Morning Mates...
Today's Topic = No Margin For Error
In my estimation, we have too many liabilities on both sides of the ball, from a player standpoint, for us to overcome stupid and sloppily played football...
And, we may have a coach or two that are liabilities as well, if you ask me...
Talent is destiny and if you have enough of it, you have a built in "margin for error" that allows a team to overcome mistakes during a game...
Unfortunately, our Sun Devils do not have such a luxury with this team...
There is no "margin for error" as we still have too many players, IMHO, that would be better suited in a place like the Big Sky conference or thereabouts than playing in the Big-12...
Hopefully, Dilly and his staff will better address those deficiencies through recruiting in the future, and play some promising young players now, rather than worrying about red-shirting them, if they're up to the task at hand...
As far as coaching is concerned, Dilly reminds me of some people I've known in managerial positions that wow you with their thoughts, about this or that, only to find out as time passes, that their actions don't produce as much as you expected or hoped for, along the way...
He obviously knows a lot about football, far more than I ever will, but he loses credibility to me when his team plays like they did against Tech...
We couldn't even get the opening kick-off right and it went downhill from there, in the first quarter, as our play was plagued by one miscue after another, mental or otherwise, that led to a quick 14 point deficit...
Thankfully, the Red Raiders did what they could to help our cause throughout the game by committing one penalty after another, although I don't think they had any "taunting" penalties...
Personally, as a fan, I have nothing but contempt for any ASU player that does those sorts of stupid things in a game...
Leavitt had decent passing stats, completing 22 of 38 attempts for 282 yards but no TD passes, as he, once again, overthrew some open receivers down field and was late and inaccurate on some other throws, etc...
Skattebo caught 117 yards of those passes which, along with his 60 yards of rushing, accounted for almost half of our total offensive production during the game...
We were also 0-3 on fourth down conversions which showed as much about our OL woes as it did anything else, IMHO...
And, just for good measure, we kept trying to do the same thing over and over again without much, if any, success...
The only "silver lining" I had after the game was that it happened in the afternoon, so I didn't have to suffer through the misery late into the night...
Speaking of misery, I'm glad I'm not either a Baylor or K-State fan this morning as the Bears gifted a last second win to Prime Time and the Mildcats were soundly wiped by BYU...
I'm glad we have a BYE week, as it might help with some injured players getting better, but after the loss to Tech, I think we are going to be very hard pressed to win enough games to go bowling...
For we just don't have nearly enough of a "margin for error" to get over our current talent deficiencies, poor coaching decisions, and just plain stupid football...
Okay, Dilly and staff, show me what you got moving forward...
There isn't much you can do about talent deficiencies but there are some things, I would think, you can do about not playing stupid football on your watch...
G'day Mates and Go Devils!!!
Today's Topic = No Margin For Error
In my estimation, we have too many liabilities on both sides of the ball, from a player standpoint, for us to overcome stupid and sloppily played football...
And, we may have a coach or two that are liabilities as well, if you ask me...
Talent is destiny and if you have enough of it, you have a built in "margin for error" that allows a team to overcome mistakes during a game...
Unfortunately, our Sun Devils do not have such a luxury with this team...
There is no "margin for error" as we still have too many players, IMHO, that would be better suited in a place like the Big Sky conference or thereabouts than playing in the Big-12...
Hopefully, Dilly and his staff will better address those deficiencies through recruiting in the future, and play some promising young players now, rather than worrying about red-shirting them, if they're up to the task at hand...
As far as coaching is concerned, Dilly reminds me of some people I've known in managerial positions that wow you with their thoughts, about this or that, only to find out as time passes, that their actions don't produce as much as you expected or hoped for, along the way...
He obviously knows a lot about football, far more than I ever will, but he loses credibility to me when his team plays like they did against Tech...
We couldn't even get the opening kick-off right and it went downhill from there, in the first quarter, as our play was plagued by one miscue after another, mental or otherwise, that led to a quick 14 point deficit...
Thankfully, the Red Raiders did what they could to help our cause throughout the game by committing one penalty after another, although I don't think they had any "taunting" penalties...
Personally, as a fan, I have nothing but contempt for any ASU player that does those sorts of stupid things in a game...
Leavitt had decent passing stats, completing 22 of 38 attempts for 282 yards but no TD passes, as he, once again, overthrew some open receivers down field and was late and inaccurate on some other throws, etc...
Skattebo caught 117 yards of those passes which, along with his 60 yards of rushing, accounted for almost half of our total offensive production during the game...
We were also 0-3 on fourth down conversions which showed as much about our OL woes as it did anything else, IMHO...
And, just for good measure, we kept trying to do the same thing over and over again without much, if any, success...
The only "silver lining" I had after the game was that it happened in the afternoon, so I didn't have to suffer through the misery late into the night...
Speaking of misery, I'm glad I'm not either a Baylor or K-State fan this morning as the Bears gifted a last second win to Prime Time and the Mildcats were soundly wiped by BYU...
I'm glad we have a BYE week, as it might help with some injured players getting better, but after the loss to Tech, I think we are going to be very hard pressed to win enough games to go bowling...
For we just don't have nearly enough of a "margin for error" to get over our current talent deficiencies, poor coaching decisions, and just plain stupid football...
Okay, Dilly and staff, show me what you got moving forward...
There isn't much you can do about talent deficiencies but there are some things, I would think, you can do about not playing stupid football on your watch...
G'day Mates and Go Devils!!!
