Tiger93

Really good opportunity for Skerry to make a positive name for himself this year on a bigger level. In a landscape where everyone leaves and transfers, we are bringing pretty much everyone. If we can have a good year, I feel like that is a story people will enjoy talking about. It seemed like the main reason we are on the top 100 and 1 list that sr16 shared. Once again, we have some bigger conference and well-known teams on the schedule (St. Mary's, South Carolina and I guess maybe James Madison after last year's NCAA Tournament) that present opportunities to finally get a big non-conference win. We are also seem to be conference favorites (I know we will find out officially later today), and we have the ghosts of March looking to haunt us again. If Skerry can solve the puzzles of beating a big conference team (I know we beat Oregon State, but they don't really count), avoiding the valleys of poor offense in conference play (and outside of it) we have seen in the past, and the failures of March, he could get some really good publicity out of this. All I have to do is look at TUTigers2012 avatar to remind myself that just when you believe is when the letdown comes, but even though we have all mostly been through this it is another year. Maybe it can FINALLY be a different result.

I believe you can argue this a hundred different ways and be right in a lot of them. We all agree we need to win every game the rest of the way. If the teams we beat aren't that good we still may not even make the playoffs. I would rather beat a highly ranked Richmond team (which they could be with a win over Delaware) and a possibly ranked Monmouth team (which they could be if they can beat Villanova later this year) than a Richmond team in the outskirts of the top 25 and a receiving votes Monmouth team. Since we didn't beat Villanova, there is not a really a standout game on the rest of our schedule as it stands. However, the higher up those two teams finish the better it looks if we beat all three of them. Of course, to your point we have been screwed by inferior New Hampshire teams getting picked over us even we crush them head-to-head. This is the same logic I used in basketball, where I want teams to be as good as possible when they play us so if we beat them our resume looks better. I think it matters, but I understand it is necessarily an iron-clad argument

I guess that is true in the context of them not being able to make the tournament. However, my thought is the higher ranked the teams are when we play them the easier it becomes to control our fate if we get the win. If Richmond beats Delaware, they could be a top 15 (maybe top 10) team when we play them. Since we blew our one shot at beating a top 10 team, we need our opponents to be a highly ranked as possible when we face them

Agreed on the Villanova game. If we win that game, we are sitting in a really good spot. As far as I can tell there is no other options for the playoffs but winning out. I will say if Richmond beats Delaware this week (which is unlikely) it would help us control our fate a little more. Monmouth-Villanova, Monmouth-New Hampshire, and Stony Brook New Hampshire could be helpful if they go the right way. Of course none of it matters if we don't win the games in front of us. As cliche as it is all we can do is take them one-by-one. I think we are capable of winning all the remaining games, but with the inconsistency we have shown it is tough to imagine winning all of these next three games.

We are favored by 13.5 according to Action Network. This year we are 4-1 against the spread, with the letdown against Morgan State being the one we didn't cover. Time to learn how to play as the heavy favorite this week.

I think there are certain benchmarks this program needs to hit to continue to gain momentum on the way back to be at high level. Playing a good game at home was the first low bar to clear, because we didn't do that last year. I also grouped that together with eating a ranked team at home (after a 2023 season of stinkers, check). Next up, not playing down to a level of a lower opposition like we did against Morgan State. That is what is in front of us this week. We racked up a lot of yardage against Morgan State, but repeatedly shot ourselves in the foot with penalties and turnovers. After that we can focus on the upcoming three-game stretch. All three teams are probably top-25 (Richmond) or fringe top-25 in the case of Stony Brook and Monmouth. Obviously if we want to say we are playoff team we need to win all of those games and the rest. There are some signs this program is heading in the right direction with the level we have reached at at times this year, but consistently staying somewhere around that level is the next challenge.

Not that I expect the crowds to start rushing in to see us after that win, but I believe this is the first time we have played well against a good opponent (at least on paper) at home since 2021 (Rhode Island, who no one cares about, but came in 5-1 that year). We have a lot of ground to make up in terms making people interested in this program (not that I am sure casual students or community members will ever be). This was a good step in the right direction, but man is there a long way to go. The first step was playing a good game at home during the Shinnick era, which we didn't do last year. Stony Brook is probably the last interesting home game on the schedule (although who knows if they are a decent team or not). You have made this point before, and I agree, but with all of the good teams leaving the conference there is definitely a lack of interesting names on paper (even when the teams are good) in our conference. Also, even when we had it going well it took a lot of smoke and mirrors in the Waddell era to draw big crowds. I am just hoping Shinnick can get this program back to where it was for the good portion of the Ambrose era. That is the first step. This was only the second time we beat a ranked team at home since 2018. We know a lot of the other obstacles that have existed since the various eras we were all students here.

