Topic: What we know after Appy

[goherd24]

Guys, sick with Covid and sick with herd football right now. The loss doesn't bother me as much, as we lost the game in the same GD way. Wasted timeouts for no reason. Take the %^&* 5 yard penalty or better yet, stop getting into late calls!

1. You can't %^&* kick field goals and run a tempo offense like this. Go for it. You can't go to the redzone 6 times and have 13 points to show for it.

2. Just a suggestion, when you need 5-10 yards, you don't ALWAYS NEED 40!!!! STOP the (bleep) low % sideline balls when we need to move the sticks.

3. Clock management - this is pathetic and needs fixed.

4. Fire our DC. Case can be made that we put them into an unwinnable position, sure. But to get gashed like that when you know a run is coming? Going into prevent when you know a field goal beats you? I think this guy is a clown and I didn't like him at FAU either. We gotta aim higher.

5. Did we miss on our HC hire? Are we just going to do this to good teams but still win this abysmal conference? Or does Huff play down to our competition? Do we win cusa now but never execute well enough to do anything that matters?

6. It's the little sisters of the poor from here on in. There is no excuse for another single loss, period. The only way this season is a success is reeling off 10 more wins and a cusa title and shitty bowl win.

5.

[herdfan129]

Disagree with 4 & 5 but agree with everything else.

Our DC is fine and will be fine once he gets his own guys in here. Huff proved to me tonight that he is in fact the guy to take us where we want to go.

This one hurts, but we have a great shot to win CUSA in Huffs first year. That's exciting.

[parshall2marshall]

Gonna drop one or more if the officials are gonna let the opponents hold all day and get the benefits of phantom TD's and PI's. Huff told the guy not to let the opponent line up over top of the center on the critical missed FG but they did nothing.

I'm not saying officiating cost us this one but the total lack of respect during and after 16 years in this sh!thole conference makes me sick.

[coalherd]

Well, these were supposedly CUSA officials tonight.  Would certainly explain to a great extent why that looked like, for much of the game, they didn't know WTF they were doing!!!

[banker]

Disagree with 4 & 5 but agree with everything else.

Our DC is fine and will be fine once he gets his own guys in here. Huff proved to me tonight that he is in fact the guy to take us where we want to go.

This one hurts, but we have a great shot to win CUSA in Huffs first year. That's exciting.

What in our DCs history gives you comfort?  We would have been better off keeping Lambert it seems to me.

[herdinphilly]

What I know is that the Herd plays entertaining football but not smart football. Huff is not a good coach yet, but I haven't written him off after two losses like some on here.

[herdfan129]

One thing I know for sure after watching that game.....we HAVE to get back on ESPN. I forgot how nice it was and how much exposure we have been missing out on. If we have to play SOME weeknight games then so be it.

[herdorbust]

Some of you crack me up. Never been more excited. You guys are just missing Doc ball.

[herd2win]

I was there and have a few thoughts.

Anyone that has confidence in our DC is grossly mistaken.  Our defense is a shell of what they were last year with some of the same guys.

We have been out scored 27-0 in the 4th quarter the last 2 games.  When it counted at the end of the first half and end of the game we played phantom defense.

Wells played great and Alli is special.

Fantastic atmosphere for a game and 28000 fans were as loud and created as good of a game excitement as 80000 in a larger stadium.  It is time to tear out the extra end zone seats and get back to a 30000 seat capacity.  25000 fans will be more electric as we feed off each other.

Huff may be a motivator and I love the offense but he is losing us games now with his inexperience.

We likely are headed for a 7-5 or 8-4 record as i dont have confidence in his decisions in close games.

[chris88]

We had a chance and that is all you can ask for.  We will be favored in every other game imo. Difference is 4 FG tries and only 2 offensive TDs.

Offense:
As I said before, have to have better route combos in redzone. Too many seams.  Need to run more crosses/rub routes and use motion at LOS.  This widens out the LB's/S and puts them at disadvantage vs speed. It also opens up the middle for seams and delayed routes (especially by TE/RB).  Tough to throw into corners with limited space unless you have big WRs. Maybe send TEs to corners more.

Defense:
Burned again by not looking for ball. First PI call should have been a pick but our DB never looked to play FB. Too grabby overall. Tough to bring pressure vs App Oline but could have been more creative at times. DL has good depth, not sure LB/DB has much at all. Think D will be better with normal amount of rest, but offense still needs to vary tempo to keep D off field imo.

ST: Much better overall. Gucci seems confident. Awesome KR

Could easily be 4-0. Should be 3-1.

We should win CUSA going away.

[herdorbust]

I was there and have a few thoughts.

Anyone that has confidence in our DC is grossly mistaken.  Our defense is a shell of what they were last year with some of the same guys.

We have been out scored 27-0 in the 4th quarter the last 2 games.  When it counted at the end of the first half and end of the game we played phantom defense.

