Leaderboard

You didn't make a mistake. You were correct that the conversation was primarily regarding fans analyzing stats and trends. Most fans don't have access to advanced stats like coaches do, and most wouldn't know how to make use of them even if they had them. For fans, readily available stats can be fun to follow but only give a small part of the total picture. They need to be taken in proper perspective.

At the end of the day (or game) ..... The only stat that matters is the score. ........ When you win, people could give a rats a$$ about the "trends" .... When you lose or are used to losing, people will look to stats and trends to try to justify losing No offense to anyone, just my worthless opinion ?

Thought from the EMU game: Have had trouble consistently connecting on the long ball since Howard. Seems to be a combination of Pohl and receivers. Glad they used EMU as an opportunity to work on it. We will need it at some point. I think the EMU secondary handled our receivers fairly well. I think teams are dialing in on our receivers and this is why the run has been open. Pohl said after Marshall he might have run the ball too much and needed to wait in the pocket more. Now, he seems to be waiting in the pocket too long. That being said, he had a long time in the pocket on Saturday and not as much of a need to run.It seems like the receivers have found their hands, again. After Howard, it looked like the drops of last season were behind us but they came back with a vengeance during PSU, Pitt, and Marshall. Good to see some solid catches. Smith and D'Orazio had good games, but no one strikes me as a big play threat yet. MTB has the potential but needs to be more consistent and more convincing.Chisholm looks good in the open field and ran the ball about as well as Hundley on Saturday (statistically.) Get him the ball off of a bubble screen or HB pass and he is dangerous.Glad to see Bowden working Woodson in with some reps. He needs meaningful experience if Pohl were to go down with an injury. Don't want to chuck the MAC championship or a bowl game down the tubes because the kid was not ready. His drives have come at meaningful points in the last 2 games and he has protected the ball, He is very athletic and will continue to improve.Defense looked surprisingly disoriented to start off the game on Saturday. Not sure what was going on but Chuck the Chest made the needed adjustments. A number of defensive players having outstanding years: March, Brown, Ford, Grice, Pittman, and Givens are among them.The offense is fairly well balanced. With the spread, the pass will always see more plays, but the run looked fairly decent on Saturday.Zach Paul is a beast. Great punting and a very athletic tackle on the fair catch return. (What was the story with that, anyway?) The wind was brutal. Robert Stein does look good, so far this year. Hopefully, we have our kicking issues behind us.Glad to see the future of the Zips in Q4 but what was EMU doing leaving Rob Bolden in during the entire quarter?OL penalties were unacceptable for this point in the season, especially from our vets.Did you see that there were a lot of empty seats at MSU this week and that the AD tweeted about how embarrassing it was? It is hard to be surprised that people didn't show up for a bitter cold, wet game on Saturday. The crowd that was present seemed loud and engaged, however. Rome wasn't built in a day. The university and team are doing their parts to fill the seats. Next week they are honoring the military so maybe we will see a bunch more free tickets given away. They make more money giving away tickets (concessions and parking) than they do letting them sit empty.

Before I think too much about the Miami game I wanted to summarize a few thoughts from the EMU game first: Pohl knows he needs to get out the blocks quicker, but I give him, and the rest of the offense, a lot of credit for getting it together in the 2nd half. It’s a true luxury to be able to have much of the team playing uninspired ball for large portions of the 1st half and STILL wind up with a convincing victory. EMU was is a perfect spot on the schedule in that regard. Now there can be no more “hangovers” – every remaining opponent CAN beat the Zips if UA doesn’t start and finish strong. I almost hate to mention it, but Stein has been a solid kicker (zero misses?) since taking over in the Penn St game. IW56 was hurt a little in the Pitt game and didn’t take his LT spot until the 2nd half. Perhaps this helped with the improved run blocking after HT? The low trajectory, near rugby style punting was giving Imani Davis all kinds of trouble. If the Zips face this strategy again, I hope they consider using an up-back to protect against it. The continued large number of penalties is increasingly concerning. Jatavis is making a serious run at MAC defensive POTY. Capi has been playing extremely well of late. His disruptiveness will be key down the road, beginning this week with MU. Whoever placed any money on that game must have been going crazy during the 4th quarter.