- Overall-For some reason, I feel a little bit better about this week than last. We didn’t look totally overmatched, we greatly reduced the penalties and penalty yardage from last week, and overall our offense looked better, but still has so much work to do. Defensively this is the second straight week where we started out the game looking completely unprepared but then made adjustments in the second half and got some stops. Still, it’s not fun to lose by any margin, especially this one.
- Offense-Peter Parrish was a lot better this week than he was last week. His decision making was better, but he still has to VASTLY improve in that area. Many of the passes he completed were thrown into tight windows that could have been picked. He was 11 of 24 and we have not had a passer throw for more than 100 yards in a game yet, and that is really something. One Thing Parrish did do very well is run the ball. He was only sacked once and had a gross yardage of 67 yards. The lone touchdown was a two yard TD run by Parrish. The lineman look like they are on roller skates in pass protection. However, the diamond formation came in and when it did, for those 3-4 plays straight, the Lions moved the ball at will. Call Me crazy, but I believe that should be our base formation as it plays to our strengths. We looked night and day different on offense when we were running out of that formation and everyone did their job. I know that Both Dolezel and Bounds gave us a preview of that in the spring, and with the lack of execution on offense in other packages, that might be the best way to go right now.
- Defense-Defense played hard but didn’t look impressive at all in the first half. Second half, they again made adjustments. Sac State is an absolute machine on offense. Very fast and talented. Max Epps picked off another pass and he is one of the few individual bright spots on defense. However, the tackling overall has been very, very poor. The strength is not an issue, it is the form that is the issue. Tackling seems to not be taught anymore in a lot of programs and I can understand that. It reduces the chances of players getting hurt but tackling is still part of the game. It has to be taught and we seem to be getting no penetration on these teams. It has to improve or we might really be in deep trouble.
- Special Teams-We didn’t see much from the specialists except Mitchell McGarry and to Me, he had his best game as a Lion. He raised his average to 41.6 yards including a 55 yard punt. He really boomed some kicks and did his job to flip the field by in large. Aiden Martin had another Aiden Martin game, he only kicked off twice, but averaged 61 yards per kickoff. The coverage units were not bad, but not great either. Still need improvement on that, as our return units have produced nothing thus far.
- Going Forward-We have a bye week this Saturday, and Clint Dolezel mentioned how there were some guys who got left back in Commerce because of injuries that they will get back when they play Old Dominion in two weeks. That should help. The most important thing to remember and to keep in mind is that these games don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. If these two butt kickings we received help us learn and get us ready for competing for something special in Southland Conference play, it won’t be for nothing. Nobody like to lose, especially the purveyors of this site, but we have look forward to future opponents and focus on getting better every week, and at this point, that is all you can do.
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