I will never pretend I have any sense of style, but I like the logo on the field and hate it on the helmets.

While reading some of the weekly FCS previews I stumbled upon an analytics tool that had William & Mary second in the nation and us No. 19. Unfortunately it also has NDSU (No. 1), Monmouth (No. 10), Villanova (No. 11), Richmond (No. 13) and William & Mary ranked higher so it still projects us to finish 6-5, which won't work. Of course, this might have been invented by an NDSU fan because despite a not very good start they are No. 1 on this list. https://theanalyst.com/2024/08/introducing-fcs-football-tracr-metric

It is still early, but I think it is pretty easy to circle this as the biggest game of the Shinnick era. With Stony Brook, Monmouth and William & Mary all being varying degrees of good to solid, there are still some wins left on the schedule that could get us into the playoff discussion. However, there really is no more margin of error left for this team. One game at a time though, and this is the one to be laser-focused on to get things started.

All good questions. I don't know if we can get over the hump. For now I give Skerry some credit for keeping a roster intact in a climate where nobody stays at the same school or has any sort of loyalty to a program. It seems like a testament to the culture he has built, the players he has recruited, and if they feel like the environment is a match for them. Who knows what the experience will ultimately mean, as we need the players to get better to go where we want to go. How that happens is important. Bark Torvig has a table for returning minutes and returning possession minutes. The returning minutes group above 80% includes: 1. Navy 92.1%, 2. Northern Arizona 84.6%, 3. Wofford 84.3%, 4. Notre Dame 83.9%, 5. Towson 82.1%, 6. Gonzaga 81.4%, 7. American 81.4%, 8. Columbia 80.9%, 9. Boston University 80.1%. The returning possession minutes includes: 1. Navy 92.1%, 2. Wofford 86.9%, 3. Northern Arizona 86.5%, 4. Notre Dame 86.4%, 5. Gonzaga 80.2%, 6. Columbia 79%, 7. Towson 78.5%, 8. NC A&T 77.9% (this surprised me), 9. Boston University 77.3%, 10. American 76.8% Here is the link with the info - https://barttorvik.com/trankpre.php?sort=rpm&conlimit=

The punt return was a nice punt. I don't always buy the "outkicking your coverage" notion, but 81 Jackson Williams was one of the players the NDSU fans seemed excited about and he had too much space to run on that punt. We probably didn't fill the lanes we needed to, but just seemed like a flew right past us. I didn't specifically bring up time of possession, but I definitely alluded to it in that I felt going three-and-out on our second and third drive after getting ourselves in third and relatively short positions really hurt us in a number of ways. We lost some of the swagger we had on our first drive, we gave our defense no rest, and we let NDSU feel like they were in control of the game. I pretty much was wondering how big the blowout was going to be when it got 24-3. We adjusted fairly well with the gameplan in the second half, but I wish we could have stemmed the tide a little better in the first half. Even if one of those drives goes 7-10 plays, I think we stay in that game enough to be dangerous. Although, I will also say that NDSU really dropped their intensity on defense in the second half, and we upped our execution. That is why it is so hard to tell what is real and what isn't as we head into conference play and face more manageable competition. Better starts and less mistakes will be big part.