Wells played great and Alli is special.


Fantastic atmosphere for a game and 28000 fans were as loud and created as good of a game excitement as 80000 in a larger stadium.  It is time to tear out the extra end zone seats and get back to a 30000 seat capacity.  25000 fans will be more electric as we feed off each other.

Huff may be a motivator and I love the offense but he is losing us games now with his inexperience.

We likely are headed for a 7-5 or 8-4 record as i dont have confidence in his decisions in close games.

Yes without the best players in defense from last year. Hodge and Beckett. That was the last few guys Doc recruited well. Last few years not so much. Not to mention the guys he recruited for the defensive backfield. They can?t guard a chair. And if they do it?s because they are pass interfering. Huff has got to get some talent in here that can cover. Some of you were saying blowout and even in the prediction thread some were saying we would lose 2-3 touchdowns. We went on the road against mighty powerhouse sunbelt Appy St after a short week on the road and lost by one. He is in his fourth game with someone else?s recruits that got shut out at home by Rice 20-0 last year and some are already throwing in the towel on him. I?m sure he won?t forget it once he builds this program into one of the best G5 teams.

[herd2win]

Yes without the best players in defense from last year. Hodge and Beckett. That was the last few guys Doc recruited well. Last few years not so much. Not to mention the guys he recruited for the defensive backfield. They can?t guard a chair. And if they do it?s because they are pass interfering. Huff has got to get some talent in here that can cover. Some of you were saying blowout and even in the prediction thread some were saying we would lose 2-3 touchdowns. We went on the road against mighty powerhouse sunbelt Appy St after a short week on the road and lost by one. He is in his fourth game with someone else?s recruits that got shut out at home by Rice 20-0 last year and some are already throwing in the towel on him. I?m sure he won?t forget it once he builds this program into one of the best G5 teams.

I predicted a win 35-31.  Huff has mis managed the last 2 games.  It has nothing to do with players and we had the talent that had us up a combined 28 points in the 4 quarter and lost both games.  It appears the defense is gassed at the end of the 1st half and has nothing left in the 4th quarter.  Need to have a solution for that.  Also wasted time outs last night that cost us a chance to win.

[DC01HERD]

We need to score TDs. We have left points in every game. The excitement is back. We just need to finish.

[puma]

1. You can't %^&*ing kick field goals and run a tempo offense like this. Go for it. You can't go to the redzone 6 times and have 13 points to show for it.

That's the biggest issue I see right now. One more score in each of the last 2 games is the difference between 2-2 and 4-0.

I absolutely love the up-tempo offense. But it's all predicated on scoring, otherwise you're giving the ball right back to the other team and putting the D out there yet again. Shootouts and tit-for-tat scoring come with the territory for the system Huff is running. Any defense is going to be gassed after being out there for close to 40 minutes.

[herdorbust]

At least it was exciting. And there is an answer, more talent and depth. Not doing what Dic did and start playing afraid and stale. Maybe you should go down to practice this week and give him some pointers. I honestly don?t know how he got the job over a few in this board. We could have had perfection.

[Buffalo Bop]

https://twitter.com/GrantTraylor/status/1441259125271248898?s=20

[Buffalo Bop]

https://twitter.com/GrantTraylor/status/1441259993861214208?s=20

[Buffalo Bop]

https://twitter.com/GrantTraylor/status/1441259322118266883?s=20

Marshall needs to Finish!

[Big City]

We need to score TDs. We have left points in every game. The excitement is back. We just need to finish.

This is what I was thinking. Just score more points. Have to stop throwing for 50 yards on critical 3 and 12. Use Gaines, Ali, or Keaton on some shorter high percentage throws. When it counts it gives you two down.
With the Swiss cheese d. Offense is gonna have score 48-53 points to win.

[Rockin Herd Fan]

We definitely beat ourselves more than App State beat us.  We are the better team, but like others have pointed out, if you are going to run an up tempo offense, you have to score TD's instead of FGs.  That really was the difference in the game.  I knew when we punted the ball back to them with 4 minutes to go that the game was over.  Our defense was simply gassed by the 4th quarter. 

I want to give Wells credit.  He played a really good game and unless I missed it, he didn't come close to throwing an interception.  That pass to Gaines was a thing of beauty!!!  If Ali keeps developing he will be a pro prospect by the time he leaves campus.  The oline is stout and we have a good group of receivers. 

Coach Huff is going to have to learn to strike a balance between playing fast on offense and when to take your foot off the gas in order to give your defense a rest.  There will be games where the Herd will score TD after TD and there will be no reason to let up on the tempo.  But there will be games like this one where you need to put together a long drive that eats some clock in order to give your defense a rest.  They did try to do that on one of the drives in the 2nd half, but it was too little, too late.  The defense was already gassed by then.  Coach Huff is still learning to be a head coach.  There will be some growing pains with him along the way. 

