The talent is on both sides of the ball. McCaskill has a great career in front of him. The O Line looks big and fast (Center was apparently twitchy, but I did not see it). Dell, Trajan, and the other receivers looked good. I like that Herslow kid…runs tight routes.
D Line were unstoppable tanks on a mission tonight. Even with the massive amount of holding on Tulsa the QB rarely had a pocket.
DBs were everywhere. The three 40 yard plays from the Tulsa WR were all great catches with good coverage.
I said it after Tech and it really showed tonight, we HAVE talent.
The physicality of our defensive front is awesome. We always assume when a great DC leaves us we’ll never see it again. But this is an example that there are a lot of good defensive coaches out there. You just gotta pickem and give them time.
And our tackling? ##### primo, baby!!! I love a defense that hits you and sticks. That’s all mindset and effort.
I don’t want to take anything away from Belk or the other defensive coaches.
But to me this is more about recruiting. You recruit guys with high motors, and you recruit depth, and this is what you get.
Sampson said something along this line when talking about his recruiting. You can teach somebody to play good defense, but the effort and heart and desire has to be in them already–or something like that.
To bad our first scheduled game was against Texas Tech because I believe that had we played them now, or even later in the season, our performance would be much improved. Lets hope our worst performance of the entire season was the first game and we are able to play the rest of the schedule with energy, discipline and excellence. While I realize Rice, Grambling, Navy and Tulsa were not the best competition, sometimes teams require tune-up games before reaching their stride and it would appear that we are beginning to reach ours.