South Dakota 10/23

[Bird Friend]

Birds gonna win, 20 - 14.

 

[Bird Friend]

Camp hit hard rolling out Q2. Concussion protocol.

Thanks. Tough break for them.

 

[redbirds2000]

I'll say it. Our last 4 games are very winnable. What if?

 

[normalbird]

Camp update: broken collarbone, likely season ending. Too bad….

 

[StLRedbird]

Not exactly a work of art, but it sure does feel good after a Redbird victory. Shame about Camp, but that's football.

 

[MadBird]

Great win, glad to see it. Maybe these guys are going to start turning it around down the stretch. Still a ways to go. They don't always look pretty, but somehow, someway . . .

 

[redbirdfan04]

Great victory!

 

[redbirdfan04]

A road win in the Valley vs a ranked team and Spack didn't play the qb I told him to play!!!

 

[Redbird222]

I saw the last 1.5 quarters. I have to admit I didn't see this coming. Can someone who watched tell us how the the first half went. The running game looked better from what I saw.

The defense has played well the last two games. Hopefully we can use this game as a catalyst to winning a few more games.

 

[Dmills]

Outstanding performance from Cole Mueller - 178 yards rushing to carry the offense. I'm a little concerned about the rest of our running backs though. Nigel and Pha'leek showed a lot of potential in the Spring and have not done much this Fall. Coach needs to keep feeding Mueller, but would like to see positive things from Nigel and Pha'leek in the coming weeks.

 

[CaliRdBrd]

Shocked

 

[Total Red]

I was worried that we wouldn't beat anybody with a winning record this season. The formula worked today. We try to win with great defense while pounding the ball until we break a long one. It doesn't always work. Sometimes we don't play very good defense and sometimes the big run never comes. I don't like the formula but I love it when it works. Someday we'll be a more balanced team. Until then we'll enjoy days like this.

I don't think Cole Mueller fully trusted his Achilles heal when I saw him in August. He's more explosive now. Nobody on the Coyote defense was gaining on him at the end of his TD run. LB'er Wilhoit could play offense. He has soft cather's mitt hands that would make a TE jealous. Jarrell Jackson is in the right place, in more ways than one. He's playing like a veteran corner.

Dmills is right. This was the toughest game left on our schedule. That means all the rest are winnable. Of course the opposite is also true. We aren't going to win the conference this year but the Redbirds proved they belong in the MVFC and they aren't to be taken lightly. Way to Battle Birds.

 

[MadBird]

I was worried that we wouldn't beat anybody with a winning record this season. The formula worked today. We try to win with great defense while pounding the ball until we break a long one. It doesn't always work. Sometimes we don't play very good defense and sometimes the big run never comes. I don't like the formula but I love it when it works. Someday we'll be a more balanced team. Until then we'll enjoy days like this.

I don't think Cole Mueller fully trusted his Achilles heal when I saw him in August. He's more explosive now. Nobody on the Coyote defense was gaining on him at the end of his TD run. LB'er Wilhoit could play offense. He has soft cather's mitt hands that would make a TE jealous. Jarrell Jackson is in the right place, in more ways than one. He's playing like a veteran corner.

Dmills is right. This was the toughest game left on our schedule. That means all the rest are winnable. Of course the opposite is also true. We aren't going to win the conference this year but the Redbirds proved they belong in the MVFC and they aren't to be taken lightly. Way to Battle Birds.

Uhhh, folks, are we forgetting we still have to take on the Black Cats from Northern Iowa? Ranked. Beat the Jackrabbits today? We had a tough game today and did ISU proud -- BUT we still have another very tough game that we will not be favored to win. It can be done, tho, I agree with that. But I'm not sure the Coyotes are tougher than the Panthers.

I kept wanting to see Waring in there, and then Jefferson would do something tough and Mueller would do something tough and I'd be fine for a while.

Zambrano started at OT over Bussone? Anything else?

Love our D, they bend some, but they can dig deep at times. Good bunch of seniors or upperclassmen or whatever we call them these days - Jackson, Zeke, Powell, Lewan, Reid (damn near another targeting call!!!)

