NIU game thread

[RBFANTOO]

Paging Mr. Beathard. Mr. Beathard.

Very disappointing play calling! This surprised me.

 

[Phantom]

Definitely have some work to do. NIU had a great, if not surprising whatsoever, game plan. Even with stacking the box and keying run, I'm surprised our O-line got beat as bad as they did. JR could get NOWHERE all night.

Defense kept us in it. Great effort by them. If we have to dink & dunk all game long on offense, fine. It'll make for boring football but so what. Hard to win most games when you're 3rd & long 99% of the time and can't convert any.

 

[Chi-bird]

here is pic of our fan section .. got it from NIU forum. Pretty good showing .. certainly more scattered across stadium.

a718b39ab9ec71862616343549af8dcc.jpg

This was the General Admission/Student Section on the east side and was probably 80-% NIU fans. The ISU allotment/ section was actually on the west side at the south end but was very well represented.

 

[Adunk33]

I’m sure this will echo some of the other thoughts in here as I haven’t read the entire thread.

All things considered, the defense looked good. Spack said it in a presser earlier that “Offense sells tickets but defense wins championships.” If that’s the case, we better be ready to see some home games with 300 people in the seats.

The offense was bad. The line couldn’t block for James. It seemed Proctor had some nice carries because of his quick first step. There was a point where James had 5 carries and 1 net yard. However, the line did seem to give Brady enough time to throw, but he was totally inaccurate. There was a drive where he bounced 3 in a row to wide open receivers. In the second half he corrected the problem by overthrowing his targets instead. He did throw a really nice dime for the score but that’s about it. I don’t blame the play calling as much as I do our guys inability to execute.

Not ready to bench Davis but another game like this would really make me want to see what we have in Jefferson. I’ve been really impressed with him so far.

Frustrating because this was a very winnable game and our guys didn’t execute. The defense was a major high point though. Loved the pass rush. Seemed like most times the NIU QB dropped back he was hurried.

 

[Phantom]

here is pic of our fan section .. got it from NIU forum. Pretty good showing .. certainly more scattered across stadium.

a718b39ab9ec71862616343549af8dcc.jpg

This was the General Admission/Student Section on the east side and was probably 80-% NIU fans. The ISU allotment/ section was actually on the west side at the south end but was very well represented.

We definitely showed up well. Hard to guess how many of our fans made the trip as we were scattered throughout both sides as mentioned. Pretty good atmosphere overall I thought. Would've been a perfect night for football if not for the rain (and loss.)

 

[fourthandshort]

here is pic of our fan section .. got it from NIU forum. Pretty good showing .. certainly more scattered across stadium.

a718b39ab9ec71862616343549af8dcc.jpg

This was the General Admission/Student Section on the east side and was probably 80-% NIU fans. The ISU allotment/ section was actually on the west side at the south end but was very well represented.

the NIU poster seemed to infer or acknowledge they were our fans .. but who knows, you might be right. His comment with pic was, "they showed up". Besides their fans announced a blackout probaby knowing we would be wearing a lot of red.

 

[fourthandshort]

I’m sure this will echo some of the other thoughts in here as I haven’t read the entire thread.

All things considered, the defense looked good. Spack said it in a presser earlier that “Offense sells tickets but defense wins championships.” If that’s the case, we better be ready to see some home games with 300 people in the seats.

The offense was bad. The line couldn’t block for James. It seemed Proctor had some nice carries because of his quick first step. There was a point where James had 5 carries and 1 net yard. However, the line did seem to give Brady enough time to throw, but he was totally inaccurate. There was a drive where he bounced 3 in a row to wide open receivers. In the second half he corrected the problem by overthrowing his targets instead. He did throw a really nice dime for the score but that’s about it. I don’t blame the play calling as much as I do our guys inability to execute.

Not ready to bench Davis but another game like this would really make me want to see what we have in Jefferson. I’ve been really impressed with him so far.

Frustrating because this was a very winnable game and our guys didn’t execute. The defense was a major high point though. Loved the pass rush. Seemed like most times the NIU QB dropped back he was hurried.

I've lost patience .. too much talk, and not enough walk .. the results don't live up to his own hype. That is what bugs me most about this situation.

Fact is, you ought to connect on 70-80% of throws to open receivers under 20 yards. In the first 3 qtrs, he probably connected on maybe 30% of throws to open receivers .. 30% is what you expect when forced to throw to covered receivers to prevent picks.

