The Silver and Black lots were good capacity for this game I thought. Also saw a lot of students walking to the stadium 30 minutes before kickoff. The addition of tailgate village and the pavilion made for a much more exciting atmosphere going towards the stadium.
I thought it was a great turn out by the students in their section. They led chants all the way to the 4th quarter even as it started to dwindle down.
The marching band was a really great half time addition! I stayed in my seat for the whole performance.
The Game:
Clear to see the experience difference in the QB’s. We probably need to ride out this season with the experience in Matt and let it play out in the tougher portion of our schedule.
We have enough weapons on offense to make it somewhat interesting if we can scheme for a blitz or the weakness of our O-line. How about a screen pass game to all those backs we have??
It is a love/hate relationship between Duke catching everything thrown to him and then seeing him field a couple of those punts.
Defensive improvement is the early season MVP. They have yet to go up against a formidable opponent but they look like the circle the ball and attack a lot more now. Multiple players tackling for losses and helping out on coverages.
Not a big deal, but our kicking game and special teams is much improved over a year ago.
I really enjoyed the game and really came away with the thought that the Marshall / Night game atmospheres are going to be insane!
johnson still underthrows a lot of passes. even with those td’s or long passes to duke, he underthrew him. i know im nitpicking but he needs to learn to lead his receiver.
another thing, why don’t we use our te’s and h backs more. murphy looks solid but we hardly ever go to him or bolus. i think having a true tight end would help someone like johnson, who struggles with accuracy. could be a security blanket.
We would have gone 10-1 last year with this defensive scheme. All those close games would have been Ws. Glad we made the right call in the offseason to change things up.
I thought Barden settled in after a while and mostly made good decisions. Matt still clearly has the bigger play ability though and was the one to crack this game open. If he could just cut down on the mistakes he’d clearly be the guy. Hopefully both guys continue to improve.
Hate that about Covington, big shoes to fill. Also hope the Presby player is ok.
I enjoyed it. Glad it wasn’t 100 degrees out there. Impressed with the D and special teams so far this year (yeah, I know we did miss a kick we should have made this game). Offense is hit or miss. I thought Matt had a great throw to Duke on that first long ball, let him run under it. I imagine its easy to underthrow a guy like Austin - which he did later. Barden didn’t look good at all in the 1st half, but much better in the 2nd. The pressure was off by then, though. So, we’ll see what we have I guess this year. I guess we are kind of playing for now and peeking in at the future as well. At least turnovers were limited.
Great game and atmosphere.
Oh, I forgot to add: Presby had the worst offense, especially passing offense that I’ve seen play against us in the first 3 years of playing football. Maybe that I’ve seen ever. Sure, props to our defense, but for Presby…guh.
Don’t see what you’re seeing on Book and from here on out he is most likely starting LT, I’m not overly concerned about it but it’s always a tough blow to lose a tackle on either side especially the left.
[quote=“49RFootballNow, post:30, topic:29814”]So, at 16,631 this is now the “best” attendance for a game at JSR.
Um…kay.[/quote]
Yeah, i dont see how they are getting that. There was an entire section next to the Presby fans that was 90% empty. The FSL was somewhat less filled than normal - probably first time ever the students had a fuller section than alums.
Maybe they had more people in the fieldhouse area? Im sure they sold that many tix, but it felt like a solid crowd, but not a sellout crowd.
Carroll York (left below), sat behind me today and I had a chance to spend some time talking to him. Great guy, and he and Austin Duke seem to be buddies. York went down and sat on the front row for a little while and Duke jumped up on the wall to talk to him. He just turned 88, seems to be doing well, and I expect he will be at all of our home games. He is very proud of his playing days.
I thought we had better depth on our o-line. That might have been our only weak spot today.
It’s crazy how much better our defense is this year. If we stay healthy I think they can keep us in a lot of games this year. I know the competition will only get better from here on out, but even GA St put up 24 points and 350+ total yards in the first half tonight.