Made the roundtrip there and back from the Twin Cities today (about 3:15 each way), so I really appreciated the fight in the second half to make the game interesting. This team has definitely shown some fight in the first four games, but I still feel like we don't know much about them. The NDSU offense is pretty good this year, but that is a somewhat subpar NDSU defense for that program. We didn't put enough pressure on them early when we could have made this a tighter game. Our first drive was pretty solid, but Davis missed an opportunity to get a TD on the third down play when he couldn't quite get enough air on his pass to get it to an open receiver. It was a difficult roll-out play, but one that could have been made. On our next two drives, we got decent yardage on first and second down but couldn't executive on 3rd and 3 and 3rd and 4 due to a combination of breakdowns. It felt like one at least one of those third down plays, Davis could have run for the first down. He made that adjustment very well in the second half, but it was probably too late at that point. I only listened on the radio last week, but was wondering what others think about the comp with Brown's throwing arm compared to Davis. It felt like there were 3-4 above average throws that Davis missed today that could have been big plays. He also had the jitters early on, and it seemed like his accuracy was off a little bit. Meanwhile four of NDSU's five 3rd down conversions in the game came on 3rd and 9 or longer. With the game tied at 3-3, we had them at 3rd and 10 from their own 30, and they came up with a 49-yard pass play to keep a drive that ended up as a TD alive. Late in the second quarter at 17-3, NDSU seemed content to run the clock out and was at 3rd and 11 from their own. Once they completed a 16 yard pass play, they quickly drove down the field and made it 24-3. They converted a 3rd and 15 from their own 39 in their first drive on the second half on pass interference, but thankfully missed a 44-yard field goal. They also had a 3rd and 9 from our 22-yard line and converted on a pass interference play, and pushed the score to 31-10 later in the third quarter. I know I am being picky pulling up each of those plays, but between the two punt play letdowns, the two PIs on 3rd and long, and the two other 3rd and long spots we gave up, we just had too many letdowns to make this as tight of a game as it could have been. That was little disappointing. I know some of the big plays we made against NDSU and Cincy show off some of the talent on this team, but finding yourself down 21-3 in the first quarter in Cincy and 24-3 at halftime against NDSU helps loosen the intensity of those defenses too. Our best offense has come try to claw our way back from huge deficits, and I hope we don't see many more of those this year. I also don't think NDSU is a top five team and that Villanova is a top 10 squad. They are still good teams, but both are a tad overrated from what I can tell. Still, credit the players for fighting hard the whole game and for making some adjustments in the second half. Davis did a good job of using his legs when things broke down offensively in the second half, and the Tyrell Greene Jr. TD run was a thing of beauty. We actually almost came close to replicating it with Devin Matthews when it was 34-24, but NDSU's safety made a solid one-on-one tackle to keep it from being a big gain and the drive broke down because of penalties. Overall, I was a little disappointed with some of the mistakes that let us fall behind by so much in the first half. Those mistakes won't just hurt us against NDSU and Cincinnati, we will pay for themi in conference play if we don't clean them up. The talent level and the fact that our total yardage has been 438, 346, 394, 366 in the first four games (even if we piled up a lot of it against NDSU and Cincy when we trailed big) are both promising. We have also run for 5.2 (194) total, 5.1 (137 total), 5.2 (161 total) and 8.5 (205 total) yards per carry in our first four games. We just need to clean up special teams and some of the mistakes we have made on both sides of the ball. They made the Morgan State game closer than it should have been, they cost us the Villanova game, and they blew a chance for this to be a really tight and competitive game against NDSU the whole way.

I assume this is based on the fact that this has been the final score the last two times we played them. The 35-7 score in 2021 was very kind. I am not sure I have ever been to a college football game that one-sided. They were able to whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. That is my hesitation in making the 3.5 hour drive to Fargo tomorrow, but I am going to pull the trigger. Looking back, NDSU has played current CAA teams nine times (I am excluding the four meetings against JMU). In those nine meetings they are 9-0 with an average margin of victory of 30 points. The interesting part about about the Shinnick era so far is we have been pretty respectable on the road. We are 4-4 against some pretty tough competition with the only real blowouts being Villanova and Maryland last year (and Cincy sort of this year). Villanova last year is probably the only game where we got dominated for what seemed like the entirety of the game (we even battled Maryland decently after falling behind 21-0 quickly). It is at home where we really have yet to play a good game in six contests since Shinnick took over. Hopefully some of the fight we have had on the road carries over. The weirdest part of this is I think Villanova is overrated, and East Tennessee State would probably tell you NDSU is overrated. My biggest worry is the coaches have NDSU's full attention this week and we will get a focused effort from them. Three things I think we can find out from this game will be how well Shinnick can coach these guys up against a good team, how good can our QBs be, and will our defense hold up under the pressure of another top dual-three QB. We wll also find out if they are really good this year, or if they are on downturn and living off their program's name. I don't really care about that last one, except that I hope we can play a good competitive game and have a chance to win.

I will likely be making the trip out there from the Twin Cities.