Then look what happened in Q4 when he finally made some throws .. suddenly we are moving the ball. Note, first 10 drives we had 88 total net yards. On last 4 drives, excluding the 5th drive with desparation throw/pick 6, we gained 180 total net yards ... simply because he started connecting a little more often .. but still had some easy throws that were way off the mark. Oddly, some of the Q4 throws were actually very tough throws into tight spaces.

Frankly, I'm convinced it's all in his head .. too much thinking and pressure builds. He has talent and can throw when thing are going well and he is playing loose ... like early last season. But once pressure builds, he tightens up completely .. fear of failure to live up to all his own hype.

He really needs to stop this swagger/over-confidence nonsense. I truly believe he needs to simply humble himself, recognize his limitations and work from there. No more of this, "watch me be great" crap or "going out with a bang" nonsense. And Spack needs to stop coddling him with all this "it" and swagger nonsense ... he should see through it better than he does. Eventually Davis will lose the players .. then the wheel will fall off on season of high expectations once again.

And yes, I was giving him benefit of doubt this whole offseason and willing to believe that maybe he just needed a full offseason to get familiar and comfortable. And yes, I realized this whole time I was drinking some koolaid with high hopes for our pass game. But with all his offseason talk about being great, I'm done being patient. Not looking for great from Davis .. just looking for pretty good with this roster being so loaded. Or we need to consider our #2 at some point.

NDSU, SDSU, UNI, ISUb, and maybe even YSU all looked as good as presseason hype/expected in their first games. Granted, that was the best front 7 we will probably see all year, but there were holes in their secondary and we waited until Q4 to show anything resembling a pass attack.

And I like our Receiver group this year. Got to get Edgar back and pair him with Grimes. Agree with other poster, it would be nice to get some taller receivers in mix ... that is bigger targets. It is a talented. albeit inexperienced group.

So from here on out, let's try this instead .. "watch me be pretty good" and not lose games for us. Better yet, no more talk about results. Try just talking about what we need to work on and stop hiding from acknowledging you need to work on your accuracy for this offense to be successful. Anything else is just telling yourself what you want to hear ... as if not acknowledging the inaccuracy (aka white elephant) makes it not true. So let's stop all the cocky talk ..... humble yourself and get back to basics and let's go for "pretty good". That wil be enough to win games with this roster. And no more talk ...

And Spack also needs to cut thru this BS .. time for a heart to heart with Davis. You get the feeling he's hoping Davis is another Roberson situation and the only way he gets another playoff run and title shot. So he is coddling him mentally. Reality is ... it is time to hit restart button mentally with him .. tough love or move on.

We've got 3 winnable games coming up (2 easy, 1 tough against NAU), plus a bye week before the MVFC opener at home against NDSU. If he doesn't start to settle down, we need to look at #2 in these 3 games and prepare for the MVFC gauntlet in 2019, and then 2020.

This roster is playoff run potential ... as I've said and have no regret, I have lost patience with all the talk. So let's figure our QB position out BEFORE the MVFC opener Oct 5 .. we've got 4 weeks to figure this out. And I don't mind step backwards in the interim.

 

[Birdswin]

What a disappointing effort by Davis and the offense - same problems as the last several years, defense is good, but the offense is terrible, which is a recipe for .500 - beat the bad to average teams and lose to the better teams. Have to have at least a decent offense, otherwise you waste good defensive efforts.

 

[Chi-bird]

I really like Davis' swagger. His confidence can help in difficult times and it does help make other players better. There is a fine there, though. Now, if he could trade half of his swagger for more accuracy, I'd say do it!

 

[RBFANTOO]

What a disappointing effort by Davis and the offense - same problems as the last several years, defense is good, but the offense is terrible, which is a recipe for .500 - beat the bad to average teams and lose to the better teams. Have to have at least a decent offense, otherwise you waste good defensive efforts.

:text-+1: :text-+1: :text-+1:

 

[fourthandshort]

What a disappointing effort by Davis and the offense - same problems as the last several years, defense is good, but the offense is terrible, which is a recipe for .500 - beat the bad to average teams and lose to the better teams. Have to have at least a decent offense, otherwise you waste good defensive efforts.

so true playng in MVFC.

