Mornin Mates...
Today's Topic = Special Talents And Weak Links
Jared Goff is a special talent and will be a first round NFL draft pick next spring, if he declares for the draft, and he will be a good pro QB once there...Vernon Adams is a special talent at Oregon, even though he probably won't be a pro QB in the NFL for a variety of reasons...Luke Falk is a special talent, who elevated the lowly Cougars to a very good season at Wazzu and was sorely missed in the Apple Cup on Friday, when Wash routed the Cougars, while he was on the sidelines with an injury...
Cody Kessler is no slouch either at USC and we played the Utes in SLC, when they were on a roll earlier in the season...we were probably a couple of injuries away in our depleted secondary from winning some of the games, which Goff exploited last night like a grown up stealing candy from a baby...
Of course, all this QB talent and moxie makes it much easier to exploit defensive weaknesses when your secondary is missing some key players and your front seven doesn't have a true Bradford like D-backer to put pressure on the QB, which are the "weak links" in our defense, and you know what they say about weak links, right...that you're only as good as they are and, in our case this season, that is certainly true...
On offense, we still have a problem scoring TDs in the Red Zone, most likely because we don't have the talent like Stanford and some other programs have at this time...we all know that if we had scored several TDs instead of FGs last night that we likely would've won the game...we need bigger and stronger OL, some bigger and stronger TEs and more depth at RB...
Talent and depth, IMHO, will cure everything, including the discontent with Graham for his high stakes defensive gambling and with Norvell for his perceived offensive shortcomings...the gambling defense led to the two INTs for TDs against the Cats last weekend that gave us a big T-Cup win, and it also allowed that long TD pass of 95 yds, because two of our players missed opportunities to tackle in space, at the point of reception, which probably has more to do with the loss of both of our safeties as anything schematically...
So, you combine the brilliance of a QB like Goff, Adams and Falk, together with some glaring weak links in our secondary and you have three losses right there...to our credit, we were right in those games until the very end, just like we were in the Utah game until the end, and three of those losses came on the road, which is a very hard place to win, especially in the PAC South, where the winner this season is USC with three losses...
I'm not worried at all about our coaching staff and look forward to addressing these weak links in the coming weeks and months, through recruiting and through the development of our young players, many of whom red-shirted this year...so, while it's been a disappointing season I don't think this will turn out to be much more than a short lived aberration under Graham and his staff...
In other news, LSU has come to their collective senses and will retain Les Miles as their coach who beat TAMU yesterday...additionally, Rich Rod will not be going to Virginia Tech and will have to survive in the desert, it looks like, a little while longer, while many recruits ignore AU due to its desert isolation or at least that's what the Daily Star says in today's sports section...
The Star points out that ESPN has noted that the average football recruit from a Power 5 conference goes only 307 miles from home to his school of choice, while the average distance at AU is 865 miles and it is probably the same for ASU to one degree or another, while that certainly is not the case for either USC or UCLA...Rich Rod bemoans that by stating "you've got to fly over a lot of good football programs to get to Tucson"...and, that's obviously true of other places like Utah, Wazzu, Oregon St, Oregon, etc...
Well, here's hoping that we get another great state recruit or two to commit to the Sun Devils in the coming weeks, and that we also get a bowl berth somewhere not too far away so that many of us can attend it...
We may have had a disappointing season but we beat the Cats and never quit in any of our games, which is a testament to our coaching staff and players...
G'day Mates...Championships or Bust...Go Devils!!!
Today's Topic = Special Talents And Weak Links
Jared Goff is a special talent and will be a first round NFL draft pick next spring, if he declares for the draft, and he will be a good pro QB once there...Vernon Adams is a special talent at Oregon, even though he probably won't be a pro QB in the NFL for a variety of reasons...Luke Falk is a special talent, who elevated the lowly Cougars to a very good season at Wazzu and was sorely missed in the Apple Cup on Friday, when Wash routed the Cougars, while he was on the sidelines with an injury...
Cody Kessler is no slouch either at USC and we played the Utes in SLC, when they were on a roll earlier in the season...we were probably a couple of injuries away in our depleted secondary from winning some of the games, which Goff exploited last night like a grown up stealing candy from a baby...
Of course, all this QB talent and moxie makes it much easier to exploit defensive weaknesses when your secondary is missing some key players and your front seven doesn't have a true Bradford like D-backer to put pressure on the QB, which are the "weak links" in our defense, and you know what they say about weak links, right...that you're only as good as they are and, in our case this season, that is certainly true...
On offense, we still have a problem scoring TDs in the Red Zone, most likely because we don't have the talent like Stanford and some other programs have at this time...we all know that if we had scored several TDs instead of FGs last night that we likely would've won the game...we need bigger and stronger OL, some bigger and stronger TEs and more depth at RB...
Talent and depth, IMHO, will cure everything, including the discontent with Graham for his high stakes defensive gambling and with Norvell for his perceived offensive shortcomings...the gambling defense led to the two INTs for TDs against the Cats last weekend that gave us a big T-Cup win, and it also allowed that long TD pass of 95 yds, because two of our players missed opportunities to tackle in space, at the point of reception, which probably has more to do with the loss of both of our safeties as anything schematically...
So, you combine the brilliance of a QB like Goff, Adams and Falk, together with some glaring weak links in our secondary and you have three losses right there...to our credit, we were right in those games until the very end, just like we were in the Utah game until the end, and three of those losses came on the road, which is a very hard place to win, especially in the PAC South, where the winner this season is USC with three losses...
I'm not worried at all about our coaching staff and look forward to addressing these weak links in the coming weeks and months, through recruiting and through the development of our young players, many of whom red-shirted this year...so, while it's been a disappointing season I don't think this will turn out to be much more than a short lived aberration under Graham and his staff...
In other news, LSU has come to their collective senses and will retain Les Miles as their coach who beat TAMU yesterday...additionally, Rich Rod will not be going to Virginia Tech and will have to survive in the desert, it looks like, a little while longer, while many recruits ignore AU due to its desert isolation or at least that's what the Daily Star says in today's sports section...
The Star points out that ESPN has noted that the average football recruit from a Power 5 conference goes only 307 miles from home to his school of choice, while the average distance at AU is 865 miles and it is probably the same for ASU to one degree or another, while that certainly is not the case for either USC or UCLA...Rich Rod bemoans that by stating "you've got to fly over a lot of good football programs to get to Tucson"...and, that's obviously true of other places like Utah, Wazzu, Oregon St, Oregon, etc...
Well, here's hoping that we get another great state recruit or two to commit to the Sun Devils in the coming weeks, and that we also get a bowl berth somewhere not too far away so that many of us can attend it...
We may have had a disappointing season but we beat the Cats and never quit in any of our games, which is a testament to our coaching staff and players...
G'day Mates...Championships or Bust...Go Devils!!!
