Chris Datres

Very good opportunity to gauge what we've got going into the season even if Thomas isn't 100%. A number of teams are using the 'hurricane relief' loophole to play these open exhibitions against D-1 teams rather than the usual D-3 fodder. Kansas played Missouri on Sunday in a high-scoring affair in front of a packed house in KC that raised $2 million and UCONN is playing or has played Providence in a similarly-constructed exhibition.

I hesitate to jump into this pool because the OP cited numbers that I've seen before under a different name and that name always gave me the shakes on here....but here goes. I seem to remember that playoff loss to Lehigh being a 40-38 final score so offense was the least of our problems that day. But if it fits your narrative, go ahead and run with it. Our problem is that there was zero capitalization by the entire program (athletic department included) on the championship game run. Victor proved a very capable replacement to T West but the rest of that championship talent graduated and the recruiting/juco pipeline went dry. That causes the domino effect (losses, poor attendance, recruits look elsewhere) that results in what we see on the field this year. Yeah, injuries to the skill players don't help but I'm not sure that Mahalak and Simpson would provide much of a difference given how rough the offensive line is. Hoops season in 3 weeks at least.

I'm guessing you're new to Towson Athletics? They couldn't sell the place out even when they had playoff teams or the year after they went to the championship game. We have a 5,000+ seat basketball arena that hasn't been sold out once, I don't think. For as long as I've known it (and I go back to the mid-90s), Towson fan/student apathy is as high as any school I see and it's not like we're in the outskirts of Montana...though, that may work out better because then there'd be nothing else better to do than go to the athletic events. Part of that is on the on-field/court product, part of that is on the marketing campaigns to get students to games. For those of us who have been on these boards for a long time, it's an endless broken record about why there isn't more support. Whatever it is, there was a giant dropping of the ball after the championship game run. As for this current edition, I find it hard to believe that a team can have an offense that is as horrid as ours is. A lot of that can be traced to the fact there are zero threats on the field -- the QB is a freshman, there's no burner in the backfield, there's no downfield threat. So that allows defenses to take a lot more risks and bring 6 and 7 guys on every down knowing that our line won't be able to handle them and that they won't give up a big downfield play. What's our longest run from scrimmage this year? A lot of this stems from injuries but there's also a lot of blame that can be put on player development. The fanbase has been complaining about the play calling for a while and yeah, it's been bad but what talent is out there? In the past, there was T-West and then there was Victor and there were QB's like Enders and Athens and even Frazier to a degree that had the tools to get the ball downfield if the running game was bogged down. It doesn't appear that we have any of that talent right now so that magnifies how bad the plays are. Am I defending the coaching staff? Not really. But I feel that there are more things at work than just the playcalling -- injuries, development (on the coaches), and recruiting (also on the coaches).

Tonight was my first chance to actually watch them in action. Defense played well enough to win this game outside of the first drive of the game. This offense is horrid. Ambrose said it perfectly going into halftime. It's a bad bad scheme but it all starts with the offensive line. If you're not opening holes, I don't care if you have John Riggins and Barry Sanders back there, you're not going to gain much. Stover seems ok in a simple pitch and catch type scenario. That is, if he has enough time...and his receivers decide to catch the ball. It's just a bad setup right now and I'm kinda feeling the desperate need for a change in scheme. But again, if you have subpar offensive linemen, it's not going to matter.

http://gcs.bdglobalsports.com/#!/schedule There's the schedule for the Gulf Coast Showcase. Towson draws Florida Atlantic in the final game of the first round. 2nd game would be against either Penn or Northern Illinois. Missouri State, Georgia Southern, Manhattan, and UMKC are on the other side of the bracket. Certainly not much meat in this event but will still be good to get some reps, and hopefully wins against this type of competition before getting into CAA play.

Was not able to see any of the game tonight. Given the amount of problems that Stony Brook gave a very good South Florida team a couple of weeks ago, I figured we'd get our doors blown off today. I was pleasantly surprised that the deficit was only 8. It's a very difficult road to navigate when you have a freshman QB, inexperienced running backs (when your best one is hobbled), and a suspect offensive line.

I like the fact that we didn't roll over once we went down 21-0. Fought back, got a score, and if you take away the pick-6 and the missed receiver in the end zone that then led to the 4th down miss at the end of the half, who knows, maybe they're only down 7-10 going into half instead of 28-7. Twerps are just too talented across the board for us and I hope the defense doesn't get down on themselves but instead, learns from bad tackling and taking bad angles. Use this game as a learning tool to help them in the CAA. It sounded like Stover got his legs underneath him a little bit midway thru the 1st and those short passes helped him along. But I agree with Ironman....if there's no consistent running game, it won't matter who's under center, that offense is going to struggle. It was getting very tiring hearing about our backs running into stone walls in the line for minimal gains. I was stuck listening to Johnny Holiday on XM today and the only thing more excruciating than that was sitting in stop & go traffic throughout half of South Carolina. Basic radio play by play is ballcarrier, where he advances it, yards gained, next down and distance. I found myself wondering what the hell was going on throughout the game. On a couple of the Twerps long scores, he didn't pick up the yard mark until like the 20 or 15 and I'm like, 'how the hell did he get there so quickly?'. On our first score, they were in the middle of a scoreboard update and they come back and we're in the end zone. I've been told that Johnny is an institution but he and his analyst left a ton to be desired calling that game.

I'll be listening on the XM as I drive from Orlando to somewhere north to get out of the way of this steamroller that's heading here. Rumor has it that the Twerps are giving away $10,000 to a student if they take a punt back for a touchdown.

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=177339 http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/college/football/bs-sp-towson-morgan-football-0903-story.html BALTIMORE'S COLLEGE TEAM!!!!! Wow, that was um, ugly to say the least. But the defense showed plenty of good signs and you can't complain about a shutout. Enjoy it for a few hours and then get to work because next Saturday is gonna be a real hill to climb.

The tournament's website is nowhere near updated but I've been told that we're playing in the Gulf Coast Showcase in Ft. Myers the Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. I'll be able to make it for at least one, hopefully two games.