A completely lethargic performace across the board…fans, players, coaches, everything…resulted in a loss to a team that we’d handled for over a decade. With that loss, the realization that we’re just not a very good football team became even more apparent. We’re a long way from where we need to be and I’m not sure how we’re going to get there. We’ve got major questions on both sides of the ball. We’ve got 5 more opponents in the regular season and while we’re certainly capable of winning any of them, we’re obviously capable of losing them all as well. We’ve got some stuff that needs to be addressed before we look past anyone. You lose to Vandy and you reprioritize.
Looking
Back at Week 7
The good: For the second straight week we had excellent weather.
The bad: This could take a while, so instead of going over
all the stuff that went wrong, I’ll just say that pretty much everything
went did. It was like Murphy’s Law as applied to a football game. Devastating
injuries…inconsistent offense…a defense that can’t get off
the field or come up with the key stop…seemingly unprepared team…completely
lackadaisical fan support for much of the game. I’ll just stop there because
if I keep going I’ll just get more and more depressed.
The indifferent: In trying to come up with indifferent things,
most everything from that 3.5 hours of abject humiliation could barely be called
indifferent and was acutally just bad. The play of the offense under Matthew
Stafford was again rather inconsistent. The same passes the team caught all
day from Tereshinski were dropped with young Matthew in the game and don’t
even begin to try and convince me that this was due to the velocity of the passes.
It wasn’t.
MSU Offense
They’re not real good on offense. Loyal readers will know I don’t
often say that, but this team deserves it. They are bad running the ball, missing
the talent and speed of the departed Jerious Norwood, and even worse throwing
the football although to their credit their opening day starter was knocked
out in the first game and just recently returned. I’m sure they’ll
all light the world on fire this week though; we seem to have that effect on
teams lately.
Since the opener against SC, former QB turned WR, turned back to QB Omarr
Conner had taken over the reins and managed to provide something of a spark
while not completely imploding. Original starter Mike Henig has a poor completion
percentage and a shaky 1 TD to 3 INT ratio (better than Stafford’s sad
to say) that doesn’t necessarily mean anything given the way we’ve
made some sub-par QBs look lately. Henig looked absolutely dreadful against
SC to open the year before going out with a collarbone injury though. Conner’s
out, so if Henig struggles, they have almost no options.
At RB, true freshman Anthony Dixon has taken the bulk of the load this year
with 80 carries and almost 300 yards. He’s a pounder at 6-1, 230 and isn’t
really prone to the big run, with his long on the season being a mere 17 yards.
Henig scrambled some against SC but never particularly effectively and hasn’t
moved much since returning.
At WR, Lance Long leads the team in catches with 21 although he’s averaging
less than 7 yards per catch and only has a long catch this year of 15 yards.
He’s a smaller receiver at 5-11, 186. Tony Burks has fewer catches but
is much more dangerous. First off he’s big at 6-4, 219 which reminds me
of Meachem from UT, which isn’t a good memory…at all. Secondly,
while he’s only got 16 catches, he’s averaging a ridiculous 26.3
yards per catch. Somehow he only has 1 TD 
which
is probably more a testament to MSU’s bad field position this season.
He’s only played in 5 of their 7 games but has 3 100-yard receiving games.
Impressive.
Along the OL, MSU sports a couple of redshirt freshmen OL, one of whom is
former UGA recruit and ultimate UF signee Mike Brown. Brown went to Gainesville
and transferred after 1 unhappy season. They aren’t a small line although
oddly enough the two tackles are the shortest players on the OL. Coming into
the season, the OL was considered a trouble spot and it’s managed to live
up to that billing, as they are currently 106th in the country in sacks allowed
at over 3 per game. Normally, here’s where I’d say that our DEs
should have a field day. I won’t say that this now though as our DEs have
struggled mightily in the last 2 weeks.
Bottom Line: I’ll drop all the coach/writer-speak and
say that this is the perfect offense to play for our defense to get some confidence
back. They’ve played pretty poorly, particularly in the 2nd halves of
the last two games, a time when we’re used to seeing our defense excel.
We need to see some results from our DL which has been generally dominated.
We particularly need to get some pressure on the QB against this OL that’s
struggled protecting the passer. Normally I’d feel good about the fact
that MSU is a paltry 104th in rushing offense, 92nd in passing offense and a
miserable 110th in total offense, but they’re not much worse than Colorado
or Ole Miss. We should dominate this offense. Let’s see it happen.
Key Matchup to watch when they have the ball: I’ve given
up on focusing on the DEs. Watch the safeties. I think Byrd should get some
more playing time and he’s a ballhawk back there. Battle’s fun to
watch because you know at any moment he’s going to do something embarrassing…OK,
that’s not fun, but it’s exciting in a car wreck kind of way.
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