HA HA Southern Lost....... funny it was, dislike them I do.

Would rather they won then we beat them to eliminate the possibility of a tie for the conf champ

I can't imagine Arkansas State running the table in the conference this year. South Alabama is going to destroy them. They completely lucked out by not having to play Troy or App, but I think they'll lose two games.

Both teams last night looked like they were TRYING to lose the game. It was not a fun game to watch.

Agree no way they run the table

I thought both teams looked awful last night

State is at Troy on Nov 12.

After Ark. St. started out 0-4, I wouldn't have thought that they stood an ice cubes chance in hades against Ga. Sou. Along the same lines, I would not expect Ark. St. to run the conference table either, but stranger things have happened. I want our guys to win a championship outright.

hapapp wrote:State is at Troy on Nov 12.

Troy plays App at home 11/12 and then Ark St. at home 11/17.

My guess is we fall short vs. Troy but soften them up on a short week enough that Ark St. beats them.

Ark state had 5 turnovers and still won. They made some plays on O. 7-1 or 8-0 is probable.

Saint3333 wrote: Troy plays App at home 11/12 and then Ark St. at home 11/17.

My guess is we fall short vs. Troy but soften them up on a short week enough that Ark St. beats them.

It's too early to predict if and when we will fall short in conference play this season. If we can stay mostly healthy I think we stand a solid chance of winning every game left on our schedule. I am certainly not suggesting that won't be a monumental task/accomplishmet, but if Troy or anybody else is going to beat us we are going to have to have a change in known circumstances before I predict such a loss.

I invite you to join me on my cautiously optimistic approach.

While I won't predict us to win all SB games... I think in each given match-up we have a good chance to win. At Troy will be one where that chance isn't as high, but still there. At GS will still be a stiff test as well.

CVAPP wrote:

Saint3333 wrote: Troy plays App at home 11/12 and then Ark St. at home 11/17.

My guess is we fall short vs. Troy but soften them up on a short week enough that Ark St. beats them.

It's too early to predict if and when we will fall short in conference play this season. If we can stay mostly healthy I think we stand a solid chance of winning every game left on our schedule. I am certainly not suggesting that won't be a monumental task/accomplishmet, but if Troy or anybody else is going to beat us we are going to have to have a change in known circumstances before I predict such a loss.

I invite you to join me on my cautiously optimistic approach.

I believe we will be favored in every game left on the schedule except for Troy and have a chance to beat them all, but as of 10/7 Troy looks to be the better team, we have time to get better.

Seems like a good place to ask this question. We all had high hopes for this season considering the players we had returning. Let me temper this by saying I don't think we have done badly nor do I think we will do badly. That being said how does everyone view our team thus far? Lots of folks on this board pretty much think Troy will beat us. We seemed to come out firing at UT and had a heartbreaking loss. Did that loss take wind out of our sails? We seemed to sleepwalk through the ODU game, got stomped by what may be a legit top 10 Miami team, slugged it out with an Akron team that is hard to read and let Ga St play us too tightly. Enough rambling. Are we not as good as we thought we would be? Are we playing too vanilla on offense? Do we have glaring weaknesses on defense/offense? Or is our competition just pretty good and we are ok?

I'll make one comment to one of your questions, the "our competition" one. Also, I'm only going to mention one of our competitors, Georgia State. As the season progresses they (Georgia State) is going to win a few games, they are much better than some realize. Although we didn't have our best game against them, they had two weeks to prepare and threw everything at us, we still prevailed. If we stay focused and healthy we can definitely win out, one game at a time.

I like our chances against both Troy and Stink. Home field is great but no guarantee of success (e.g. Ark State 2015 and Miami. I actually think in a game like this, being the visitor is not a bad thing. The team knows it is them against the "unfriendly confines" and is in some ways, more focused. One at a time.
Go App!

