Took me 36 hours to overcome the fury I felt after that game. Bottom line, the coaches lost that game. Two weeks to scout and practice and we were unprepared, unmotivated, and underwhelming.
Key takeaways after rewatching and breaking down "film". In no particular order:
- I have some real concerns about favoritism by coaches across position groups. That or these coaches are struggling to see what they have in their groups. See the * below for where this is occurring.
- Zilinkas still continues to be very poor. He held 70% of the plays. The officials just weren't calling holds either way.
- What happened to the dudes who were running with the 1s in fall camp? How do you drop off so bad. How are Myers, Benson, Johnson so out of the mix?*
- How do Sheppard or Timmons get PT ahead of Miller? Sheppard does some nice things, but Miller is as good or better. We could've saved some money and just given Miller the position in the offseason. He proved himself last season and is doing it again this year. We would've been just fine.*
- Shilo has phoned it in for the season. And no, this isn't just this game. He was mediocre in the first three games and was absolutely horrific in Saturday's game. This is being hammered all over the place, so no sense in overkill. But just consider this - The film showed his coverage breakdowns might actually have been worse than his run support breakdowns. Fvcking unbelievable.*
- Jordan Seaton runs the OLine. He is a true freshman owning his matchup every play, getting the unit in the correct calls and chewing azz when needed.
- How the FVCK do you go into Cover 1 as much as we did down the stretch with our best m2m DB out and Shilo playing like an idiot. I'm still punching air. Holy fvck.
- Enough is enough with the Dallen Hayden experiment. How do the coaches not see the difference between him and Welch or Augustave. I swear to god this reeks of "We paid him, so we have to play him."*
- I knew that random dude that appears in the WOM videos and calls himself Shedeur's QB was sh!t from day 1. I'm even more convinced now seeing that Shedeur has fvck all for pocket presence and obviously has never been put through an escape or box drill in his life. That guy just stands there in his chains and crooked hat looking important and doing d!ck. GTFOH guy.
- All that said, we looked like inflamed chimp azz all night and still should've won. That's says something. Beat UA and all is forgotten.
I generally agree with most of your points. A few things from my perspective...
1. They literally don't have another Center. Yakiri Walker has seemingly left the team and was shown potentially bad mouthing them on social after the game
2. This whole offseason objective of "Don't Touch 2" and rebuilding the OL has failed. Only two of the current five starting OL the past two games were not on this team last year, Jordan Seaton and Phillip Houston, and Houston was supposed to be a developmental addition who needed to put on about 30-40 lbs before being ready. Technically Tyler Brown was on the team, but he obviously didn't play so I guess that's 3 new additions, but he's JAG at the P4 level. They went out and presumably spent decent NIL money on three proven starters in Kahlil Benson, Justin Mayers and Tyler Johnson and none are currently seeing the field. Speculation that Tyler Johnson is essentially off the team at this point and I have no idea what is going on with Mayers. He didn't seem to be the problem early on, but somehow got in Phil's dog house and can't see the field over Kareem Harden. Benson is another baffling situation. Supposedly got hurt and didn't travel to Orlando for the UCF game. Ok, but he had essentially 2.5 weeks to heal up and be ready for this game and he still couldn't get the start. Was Benson even dressed on Saturday?
3. I said the same thing recently about Sheppard. I think he is a pretty good player who is likely going to get drafted, but was there a need for him when we had Miller? His $$ should have been spent on a competent TE, another OL or DL, IMO, but then again, I'm glad we have him now since we have lost WR1, WR2, WR5 and WR6 to injury.
4. Unpopular opinion here, but I'm willing to give Shilo a little grace in being rusty after missing 4 weeks. It doesn't excuse the coaching decision to keep him out there the whole game, but I think he will be better this weekend.
5. Jordan Seaton is going to be
the leader of this team next year and will eventually be a top 10 pick. The staff needs to do everything in their power to make sure they get this OL right next year.
6. I already said previously that Livingston was outcoached. I know they
think they have a Secondary that can play press man all game, but they don't, especially when Travis is out. Hodge is a good player, but he's not that guy. He's not fast enough to keep up with good receivers on go balls and teams are going to pick on him going forward.