UNC game discussion

[Black Saturday]

My glass is more than half full for this App. team. Single biggest reason, THE FIGHT!!! They had a number of chances to quit but it absolutely never happened.

You are exactly right! Heck of experience and character builder. I told a friend in the 4th quarter during the come back that one thing is for certain no matter who the coach has been over the last 40 years and has helped define our program is that - we don't quit.

[AppSt94]

I know this isn’t going to make any of you feel better, but we aren’t in as bad of shape on defense as one wants to believe. It takes all 11 guys doing their individual job and we have one position that has been forced into a steep learning curve. If Huff is back there at Free Safety, this game looks different. Give the coaches and players time to get this figured out and I assure you that all will be well.

[GreatAppSt]

D couldn’t get off the field on 3rd and 13 and 15 and 20s etc. etc. down when we needed big stops.

fify

[AppStFan1]

I know this isn’t going to make any of you feel better, but we aren’t in as bad of shape on defense as one wants to believe. It takes all 11 guys doing their individual job and we have one position that has been forced into a steep learning curve. If Huff is back there at Free Safety, this game looks different. Give the coaches and players time to get this figured out and I assure you that all will be well.

Huff would have made a huge difference. We will definitely improve and people have to remember that we won't see an offense near that caliber again after A&M. I expected to start 0-2 knowing we would be a lot better because of the talent we are facing. We will win our last 2 OOC games by huge margins. We will learn a ton these first two games.

Safety play does have to improve and I think it can. I do wonder if Burks might see time this coming week to see how he does. Were Clarke and Ross perhaps nervous, making mental errors, or just not fast enough at all?

DL will be pretty good and it looks as thought we got 8-9 bodies we can play regularly. Nick Hampton was a monster with 2.5 sacks and he should get all that Jackson did in the off-season plus be a higher draft pick. Cobb and Parker could be among the top 5 LBs in the SBC as well.

[WVAPPeer]

At this point I just don't think it is fair for any of us to point out a particular defensive grouping as "the problem" - as 94 said, it takes all 11 doing their jobs - until I hear or read where the coaches say the problems happened then I will reserve negative personal comments - We don't know what the coverage calls were on any given play - maybe a LB was supposed to knock a TE off his route before he released him to the S - possibly a CB thought we were in a zone but should have been Man - or vice versa - Maybe a blitzer chose the wrong gap - Other than Jones there is not much experience back there - mistakes will be made and a QB like Maye sees it and takes advantage - I can't recall one bad throw he made the entire game nor a wrong read - the guy is better than I expected - if he stays healthy he's a #1 pick -

[appstatealum]

To someone's comment before, I donr feel like our WR situation is good. They had flashes, but this is a huge drop off from Henni/Sutton. They are young and the others didn't have much big game experience, so we shall see. But to say they looked great is denying the truth- our secondary and WRs are glaring issues.

[AppStateNews]

WRs definitely are not glaring issues. We have more size, speed, ability to block, and better route runners in our WR room. Are they young with minimal experience? Yes. But it is not a glaring issue.

Will be interesting to see how hurt Stroman is. His deep ball he caught was a beauty.

[appstatealum]

WRs definitely are not glaring issues. We have more size, speed, ability to block, and better route runners in our WR room. Are they young with minimal experience? Yes. But it is not a glaring issue.

Will be interesting to see how hurt Stroman is. His deep ball he caught was a beauty.

Scheme can definitely elevate these guys. I felt they all showed flashes, but I didn't see any "go to" when we will need it outside of Pearson from the TE position. Again, they are young and we will see how things progress. You don't need "that guy" of every guy is contributing. I just didn't see a ton of seperation, but I hope to rewatch the game sooner than later.

[WVAPPeer]

Man - you must of been watching a different game from me - I was really impressed with the WRs - are they as good right now as guys who played 5 years? No - but to say "Glaring issues" is totally baffling to me ---
Plus, how many games did Henni and Sutton play hurt or miss the game totally?

[AppSt94]

Young guys versus older veteran guys comes down to consistency. They weren’t consistent yesterday but they weren’t unimpressive either.

[AppStFan1]

At this point I just don't think it is fair for any of us to point out a particular defensive grouping as "the problem" - as 94 said, it takes all 11 doing their jobs - until I hear or read where the coaches say the problems happened then I will reserve negative personal comments - We don't know what the coverage calls were on any given play - maybe a LB was supposed to knock a TE off his route before he released him to the S - possibly a CB thought we were in a zone but should have been Man - or vice versa - Maybe a blitzer chose the wrong gap - Other than Jones there is not much experience back there - mistakes will be made and a QB like Maye sees it and takes advantage - I can't recall one bad throw he made the entire game nor a wrong read - the guy is better than I expected - if he stays healthy he's a #1 pick -

It definitely takes all 11. What you said about the CB does happen sometimes. I have seen cases where the safety was suppose to come over the top and does not so when the CB stays in the flats he looks like he was burned but he was not.