We are not as good as some thought we were but I think some of those thoughts were a little overboard. We are a good team and some of our competition is better than we gave them credit for. We will be just fine but not sure we will win out. We played our best game against the Vols and need to get back to that level.

bigdaddyg wrote:Seems like a good place to ask this question. We all had high hopes for this season considering the players we had returning. Let me temper this by saying I don't think we have done badly nor do I think we will do badly. That being said how does everyone view our team thus far? Lots of folks on this board pretty much think Troy will beat us. We seemed to come out firing at UT and had a heartbreaking loss. Did that loss take wind out of our sails? We seemed to sleepwalk through the ODU game, got stomped by what may be a legit top 10 Miami team, slugged it out with an Akron team that is hard to read and let Ga St play us too tightly. Enough rambling. Are we not as good as we thought we would be? Are we playing too vanilla on offense? Do we have glaring weaknesses on defense/offense? Or is our competition just pretty good and we are ok?

I don't think the UT loss took the wind out of our sails, but I think there might be a little to each of the other questions you ask.

I'll also add this point: I think the first half of last season may have spoiled us a little. We basically ran through everybody but Clemson like a hot knife through butter. The way we beat ODU, ULM, Ga. State and Ga. Southern were the types of satisfying beat downs that didn't leave fans saying "Well, it's a win, but..."

This year we just haven't had one of those games yet. For most of us, the most encouraging performance was against Tennessee, but you can only be so happy about a loss, plus it just raised people's expectations up to a level that's hard to meet. And yet, in terms of playing to expectations, we're 3-2 against the spread, and one of the games we didn't cover was a 14-point win. So by that metric, we're as good as advertised (with the notable exception of the Miami game).

All that isn't to say that we don't have real on-field issues we need to address - we obviously do. I think we just had a season and a half where just about everything went right, and now we're being reminded that it isn't always that easy.

Good points and hopefully more will give some feedback. This weekend will stink. No App football and Panthers play Monday. I raised some questions but don't necessarily feel that way. I agree we kind of raised the bar a bit. I believe we are fine, will blow out a few teams and will have some tight games and might even drop one. There is a thread speaking of how lucky UT is. That's football, a break one way or the other makes a huge difference. We make a kick and recover a fumble, stun UT and we are 4-1. Hopefully we get a little healed up and put it on the next 7 opponents!

bigdaddyg wrote:Seems like a good place to ask this question. We all had high hopes for this season considering the players we had returning. Let me temper this by saying I don't think we have done badly nor do I think we will do badly. That being said how does everyone view our team thus far? Lots of folks on this board pretty much think Troy will beat us. We seemed to come out firing at UT and had a heartbreaking loss. Did that loss take wind out of our sails? We seemed to sleepwalk through the ODU game, got stomped by what may be a legit top 10 Miami team, slugged it out with an Akron team that is hard to read and let Ga St play us too tightly. Enough rambling. Are we not as good as we thought we would be? Are we playing too vanilla on offense? Do we have glaring weaknesses on defense/offense? Or is our competition just pretty good and we are ok?

I think we are exactly where most people thought and hoped we would be - sure we should have beaten Tennessee and that would have been a major upset - I have a different feel about our other opponents - ODU was between 2 heavily anticipated and hyped games - our guys took control early and there was no need to do any more - Akron was a concern to me as it was the 4th game, on their field and they had just laid 66 on Marshall - I consider that one a big win --- As someone mentioned, GA State had 2 weeks to prepare after leading #9 Wisconsin late in the 4th quarter. I believe they came to Boone expecting to win. Vanilla offense means nothing to me - You do what works and what will win games - We took over the ball with 8 minutes left against GSU - drove down the field (our OL had worn on their guys over the course of the game), ate up the clock and scored points - That is how you win ---

Looking at how every Sun Belt team has played this far (performances subject to change week to week) Troy is the only team on our future schedule that looks tough. Georgia Southern's offensive line blocking and play calling has looked atrocious thus far, but historically even when they have bad teams they seem to play us tough. Hopefully that trend changes this year and we get two in a row on them.