Even still, we were in a position to beat the MAC champion going into Q4 and sitting tied at 10-10 despite their QB and RB completely outplaying our QB and RB ... digest that for a while ... knowing how badly Davis and Robinson played (blame aside), I would would have guessed we would have been down 24-10 or even 24-0 by half time. Not 10-10 early in Q4 ... that shows how well our defense played despite only 4 first downs in first 3 qtrs which kept putting the defense right back on the field. It's no wonder they got worn out by Q4. Even still, they needed a broken play for the 68 yards drive on 1 play, and a pick 6 off a desparate late throw to bump the 10-10 game to 24-10 ... those 24 points are not at all indicative of how well our defense played.

 

[redbirds2000]

here is pic of our fan section .. got it from NIU forum. Pretty good showing .. certainly more scattered across stadium.

a718b39ab9ec71862616343549af8dcc.jpg

This was the General Admission/Student Section on the east side and was probably 80-% NIU fans. The ISU allotment/ section was actually on the west side at the south end but was very well represented.

I was in the middle of that. I would say easily 90% NIU. The General Admission Redbirds were probably the 50 in the group from this site. Their student turnout was strong. Until the rain started.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[MadBird]

Had 20 or so folks over for the day, so basically "followed" the game on the computer for the first three quarters while getting dinner ready and socializing, then watched most of the 4th after the crowd thinned. So just a couple comments based on that knowledge.

Will join with those wishing our QB had a better night. Agree with most of the comments about his needing to shut his yap and get the job done on the field. Someone made a good comment above about how he must be a decent practice player or the coaches would not have elevated him to starter. But he obviously is inconsistent at best in the games, at least so far. Maybe he's still "recovering" from his two years of inactivity. I have no idea what Jefferson has to show, but I would see nothing wrong with him getting a little PT, even for change of pace purposes if he's ready to play.

And am beginning to wonder about OC Beathard. Maybe he's just got a better handle about what we can get from the QB position, so the scheme is a little dialed back. Maybe the WR's aren't where they need to be. But we groused enough last year about predictability, lack of creativity, absence of decent short passing game, blah blah blah, and here we are again, altho just one game to look at.

NIU is not chopped liver. They returned some good guys, have played some good teams, have a rookie but promising coach with a decent resume (ie. been around some decent coaching minds), and were at home. We hung with them pretty much until the bitter end.

But there isn't much time to horse around - NDSU, SDSU, IbSU, UNI all looked pretty tough this weekend. If God forbid we were to falter against those 4, we'd have another 5 loss season, without even counting the other games, of which at least NAU and YSU are potential potholes.

Looking forward to the home opener! Get things rolling.

Edit: Oh, and 1-14 on 3rd down??? WTF!!

 

[Stay Cool]

here is pic of our fan section .. got it from NIU forum. Pretty good showing .. certainly more scattered across stadium.

a718b39ab9ec71862616343549af8dcc.jpg

This was the General Admission/Student Section on the east side and was probably 80-% NIU fans. The ISU allotment/ section was actually on the west side at the south end but was very well represented.

I was in the middle of that. I would say easily 90% NIU. The General Admission Redbirds were probably the 50 in the group from this site. Their student turnout was strong. Until the rain started.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Apologies, the "they" we were referring to is our ever mercurial student fan base

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[fourthandshort]

This was the General Admission/Student Section on the east side and was probably 80-% NIU fans. The ISU allotment/ section was actually on the west side at the south end but was very well represented.

I was in the middle of that. I would say easily 90% NIU. The General Admission Redbirds were probably the 50 in the group from this site. Their student turnout was strong. Until the rain started.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Apologies, the "they" we were referring to is our ever mercurial student fan base

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

figured that out eventually .. we do ok fan wise, but ours can be very fair weather.

good luck with rest of season.

 

[Total Red]

Well that was a gut punch last night. The good points have already been made. Most were not positive and even though that's the reality of the situation I'm going to repeat a few while putting a more positive spin on things.

1) Despite a couple of key missed tackles by CB's the defense played very well.
2) The NIU run defense is the best we will face all season. Even better than I thought it would be.
3) We had open receivers all night long and plenty of chances to score more points. Passing accuracy needs to get a lot better and the receiving needs a little improvement too. The pass blocking was effective.
4) I agree with fourth that this is a mental thing with Davis but I disagree on the treatment. If I were Coach Spack I wouldn't say anything to Davis other than - "Ok, let's get ready for next weekend." Davis is overthinking things as it is. First he overthrows and then he underthrows. He's pressing. He reminds me of Matt Brown going against SIU. You can actually want it too much. But Davis is our best option. If we want to make a playoff run he has to be the man. Have Davis throw a lot of balls early this week to get his rhythm back and then slap him on the back and send him out to play. Either he figures it out or he doesn't. I think he will.

