A few post game thoughts

Cougar Football
1

Payton Turner’s selfish and immature actions were very costly tonight and will also be for the first half of the Tulane game.

Our defense is decimated and I am wondering who will be able to answer the bell Thursday night. True freshman Logan Hall looked like our best DL tonight.

I am concerned about the WR corp. With Lark out, I am wondering how serious the injuries to Corbin, Singleton, and Smith are. We are hurting.

We lost the battle in the trenches on both sides of the ball. I don’t care what D play was called, our guys were missing tackles all night. On the other hand, when the offense puts up 49 points, you should win.

I’m watching Briles (the guy so widely wished to succeed CMA call every play and when the play fails, I’m hearing folks around me cursing Applewhite for calling that play.

I also watched King, on several instances, check out of the play Briles called and instead call a run up the middle. And on cue the same folks immediately cursed CMA for calling the play when he didn’t call the original play or the play King checked into.

I was happy with the effort our guys gave until the end. They never gave up and fought hard; but we were just outmanned on both sides the line of scrimmage. King played as best he could under the constant pressure, but he made many poor decisions on where to throw, too often throwing to guys, that had no chance to pick up the first, on 3rd or 4th down.

Briles needs to cut the crap on these trick plays that take too long to develop. When we had a good stop and looked poised to make a drive to tie the score at 42, he comes up with a trick play that lost 9 yards. If he would just have done what we had been doing successfully, we would have stayed out of the long losses.

I am very disappointed with how this season has turned out and it can get worse if the guys that went out with injuries tonight are not in the lineup Thursday night.

I don’t know what to do about our DC. I know the prevailing sentiment is to fire D’Onofrio, and Major for that matter. But I’m not sure if firing either would be correct. We suffer by not having consistency in our coaching staff. If we fire CMA, the whole staff will turn over and we will be scrambling to keep what recruits we have. The players most want will be taken in the early signing period and we will suffer yet again. If we only fire the DC, we will have to start over on D – again.

If people would think things through and not be ruled by emotions after losing, I think they may not want to make these rash Fire coach ____ statements. Each time you hire a new coach and staff, you put a delay on long term success. Yes, LTH came in and did well his first season with CTL’s recruits. and not so well the next year. He’s not exactly taking the world by storm at UT with much higher rated players.

I’m just tired of missed opportunities and tired of the turmoil. But, I will be there Thursday night – and assume most of you in town Coogs will also.

12 Likes
2

Turner deserves blame, but Applewhite is more to blame. One unsportsmanlike penalty is on the player, two is on the coach.

What plays did King check out of?? I don’t think he has much audible privileges.

3

Im sorry, but it is not a rash decsion to fire the dc, and for that matter, Applewhite. The decision is made off of their body of work, which leaves no doubt that they suck. Applewhite couldn’t pick his coordinators when he was hired as a headcoach. He wasn’t and still isn’t headcoach material. How coach No’d has made it this far in life as a dc completely boggles the mind. Yes, there will be turnover when this happens, and yes we will be set back a bit. I believe it’s worth the risk instead of continuing on the path we are on. It is obvious these aren’t the guys to get the job done. We should cut our losses and do it right.

3 Likes
4

I hear ya, but remember…we were too patient with Helton and Dimel. We were too patient with Levine and Bush…those situations never corrected themselves. I was done with Helton when I heard him say once, our goal was to average 21ppg …even then in the 90s 21pot wasn’t going to elevate you over most teams unless you are in the SEC with SEC talent. You have to pound your opponent and destroy their will to win in blowouts…

3 Likes
5

My ole friend Red reminds moi of the sailor sitting on the bottom of the USS Oklahoma at 10AM 12/07/1941 …

The battleship has capsized on her side and sitting in the harbor 1/2 sunk and he exclaims he is not certain raising her (firing the DC) will help besides it will be just like starting ALL OVER again …

Guess he wants to throw rocks at the enemy instead …

Uh … NOPE … you raise her (fire the Dufus Critter) and start using her 16 inch guns (hire a new GOOD DC) AGAIN!!! …

and YEP it will take A LOT OF WORK … starting over … but hopefully the sacrifice will be worth it

6

Sounds like a cliche that doesn’t apply. Turner deserves blame for both penalties and probably should be called into the coaches office for a long talk. I would be inclined to sit him out the next game except we’re running out of players on defense. When multiple players commit unsportsmanship penalties, then the HC deserves blame.

7

Good points. As for the trick plays, I don’t remember which drive it was but we got to the 2 yard line and I told my buddy now would be the time we try a trick play and lose 7 yards. It wasn’t the next play, but the one after we did exactly that. Strangely predictable when you can watch the flow of the game.

8

Completely uncalled for analogy. You should be effing ashamed of the person you see in the mirror each morning.

1 Like
9

Sorry @red80, the DC has lost the confidence of the defensive players. They want to play more aggressive, but are being told to keep things in front of them or to hold their ground too often. I do understand the injury issues, but a good coach will put players in the best position to succeed; that isn’t happening right now and the frustration within the team is growing. He’s got to go, probably as soon as after the Memphis game as we don’t have time to put someone in his place prior to then.

And we’ve seen previous coaches have to change DCs and it not hurt recruiting. Briles, Sumlin, and Levine were all forced to change DCs because things weren’t working. Usually, things got better and recruiting picked up on that side of the ball after the change.

As far as CMA, he has to beat Tulane to save his job in my eyes. You can’t lose twice in a row to Tulane and be head coach material at UH.

5 Likes
10

Very well said. I have been more than fair/lenient about CMD, and I think there is enough data to see he is not our guy. I understand that there’s much more difficult on the defense when you have an offense that plays at a rapid pace. I get that. But even early in the game before the defense is tired you can see that there are no adjustments being made.

Honestly, I can only think of two games where adjustments were being made. We saw it with the second half of Navy and USF. No in game adjustments can be made, no major adjustments made during practice week, and very little changes made during the bye week.

I think most importantly is that he never designed the scheme around the players when it’s obvious that his players do not fit the scheme. Ed was completely under utilized and the fact that we could not get any sacks when he was double and triple teamed is beyond a waste of his talent. Our secondary has looked absolutely horrible and that is considering that we have a five star safety who has looked anything but a five star safety for the year.

From a personnel standpoint, I think we addressed a lot of the concerns for the defense during the off-season but we’ve produced worse results. That is a reflection upon the coach/coaching staff. Not sure who all needs to go, but changes need to be made.

Applewhite made the right choice with Briles, now he needs to make the right choice with a new DC.

6 Likes
11

We list our entire DL andca big chunk of our recieving corp and running backs.

There were guys on the field I had never heard of last night.

12

Cool, brisk night for a game that our group still had fun…too many gin and tonics…Temple came to play, those Owls aren’t Rice ones, solid team. Houston, we have MAJOR problems

2 Likes