[GreenWhite]

I agree that football is more entertaining now. But, we need to find that place between what Doc did and what Huff is doing now. Heard the announcers say last night that, going into the game, Marshall was 0-15 when trailing at the half. Make that 0-16. I thought when we stopped them on the opening drive of the 2nd half, we would get some momentum. But, our defense was absolutely spent by halftime. Defense gave its all in the 3rd quarter and held them. But, they were just on the field too much last night. Could not get the pressure we needed to stop them.

There are a couple of things that concern me and it has been brought up. Trying to get big plays when they are just not there. The offense has to learn to take what the defense is giving them. Why we didn't try more of the seam routes with Gaines last night baffles me. We had the one that resulted in a touchdown. After that, it was gone. They were going to take away Gammage so we needed to get others involved to, hopefully, make them play our other receivers. The other thing was the DB's. They are not that good, at least not right now. But, like I said after the ECU game, there were bad habits learned from the previous coaching staff that Huff and the coaches will need to correct. The ECU game was the first game to expose this. If these guys are talented, it will take time for them to unlearn what was taught to them.

We are seeing a coach learn on the job. I think he was the right hire. I agree that he needs to get more of his type of players in here. Waiting to see how this plays out.

[miltonherdfan]

i'm not as down on him as some, but it is frustrating to listen to him preach about FINISH, FINISH, FINISH, that's what we're teaching these players, to FINISH...

we've been outscored 31-0 in the fourth quarter of our last two games.

we're not finishing.  we're not even showing a pulse in the 4th qtr.

[muherd34]

Growing pains...we have a long way to go and I think Huff can get us there.  I'm not sold on the DC but he is what we have at the moment.  Will say this though, my original thought on the season was 8-4/7-5, I believe we can win out or just lose 1 more game in Cusa play. We have to, Stress again....have to find a way to FINISH in the 4th quarter.  The coaches have to learn to let off the gas at certain times of the game to control the clock.  Now, if I am going to compare Huff and Doc, which is way to early, but as of right now its a draw.  With doc we would literally be in the same position, except we would have crumbled last night instead of making it a game.  We are way way more fun to watch, we just have to find a happy medium to win games in the 4th and finish when we are in the Red zone.  How awesome was it to be on ESPN?  Man, we have to be back on ESPN, that's one of the main reasons we are irrelevant in college football at the moment. The ESPN hype machine is real.

[Herdalum83]

A couple of thoughts that I want to add here..

1. I do like that he's aggressive, we use a lot of blitzes and for the first time in more than a decade our corners are playing press coverage instead of being 10 yards off the WRs all game long. The issue with this is we do not have the talent to play press coverage on WRs, our DBs are not good. So I would like to see what this DC could do with players that fit his style more, however, I will say his time at FAU doesn't inspire a ton of confidence.

2. A lot of people are making a huge deal of the tempo of the offense and how Cramsey and Co need to slow it down in situations and milk some clock. And I agree, definitely are times when we need to take our foot off the gas a little bit, however, the defense has to take some responsibility in being on the field so long. I mean at one point App State had a 3rd and 15 and we gave up a 17-yard run, not pass, RUN. You have to be able to get off the field there. There were at least four or five other instances of at least 3rd and 7 or longer where we let them convert the first down and could not get off the field.

3. Cramsey is the WORST RedZone offensive coordinator that I have ever seen. Seriously, he is awful, does not have any understanding of how to spread the defense out to open up running and passing lanes. All we do is throw outs and fades into the corner of the endzone. Unless Randy Moss walks through the door the fade route isn't a very high percentage throw. I mean what have we had 7 RedZone trips in the second half of the last two games and have gotten what 13 points of that? That's pathetic. We don't finish drives all our TDs minus a couple are on big plays.

4. 35-yard FGs in clear weather at a D1 school should be automatic. Two weeks in a row short FGs have ended up being crucial mistakes that have contributed to losses.

5. Huff identified the inability of this group to finish early on and has made it a point of emphasis since he has gotten here. However, the last two weeks that issue has flared its ugly head and gotten us beat. I want to blame this on the culture created by Doc and the type of players Doc recruited, as it takes more than a couple of months to change the culture as well as getting in some of your own players to help change the mentality. But, if this problem persists it's gonna be harder and harder to blame on Doc and "his players."

[goherd24]

Winning cusa is a floor expectation and should be for us. It should have always been. Why Doc should have been gone after 2016. Alot of weakness is covered up by mtsu, charlotte, ODU, FIU, UTSA, and the like.

Our defense and conditioning, makes me cringe. Outscored 31-0 in the last 2, 4th quarters.

Just "needing to finish" is a big problem. Right now I don't believe this team could ever win a close game. However, their shouldn't be any close games again this year