 

[redbirds2000]

Well that was a gut punch last night. The good points have already been made. Most were not positive and even though that's the reality of the situation I'm going to repeat a few while putting a more positive spin on things.

1) Despite a couple of key missed tackles by CB's the defense played very well.
2) The NIU run defense is the best we will face all season. Even better than I thought it would be.
3) We had open receivers all night long and plenty of chances to score more points. Passing accuracy needs to get a lot better and the receiving needs a little improvement too. The pass blocking was effective.
4) I agree with fourth that this is a mental thing with Davis but I disagree on the treatment. If I were Coach Spack I wouldn't say anything to Davis other than - "Ok, let's get ready for next weekend." Davis is overthinking things as it is. First he overthrows and then he underthrows. He's pressing. He reminds me of Matt Brown going against SIU. You can actually want it too much. But Davis is our best option. If we want to make a playoff run he has to be the man. Have Davis throw a lot of balls early this week to get his rhythm back and then slap him on the back and send him out to play. Either he figures it out or he doesn't. I think he will.

4) It was the same thing last year. Some of those throws last night were multiple yards off. Not inches, yards. We had two possesions where we ran the ball 6 times in row. If you can't trust him, to drop back at least 1 time in those 2 possessions, then why have him out there? Hey! At least he is a confident dude and thinks he is good. He has that going for him.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[Redbird15]

I’m sure this will echo some of the other thoughts in here as I haven’t read the entire thread.

All things considered, the defense looked good. Spack said it in a presser earlier that “Offense sells tickets but defense wins championships.” If that’s the case, we better be ready to see some home games with 300 people in the seats.

The offense was bad. The line couldn’t block for James. It seemed Proctor had some nice carries because of his quick first step. There was a point where James had 5 carries and 1 net yard. However, the line did seem to give Brady enough time to throw, but he was totally inaccurate. There was a drive where he bounced 3 in a row to wide open receivers. In the second half he corrected the problem by overthrowing his targets instead. He did throw a really nice dime for the score but that’s about it. I don’t blame the play calling as much as I do our guys inability to execute.

Not ready to bench Davis but another game like this would really make me want to see what we have in Jefferson. I’ve been really impressed with him so far.

Frustrating because this was a very winnable game and our guys didn’t execute. The defense was a major high point though. Loved the pass rush. Seemed like most times the NIU QB dropped back he was hurried.

I've lost patience .. too much talk, and not enough walk .. the results don't live up to his own hype. That is what bugs me most about this situation.

Fact is, you ought to connect on 70-80% of throws to open receivers under 20 yards. In the first 3 qtrs, he probably connected on maybe 30% of throws to open receivers .. 30% is what you expect when forced to throw to covered receivers to prevent picks.

Then look what happened in Q4 when he finally made some throws .. suddenly we are moving the ball. Note, first 10 drives we had 88 total net yards. On last 4 drives, excluding the 5th drive with desparation throw/pick 6, we gained 180 total net yards ... simply because he started connecting a little more often .. but still had some easy throws that were way off the mark. Oddly, some of the Q4 throws were actually very tough throws into tight spaces.

Frankly, I'm convinced it's all in his head .. too much thinking and pressure builds. He has talent and can throw when thing are going well and he is playing loose ... like early last season. But once pressure builds, he tightens up completely .. fear of failure to live up to all his own hype.

He really needs to stop this swagger/over-confidence nonsense. I truly believe he needs to simply humble himself, recognize his limitations and work from there. No more of this, "watch me be great" crap or "going out with a bang" nonsense. And Spack needs to stop coddling him with all this "it" and swagger nonsense ... he should see through it better than he does. Eventually Davis will lose the players .. then the wheel will fall off on season of high expectations once again.

And yes, I was giving him benefit of doubt this whole offseason and willing to believe that maybe he just needed a full offseason to get familiar and comfortable. And yes, I realized this whole time I was drinking some koolaid with high hopes for our pass game. But with all his offseason talk about being great, I'm done being patient. Not looking for great from Davis .. just looking for pretty good with this roster being so loaded. Or we need to consider our #2 at some point.