 

[Dmills]

Uhhh, folks, are we forgetting we still have to take on the Black Cats from Northern Iowa? Ranked. Beat the Jackrabbits today? We had a tough game today and did ISU proud -- BUT we still have another very tough game that we will not be favored to win. It can be done, tho, I agree with that. But I'm not sure the Coyotes are tougher than the Panthers.

I kept wanting to see Waring in there, and then Jefferson would do something tough and Mueller would do something tough and I'd be fine for a while.

Zambrano started at OT over Bussone? Anything else?

Love our D, they bend some, but they can dig deep at times. Good bunch of seniors or upperclassmen or whatever we call them these days - Jackson, Zeke, Powell, Lewan, Reid (damn near another targeting call!!!)

Northern Iowa is definitely not to be taken lightly, but South Dakota did beat them by 13 last week. Northern Iowa is not as good this year as they have been in recent years as well and South Dakota was 5-2 entering the game having one of their best seasons in recent memory. At the end of the day, there are no off days in the MVFC, but we did just complete a brutal part of the schedule. This was a South Dakota team that had been a very strong first half team and we outplayed them before they lost Camp. The offense has a ways to go still, but they just have to do enough to grind out wins with the help of the stout defense.

 

[fourthandshort]

A road win in the Valley vs a ranked team and Spack didn't play the qb I told him to play!!!

Get over it .. he don't listen to me either.

Way to go Redbirds !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me be first to declare - we are a top 15 team for the first 2 1/2 quarters of every game. Not sure this will get us to the 'Ship ... but it's something !!

 

[Virginia Redbird]

A good win. One that was maybe unexpected. The defense played very well. The offense did not make any huge mistakes. Special teams still need work. I have not looked up the stats but it seems the Birds have had quite a few blocked kicks, punts and PATs, this season. A 20-7 win and the defense accounted for 6 of those points. One big offensive play accounted for another 6. Three turnovers by the Coyotes and none for the Birds. We were discussing in a previous post the football comes down usually to a few plays. One long run from scrimmage, one pick-six, and three turnovers by the opponent. That in essence was the summary of this game.

I looked at the South Dakota football page to see if I could find out the extent of Camp's injury. No joy there but an interesting quote from the Coyote's Coach, "That's a really good defensive football team," said Nielson. "Nobody has scored a lot of points against them and we knew it was going to be tough." "Then, when you give them an interception return for a touchdown and obviously, the big play." Concise game summary.

This is how the Redbirds win games the rest of the way. Fix the kicking game!!!!! No mistakes on offense so you don't put too much pressure on the defense.

As Coach Gaines said in Friday Night Lights:
"You gonna have to keep them out of the end zone 'cause if they score more than we do, we lose the game, 'kay?

Good win Redbirds! Let's try for two in a row.

 

[Bird Friend]

Good win, of course. Proud of the D for red zone stand . . . .

But SD was without their top QB (who ate us alive during the spring). Our offense only scored 13 points, 7 on a breakaway run. Otherwise, we are not a good offensive team. Not even pedestrian, IMO. And, frankly, the co-OC scheme keeps us very conservative. The corollary to Spack's quote - if you don't score more then the other team, you can't win the game, 'kay?

 

[TIMMY]

Finally watched the game this morning.

Defense won it. Great job.

There's this fallacy that in order to have a good passing game you have to spread things out. The more receivers you have the better chance someone will get open right? It's really a bunch of crap. We throw it sideways and take sacks. Bad. In order to throw deep, you need time to throw it and someone to get open. We have the running game to keep teams honest. Nagel can get open deep. But the QB doesn't have time to throw. 4 sacks again. Mueller can run and block so we've finally settled on the right running back. So what do we do? We spread them out and dink and dunk sideways. This team is not set up for that.

Try this. Pound the ball. Load the box on offense and the defense has to match it. Especially on early downs. So load up. Run play-action. Max protect. Put Nagel and Rutkiewitz out there in twins and let them run combo routes off of play-action.

And for crying out loud fix your blocking on specials.

Now back to the game.

 

[normalbird]

Is there some new law that prohibits throwing to tight ends?

Never thought I’d say this, but bubble screen actually worked several times

 

[cubird]

Defense scoring points and knocking Camp out wins game. Birds have not scored more than 20 in any Valley game. Do they have to continue to knock out starting QBs to win any remaining games? We will see..