fourthandshort
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2017
- Messages
- 9,765
I doubt we'll see Spack's approach to special teams change. Kinda like asking a tiger to change his stripes. Seems like he's concluded that the chance taken trying to return a ball isn't worth the chance of something bad happening. Like you said, getting the data to support how smart that is - or not - is hard to come by.
Our D gave up 18.9 first downs/game last year. We played one elite team - SDSU - and gave up 25. Just looked at the box score and forgot how badly our D Line was outplayed in that game - 374 yds rushing,. 19 of their first downs were via the rush.
Last season, we just didn't have the juice to get over the hump. Close, but about 8 pts short of a complete enchilada. Our experience and depth next year will improve at most, nearly all positions. Last year we opened the conf season at home against SDSU and got exposed. The EIU loss put us behind the 8 ball - I continue to dislike that we invest the only flexible non-con game we've got every year into playing those guys Zenger didn't make many bad decisions, but...
This years home conf opener is against NDSU. I want a W against those guys so bad I can taste it.
Not arguing otherwise .. but would you ever have imagined Spack allowing an OC to run a no huddle hurry up offense as a primary offense ?
Not me. In fact, i would prefer we mix that up .. use it on and off all game, to help keep our defense more fresh. Last year in particular as we knew our defense would be a work in progress. This year, the defense should be much more ready game 1 .. so it may make more sense in 2024 than it did in 2023. But I still rather mix things up more on that front this fall.