NDSU, SDSU, UNI, ISUb, and maybe even YSU all looked as good as presseason hype/expected in their first games. Granted, that was the best front 7 we will probably see all year, but there were holes in their secondary and we waited until Q4 to show anything resembling a pass attack.

And I like our Receiver group this year. Got to get Edgar back and pair him with Grimes. Agree with other poster, it would be nice to get some taller receivers in mix ... that is bigger targets. It is a talented. albeit inexperienced group.

So from here on out, let's try this instead .. "watch me be pretty good" and not lose games for us. Better yet, no more talk about results. Try just talking about what we need to work on and stop hiding from acknowledging you need to work on your accuracy for this offense to be successful. Anything else is just telling yourself what you want to hear ... as if not acknowledging the inaccuracy (aka white elephant) makes it not true. So let's stop all the cocky talk ..... humble yourself and get back to basics and let's go for "pretty good". That wil be enough to win games with this roster. And no more talk ...

And Spack also needs to cut thru this BS .. time for a heart to heart with Davis. You get the feeling he's hoping Davis is another Roberson situation and the only way he gets another playoff run and title shot. So he is coddling him mentally. Reality is ... it is time to hit restart button mentally with him .. tough love or move on.

We've got 3 winnable games coming up (2 easy, 1 tough against NAU), plus a bye week before the MVFC opener at home against NDSU. If he doesn't start to settle down, we need to look at #2 in these 3 games and prepare for the MVFC gauntlet in 2019, and then 2020.

This roster is playoff run potential ... as I've said and have no regret, I have lost patience with all the talk. So let's figure our QB position out BEFORE the MVFC opener Oct 5 .. we've got 4 weeks to figure this out. And I don't mind step backwards in the interim.

Brady Davis QB mechanics were all over the place he was throwing using just arm the 1st half and most of the game. Throwing with not foot movment. NIU Defense map out how to stop Robinson hit gaps before he can turn up field. Proctor and the other back have quicker 1st two steps. Why was Offensive Coordinator not going with a 2 man back field even after 1st quarter either with proctor and robinison or with the younger backs ? Why travel with edgar if he was not ready to play ? Redbirds net to utilize bigger target receivers with the faster slots. I rather see two fast slots on the field. It give defense more things to comptemplate . If you travel with 8/9 receivers only use 5.... to much talent on sidelines not to utilize these kids. Winning organizations keeps fresh talent rotating. A tired #1 is not better in an important situation play when you can have a #2 coming in fresh and focus ! PS if Brady throws like this against Morehead they will have a few picks. The 15 yard out pass were weak no zip/speed and inaccurate. Put the 6'6 Baltz in he is more of a pro style QB.

 

[redbirds2000]

I’m sure this will echo some of the other thoughts in here as I haven’t read the entire thread.

All things considered, the defense looked good. Spack said it in a presser earlier that “Offense sells tickets but defense wins championships.” If that’s the case, we better be ready to see some home games with 300 people in the seats.

The offense was bad. The line couldn’t block for James. It seemed Proctor had some nice carries because of his quick first step. There was a point where James had 5 carries and 1 net yard. However, the line did seem to give Brady enough time to throw, but he was totally inaccurate. There was a drive where he bounced 3 in a row to wide open receivers. In the second half he corrected the problem by overthrowing his targets instead. He did throw a really nice dime for the score but that’s about it. I don’t blame the play calling as much as I do our guys inability to execute.

Not ready to bench Davis but another game like this would really make me want to see what we have in Jefferson. I’ve been really impressed with him so far.

Frustrating because this was a very winnable game and our guys didn’t execute. The defense was a major high point though. Loved the pass rush. Seemed like most times the NIU QB dropped back he was hurried.

I've lost patience .. too much talk, and not enough walk .. the results don't live up to his own hype. That is what bugs me most about this situation.

Fact is, you ought to connect on 70-80% of throws to open receivers under 20 yards. In the first 3 qtrs, he probably connected on maybe 30% of throws to open receivers .. 30% is what you expect when forced to throw to covered receivers to prevent picks.

Then look what happened in Q4 when he finally made some throws .. suddenly we are moving the ball. Note, first 10 drives we had 88 total net yards. On last 4 drives, excluding the 5th drive with desparation throw/pick 6, we gained 180 total net yards ... simply because he started connecting a little more often .. but still had some easy throws that were way off the mark. Oddly, some of the Q4 throws were actually very tough throws into tight spaces.

