1) Amazing how much better coached this year's team is compared to last year. Very prepared and ability to make in game adjustments.
2) Defense is very talented, very deep and well coached = top 25 defense. IMO, multiple players will be playing on Sunday someday. Many of our defensive players were redshirted and this is paying big dividend. I would love to get the program to the point where we could redshirt the vast majority of the freshman class. (A parent of an Ole Miss player told me before our game with them that all but one of their freshmen were redshirting this year--who knows if this will be the case later on as injuries will occur.)
3) Offense doing about as well as we could hope for given injuries and limited big play makers on the offense. My big questions is how did CJF recruit so well on defense and so poorly on offense? For those that follow recruiting closely I would love to hear your thoughts on this as the discrepancy is quite startling.
4) Very impressed with Mason's ability to handle DC and HC duties. Seems much more confident this year and he can obviously coach up a Defense and game plan for any offense. Loved how he confidently told Bankins during the MTSU game...."no sir, we are not going to punt" (paraphrasing obviously!)
5) Unlike UT, this staff doesn't use youth or injuries as an excuse. That being said, it is amazing how our injuries have piled up on the areas where we already had issue...WR, OL and RB. When a player goes down on D, we don't miss a beat i.e. Bowden and Cunningham. Given the amount of injuries on offense, it makes our ability to move the ball as well as we have, even more impressive. Our issues on the OL and WR really hurt us in the Red Zone as hard to get a push and no one to throw a fade to on the end zone and have them out jump some one.
Things I have heard from people inside (nothing really new) : Love having DM as DC, love new Strength program, feel much better about this year's offensive game plan and really need these two weeks to heal up. The kids feel very confident about winning SEC games the remainder of the season. If we can continue to improve and win some SEC games, this will pay huge dividends on the recruiting trail as well as building the fan base.
While obviously would be nice to be (and should be) 3-2 right now, people are feeling pretty good about where the program is headed.
2) Defense is very talented, very deep and well coached = top 25 defense. IMO, multiple players will be playing on Sunday someday. Many of our defensive players were redshirted and this is paying big dividend. I would love to get the program to the point where we could redshirt the vast majority of the freshman class. (A parent of an Ole Miss player told me before our game with them that all but one of their freshmen were redshirting this year--who knows if this will be the case later on as injuries will occur.)
3) Offense doing about as well as we could hope for given injuries and limited big play makers on the offense. My big questions is how did CJF recruit so well on defense and so poorly on offense? For those that follow recruiting closely I would love to hear your thoughts on this as the discrepancy is quite startling.
4) Very impressed with Mason's ability to handle DC and HC duties. Seems much more confident this year and he can obviously coach up a Defense and game plan for any offense. Loved how he confidently told Bankins during the MTSU game...."no sir, we are not going to punt" (paraphrasing obviously!)
5) Unlike UT, this staff doesn't use youth or injuries as an excuse. That being said, it is amazing how our injuries have piled up on the areas where we already had issue...WR, OL and RB. When a player goes down on D, we don't miss a beat i.e. Bowden and Cunningham. Given the amount of injuries on offense, it makes our ability to move the ball as well as we have, even more impressive. Our issues on the OL and WR really hurt us in the Red Zone as hard to get a push and no one to throw a fade to on the end zone and have them out jump some one.
Things I have heard from people inside (nothing really new) : Love having DM as DC, love new Strength program, feel much better about this year's offensive game plan and really need these two weeks to heal up. The kids feel very confident about winning SEC games the remainder of the season. If we can continue to improve and win some SEC games, this will pay huge dividends on the recruiting trail as well as building the fan base.
While obviously would be nice to be (and should be) 3-2 right now, people are feeling pretty good about where the program is headed.