I'm pointing out the safeties because they did not look that fast and we were known to be thin there coming into the season. You have to remember that one of those starters was suppose to be a backup 5 months ago. I also don't think you can completely trash them and say we will be awful going forward because the team knows this and will make adjustments. Just watching how they moved and how quickly they closed on runners made me think we might not be as fast there. I am curious to see how Burks looks because he was a ball hawk in high school and while we want to redshirt him sometimes you realize you can't. I will never forget starting Mike Smith against Hawaii and then he gets burned badly and we end up putting in Corey Lynch who starts the rest of the year. It will be interesting to see if we do something similar this year with Burks and he ends up getting on the field. I hope that does not happen but you never know.

[AppStFan1]

Man - you must of been watching a different game from me - I was really impressed with the WRs - are they as good right now as guys who played 5 years? No - but to say "Glaring issues" is totally baffling to me ---
Plus, how many games did Henni and Sutton play hurt or miss the game totally?

For a first game I'm with you. We can't be blind and say all of our players are the very best all the time and never make mistakes but to be really down on that group after their first game in the spotlight is not fair for sure. They did a pretty good job and I thought it was clear that they will be lethal when we get to conference play. We have at least 8 receivers who should be able to contribute this year.

[huskie3]

I’m not worried about the DBs, looked like we were in man coverage lots of time and UNC got half a step on us. I know there were some blown calls and open guys, but overall I liked what I saw.

[asu1988]

Heck of an effort not to lay down and quit in the 3rd quarter. Easily one of the best App State games I've ever witnessed. Defense needs some work, but the offense showed out, especially in the 4th quarter.

[BambooRdApp]

I must have watched a different game as well. I thought the WRs were very good for first time our playing 60 minutes. On a couple of longer throws (15+ yards), with DBs on them tight, they had some good catches

[app97]

WRs definitely are not glaring issues. We have more size, speed, ability to block, and better route runners in our WR room. Are they young with minimal experience? Yes. But it is not a glaring issue.

Will be interesting to see how hurt Stroman is. His deep ball he caught was a beauty.

I agree. It appears that we have more overall speed in the WR room than we’ve ever had. My only concern coming in was if they had the hands to pull in as many clutch catches as Sutton, hennigan, and Williams did the last couple years. That question was answered yesterday in the 4th quarter. The combo of Davis, Wells, Horn, Robinson, etc should be able to make a ton of sun belt secondaries look bad coupled with Brice’s accuracy.

[spacemonkey]

The same people who were saying “wait until Maye has to play a better defense in a hostile crowd” last week are now saying Maye is the best UNC quarterback. Why can’t we be critical of our team without facing backlash?? Our defense is atrocious. Does Shawn care to fix it and get rid of re tread Jones? No

Maybe cause it was more wishful thinking than anything? Fact is Maye played lights out for them making plays with arm and feet. Give credit where credit is due, we faced a 5* QB that plays like it, and our safeties could not physically match up with their TEs/H backs in coverage.

Defense had a bad game, no doubt. But I'll be more concerned when our defense plays this poorly vs 2*/3* rated G5 offenses.

UNC-Ch has more problems to fix on defense than App does.

How in the world do you figure that?

Because they gave up 61 points to a team they are supposed to smoke. UNC gave up 40 points in one quarter, not App. And UNC will play much better offenses than we will.

I don't get this...why was UNC supposed to smoke us. It was a one point spread. It was supposed to be a close really good game, and it was!!!

[BeauFoster]

If there’s one place I’m not worried about it’s the WR room. That would be like 8th on my list of concerns. For the first time out as starters (for many of them), they all looked good to me.

[MrCraig]

Maybe cause it was more wishful thinking than anything? Fact is Maye played lights out for them making plays with arm and feet. Give credit where credit is due, we faced a 5* QB that plays like it, and our safeties could not physically match up with their TEs/H backs in coverage.

Defense had a bad game, no doubt. But I'll be more concerned when our defense plays this poorly vs 2*/3* rated G5 offenses.

UNC-Ch has more problems to fix on defense than App does.

How in the world do you figure that?

Because they gave up 61 points to a team they are supposed to smoke. UNC gave up 40 points in one quarter, not App. And UNC will play much better offenses than we will.

I don't get this...why was UNC supposed to smoke us. It was a one point spread. It was supposed to be a close really good game, and it was!!!

I meant just in general. UNC is an old program in a P5 conference. They SHOULD smoke any G5 team they play. But you’re right. We are a very good G5 and they are a bad P5, so it was very even. I meant that Chizik is in a lot more trouble because theoretically a P5 team should never give up 60 points to a G5 team.

[bigdaddyg]

I can't believe I actually read someone saying something negative about the receivers yesterday. They were fast, caught nearly everything thrown to them and were explosive. I'm not ready to call them better than the guys who graduated but it's a deep, fast group that will light some teams up.

I thought about something driving home today. Is it possible that two teams played yesterday who both have offenses that are just better than the defenses? It happens. I guess if we put up some decent to good numbers next week and this year that might mean something