Frankly, I'm convinced it's all in his head .. too much thinking and pressure builds. He has talent and can throw when thing are going well and he is playing loose ... like early last season. But once pressure builds, he tightens up completely .. fear of failure to live up to all his own hype.

He really needs to stop this swagger/over-confidence nonsense. I truly believe he needs to simply humble himself, recognize his limitations and work from there. No more of this, "watch me be great" crap or "going out with a bang" nonsense. And Spack needs to stop coddling him with all this "it" and swagger nonsense ... he should see through it better than he does. Eventually Davis will lose the players .. then the wheel will fall off on season of high expectations once again.

And yes, I was giving him benefit of doubt this whole offseason and willing to believe that maybe he just needed a full offseason to get familiar and comfortable. And yes, I realized this whole time I was drinking some koolaid with high hopes for our pass game. But with all his offseason talk about being great, I'm done being patient. Not looking for great from Davis .. just looking for pretty good with this roster being so loaded. Or we need to consider our #2 at some point.

NDSU, SDSU, UNI, ISUb, and maybe even YSU all looked as good as presseason hype/expected in their first games. Granted, that was the best front 7 we will probably see all year, but there were holes in their secondary and we waited until Q4 to show anything resembling a pass attack.

And I like our Receiver group this year. Got to get Edgar back and pair him with Grimes. Agree with other poster, it would be nice to get some taller receivers in mix ... that is bigger targets. It is a talented. albeit inexperienced group.

So from here on out, let's try this instead .. "watch me be pretty good" and not lose games for us. Better yet, no more talk about results. Try just talking about what we need to work on and stop hiding from acknowledging you need to work on your accuracy for this offense to be successful. Anything else is just telling yourself what you want to hear ... as if not acknowledging the inaccuracy (aka white elephant) makes it not true. So let's stop all the cocky talk ..... humble yourself and get back to basics and let's go for "pretty good". That wil be enough to win games with this roster. And no more talk ...

And Spack also needs to cut thru this BS .. time for a heart to heart with Davis. You get the feeling he's hoping Davis is another Roberson situation and the only way he gets another playoff run and title shot. So he is coddling him mentally. Reality is ... it is time to hit restart button mentally with him .. tough love or move on.

We've got 3 winnable games coming up (2 easy, 1 tough against NAU), plus a bye week before the MVFC opener at home against NDSU. If he doesn't start to settle down, we need to look at #2 in these 3 games and prepare for the MVFC gauntlet in 2019, and then 2020.

This roster is playoff run potential ... as I've said and have no regret, I have lost patience with all the talk. So let's figure our QB position out BEFORE the MVFC opener Oct 5 .. we've got 4 weeks to figure this out. And I don't mind step backwards in the interim.

The "watch me be great" yapping on Twitter in the off-season makes this guy hard to pull for. You don't see NDSU's, UNI's, SDSU's QBs doing that BS. Especially when you have had ZERO college football success to back it up. Win or sit down.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[Virginia Redbird]

I’m sure this will echo some of the other thoughts in here as I haven’t read the entire thread.

All things considered, the defense looked good. Spack said it in a presser earlier that “Offense sells tickets but defense wins championships.” If that’s the case, we better be ready to see some home games with 300 people in the seats.

The offense was bad. The line couldn’t block for James. It seemed Proctor had some nice carries because of his quick first step. There was a point where James had 5 carries and 1 net yard. However, the line did seem to give Brady enough time to throw, but he was totally inaccurate. There was a drive where he bounced 3 in a row to wide open receivers. In the second half he corrected the problem by overthrowing his targets instead. He did throw a really nice dime for the score but that’s about it. I don’t blame the play calling as much as I do our guys inability to execute.

Not ready to bench Davis but another game like this would really make me want to see what we have in Jefferson. I’ve been really impressed with him so far.

Frustrating because this was a very winnable game and our guys didn’t execute. The defense was a major high point though. Loved the pass rush. Seemed like most times the NIU QB dropped back he was hurried.

I've lost patience .. too much talk, and not enough walk .. the results don't live up to his own hype. That is what bugs me most about this situation.

Fact is, you ought to connect on 70-80% of throws to open receivers under 20 yards. In the first 3 qtrs, he probably connected on maybe 30% of throws to open receivers .. 30% is what you expect when forced to throw to covered receivers to prevent picks.

