss of pee wee woods + gain of thompson + TGRW made the secondary much better. That is what this is, a post comparing last year's units to this year's units while calling out guys that seem really good.

I thought that the 2000 team was a 10 win team after the first game (that was quite a step up from the 7 win season we had the year before (and 3,4,5 win seasons the 3 years before)

This years team hinges on WR play. If they can catch the ball and make the moves they made in week 1, we are an 11 win team.
[+] ooo, 11 win team. that has to be worth something right?

We need to do something about this FF no recovery thing. I know the refs yanked 1 away but 3 FF and us getting none is frustrating. Last year, one of biggest glaring weaknesses was the 19 forced fumbles and only 7 recoveries.
[+] from this point on, we were 6 recoveries on 7 fumbles


We need a new punt returner. Shepherd is too valuable to be back there and he doesn't make the best decisions on the non-returnable balls.
[-] i still think we need a new returner

Our OL is pretty bad. And since no one on this board ever levels any criticism at Bedenbaugh, you just have to hope that recruiting overcomes his lack of development.
[-] I'm giving myself a minus here because he turned it around after the Texas game. I'd just like to point out that this was a case of a coach ignoring the obvious until it cost us a win. As a fan, there isn't anything worse than watching a 2nd stringer come in and grade out at Freshman AA when the 1st stringer was probably the lowest rated guy in the conference.

It really depends on the turnover margin. So far we are:

Akron -1
Tennessee -1
Tulsa -2
WV +3
Texas -1

At +0 we can beat every team but TCU and BU. We are going to need +2 against TCU and probably +4 against Baylor.
[+] So close, +3 against TCU, +2 Baylor