The Victors

1. As many have said, there’s no way a backup DL who couldn’t sniff the field is one of our best 11 players on offense. That’s my biggest beef with this strategy.

2. I think it’s kind of easy for these “young Turk” coordinators to develop a fondness for the smell of their own farts. Beck did some experimenting with extra OL-ish players that worked out pretty well at Utah last year, against the Ds they faced. It’s not like he revolutionized the sport and D coaches are going to spend the next decade trying to figure out how to adjust. It was a little wrinkle he had some success with. It may or may not be a good fit for his offense this year.

C. If you’re consistently using 6 or 7 OL and not paving a MAC front 7 in the run game, that seems like a major sign that something is wrong.

3. The old cliche that you’re not as bad as you think after your worst performance, or as good as you think after your best performance, almost surely applies. The offense looked inconceivably bad most of the game. The ENTIRE offense, with the exception of Buchanan. It’s extraordinarily likely that they’re not nearly as good as we hoped, but also extraordinarily likely that they’re not as bad as they looked against WMU.