Then look what happened in Q4 when he finally made some throws .. suddenly we are moving the ball. Note, first 10 drives we had 88 total net yards. On last 4 drives, excluding the 5th drive with desparation throw/pick 6, we gained 180 total net yards ... simply because he started connecting a little more often .. but still had some easy throws that were way off the mark. Oddly, some of the Q4 throws were actually very tough throws into tight spaces.

Frankly, I'm convinced it's all in his head .. too much thinking and pressure builds. He has talent and can throw when thing are going well and he is playing loose ... like early last season. But once pressure builds, he tightens up completely .. fear of failure to live up to all his own hype.

He really needs to stop this swagger/over-confidence nonsense. I truly believe he needs to simply humble himself, recognize his limitations and work from there. No more of this, "watch me be great" crap or "going out with a bang" nonsense. And Spack needs to stop coddling him with all this "it" and swagger nonsense ... he should see through it better than he does. Eventually Davis will lose the players .. then the wheel will fall off on season of high expectations once again.

And yes, I was giving him benefit of doubt this whole offseason and willing to believe that maybe he just needed a full offseason to get familiar and comfortable. And yes, I realized this whole time I was drinking some koolaid with high hopes for our pass game. But with all his offseason talk about being great, I'm done being patient. Not looking for great from Davis .. just looking for pretty good with this roster being so loaded. Or we need to consider our #2 at some point.

NDSU, SDSU, UNI, ISUb, and maybe even YSU all looked as good as presseason hype/expected in their first games. Granted, that was the best front 7 we will probably see all year, but there were holes in their secondary and we waited until Q4 to show anything resembling a pass attack.

And I like our Receiver group this year. Got to get Edgar back and pair him with Grimes. Agree with other poster, it would be nice to get some taller receivers in mix ... that is bigger targets. It is a talented. albeit inexperienced group.

So from here on out, let's try this instead .. "watch me be pretty good" and not lose games for us. Better yet, no more talk about results. Try just talking about what we need to work on and stop hiding from acknowledging you need to work on your accuracy for this offense to be successful. Anything else is just telling yourself what you want to hear ... as if not acknowledging the inaccuracy (aka white elephant) makes it not true. So let's stop all the cocky talk ..... humble yourself and get back to basics and let's go for "pretty good". That wil be enough to win games with this roster. And no more talk ...

And Spack also needs to cut thru this BS .. time for a heart to heart with Davis. You get the feeling he's hoping Davis is another Roberson situation and the only way he gets another playoff run and title shot. So he is coddling him mentally. Reality is ... it is time to hit restart button mentally with him .. tough love or move on.

We've got 3 winnable games coming up (2 easy, 1 tough against NAU), plus a bye week before the MVFC opener at home against NDSU. If he doesn't start to settle down, we need to look at #2 in these 3 games and prepare for the MVFC gauntlet in 2019, and then 2020.

This roster is playoff run potential ... as I've said and have no regret, I have lost patience with all the talk. So let's figure our QB position out BEFORE the MVFC opener Oct 5 .. we've got 4 weeks to figure this out. And I don't mind step backwards in the interim.

After some time has passed since last night I still agree...Davis has just not shown "it" that Spack keeps talking about. Not sure he ever will. I am not ready to give him the hook yet but he needs to get his act in gear and start hitting his receivers when they are open. The O-line was embarrassed in the run game last night but they gave Davis decent pass protection, especially early on. He was not pressured on many of those throws and hit the turf more than he hit his receivers. If this keeps up, and it kept up all last year, he should be benched and play one of the young guys to find somebody that can play and not just talk. After the game last night I watched a true freshman at Auburn lead a great comeback over Oregon. Don't say it can't happen with a young guy, but he has to be coached. I am not sure at this point the coaching staff is capable. Spack is a great defensive guy but if he is sold that Davis has "it" he should keep to defense and find someone who knows offense and QBs. The run game will come back I am sure but there are tough FCS defenses coming up and NIU just gave everyone the blueprint to beat ISU. Stack the box, stop the run, hope Davis goes back to pass and wait for the ball to hit the turf and get the ball back on the punt after the obligatory 3 and out. I posted before the game I thought Davis was the key. How he went was how I thought the game would go. That seemed to be the case yesterday. Such a shame when the defense played so well.