True Grit said:

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0-2 coming soon

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Sounds like a movie preview. To a theater near you.

I expected us to give up a few big pass plays. I didn't expect Arnold to run at will. I'd have rolled the dice and mixed a spy in when it became clear that was the biggest weakness.

bear2be2 said:

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boykin_spaniel said:

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At some point you have to bring a safety up to spy. One of your corners is left 1v1 but Arnold isn't known for being a consistent passer so make him make a throw. You can try to disguise the safety spy but we needed a spy and we did not have one

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I'm not opposed to that adjustment, but it likely doesn't solve anything. Bringing a safety into the box likely just gets us beat over the top on play-action.

I just find it funny that all the same people who acknowledged before the game that we needed two high safeties to protect the corners against Auburn's receivers are now furious we didn't bring a safety into the box.

Our defense isn't deep or talented enough to shut down both the pass and the run. And that was true before Marshall went down. We're very likely picking our poison one way or the other and griping about coaching decisions either way.

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The few occasions where we brought a blitz or walked a safety into the box, it worked. There's obviously a balance with how much it's used, but you can't argue the decision to stay back as much as they did was an error.

I'm not arguing the lack of depth on the front is a concern or that it would've resulted in a win, but the lack of an in-game adjustment for the second half was inexcusable.

For SMU, we'll need to be willing to change things up.

boykin_spaniel said:

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I expected us to give up a few big pass plays. I didn't expect Arnold to run at will. I'd have rolled the dice and mixed a spy in when it became clear that was the biggest weakness.

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I have a feeling a Gary Patterson coached D would have made the adjustment. And we would have won. Aranda is not an A level coordinator. He's about a C or C minus.

Guitarbiscuit said:

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boykin_spaniel said:

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I expected us to give up a few big pass plays. I didn't expect Arnold to run at will. I'd have rolled the dice and mixed a spy in when it became clear that was the biggest weakness.

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I have a feeling a Gary Patterson coached D would have made the adjustment. And we would have won. Aranda is not an A level coordinator. He's about a C or C minus.

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It's time to acknowledge he isn't an A level coach in any phase. Not an elite recruiter, not an elite schemer, not an elite motivator.

He is your basic middle of the road spare.

BUATX2000 said:

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bear2be2 said:

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BearBuck said:

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Did anyone detect any in-game adjustments for us defensively last night. Because it seemed half of their snaps were QB draws the entire game and we never stopped it. Had gaping holes every time like we had no idea it was coming.

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Most of those weren't draws, they were read plays or RPOs.

Those are all tough plays to defend. It's the modern-day option game.

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They are not hard to defend if you have corners who can cover in man to man without safety help. We do not have that.

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Sounds like that is something that needs to be fixed. Whose job is it to fix that?

Realitybites said:

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BUATX2000 said:

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bear2be2 said:

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BearBuck said:

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Did anyone detect any in-game adjustments for us defensively last night. Because it seemed half of their snaps were QB draws the entire game and we never stopped it. Had gaping holes every time like we had no idea it was coming.

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Most of those weren't draws, they were read plays or RPOs.

Those are all tough plays to defend. It's the modern-day option game.

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They are not hard to defend if you have corners who can cover in man to man without safety help. We do not have that.

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Sounds like that is something that needs to be fixed. Whose job is it to fix that?

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The NIL donors. Because you're going to need to recruit top level corners to cover top level WRs.

BU82EX said:

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SMU has a better running QB than Auburn. Nuff said!

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I find that hard to believe.

Guitarbiscuit said:

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boykin_spaniel said:

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I expected us to give up a few big pass plays. I didn't expect Arnold to run at will. I'd have rolled the dice and mixed a spy in when it became clear that was the biggest weakness.

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I have a feeling a Gary Patterson coached D would have made the adjustment. And we would have won. Aranda is not an A level coordinator. He's about a C or C minus.

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Patterson was a great defensive coach in his prime. Great eye for talent and great at developing hybrid D linemen and dbs. As you mentioned, David hasn't shown any ability to do any of that.

Kevin Jennings has never rushed it more than 10 times in a game. He is 192 pounds not baby Josh Allen and Amy doesn't want to blow their season by rushing him 15 plus times. If they torch us it will more likely be with their passing game like they did tcu last year BYU shut them down. I predicted a close loss against auburn and predict a close win here. I just think we match up batter against and can likely run the ball a bit. We won't shut them down but our defense is built much better to slow down their kind of offense than ground and pound. I would really love to hear Samu's name called this week too. That dream hasn't materialized yet and Dave has never had a good defense here without one of those dudes at nose.

Ewalker80 said:

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Kevin Jennings has never rushed it more than 10 times in a game. He is 192 pounds not baby Josh Allen and Amy doesn't want to blow their season by rushing him 15 plus times.

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Arnold only rushed it 15 times because that's what we gave him. If they weren't successful at it, they wouldn't have kept doing it.

So I would expect that Jennings absolutely will run more if we play the same scheme--and I expect we will. I think Dave is counting on our front 7 to do enough (and do better as the season progresses) while giving the secondary the help to lock down and prevent big passes.

Now, I think SMU's Defense is going to get worked by our Offense as they lost 9 starters. Even though they had an extra week to prepare for us and it'll be at their stadium, I think our O is going to feast as their D hasn't gelled yet.

I live about 3-4 miles away from SMU campus. Very little buzz anywhere about them that I can tell in Dallas. You mention 'how is SMU doing?' and folks look at you with a 'whatyou talking about, Willis?' face.

I'm going with the Bears. I've been out of Waco longer than I've lived in Dallas, but Waco is still home. And the Bears are king!

Assassin said:

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I live about 3-4 miles away from SMU campus. Very little buzz anywhere about them that I can tell in Dallas. You mention 'how is SMU doing?' and folks look at you with a 'whatyou talking about, Willis?' face.

I'm going with the Bears. I've been out of Waco longer than I've lived in Dallas, but Waco is still home. And the Bears are king!

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SMU is like the 6th most interesting sports team in Dallas to most residents of the metroplex. It is the center of the universe to an extremely small very monied enclave and that's it. About 10000 people in Dallas care.

BUATX2000 said:

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Assassin said:

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I live about 3-4 miles away from SMU campus. Very little buzz anywhere about them that I can tell in Dallas. You mention 'how is SMU doing?' and folks look at you with a 'whatyou talking about, Willis?' face.

I'm going with the Bears. I've been out of Waco longer than I've lived in Dallas, but Waco is still home. And the Bears are king!

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SMU is like the 6th most interesting sports team in Dallas to most residents of the metroplex. It is the center of the universe to an extremely small very monied enclave and that's it. About 10000 people in Dallas care.

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Yeah, but that population is quite wealthy. And that might be all they need to continue to get better.

BUATX2000 said:

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Assassin said:

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I live about 3-4 miles away from SMU campus. Very little buzz anywhere about them that I can tell in Dallas. You mention 'how is SMU doing?' and folks look at you with a 'whatyou talking about, Willis?' face.

I'm going with the Bears. I've been out of Waco longer than I've lived in Dallas, but Waco is still home. And the Bears are king!

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SMU is like the 6th most interesting sports team in Dallas to most residents of the metroplex. It is the center of the universe to an extremely small very monied enclave and that's it. About 10000 people in Dallas care.

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Good summary. They are coming in about half of the fans of FC Dallas. For those that dont know, that's a soccer team