Bulls-eye View of the Game

[Captain Kangaroo]

Random thoughts, as per usual:

* Stayed at the Marriott, which was 1 mile from Campus...maybe less. Kid loved the pool.

* Ate at Duff's, as recommended by a Buffalo visitor to our board. Great little wings-n-beer place. Highly recommended if you go check out the Zips hoops team when they travel to Buffalo this season.

* Tailgated in a lot on campus. Several groups of Zips fans braved the cold to have some beers around the grill.

* Buffalo campus is VERY nice. Beautiful dorms...small lakes...all very new.

* Buffalo stadium is nice. The track surrounding the field is a drawback. It was 15% full. It was equivalent to the MTSU stadium. Both decent little 30K venues, but a bit sterile. I would hope that when we build ours it has a little more "charm."

* Buffalo offense came out pumped up and pushed us down the field. Their first possession was a wake up call. Our D never really let up again the remainder of the game.

* The Zips offensive malaise that began before the 1st half of the CMU game continued into the early 3rd quarter of this game. Getsy was awful in the first half, locking on to one receiver...rolling out the wrong way...accuracy was terrible. The offensive line was terrible. Getsy often ran for his life. Biggs never had any sort of holes to work with.

* Buffalo's defense is not bad. I was shocked to see their increase in physical size and quickness from last season. Yes, our OL, and offense in general, executed poorly in half #1, but give the Bulls credit. They have a decent defense.

* Buffalo has no playmakers on offense. If they had Ontario Sneed, we would have been in trouble (moreso than we were). Their QB is nothing special, and their WR's and RB's didn't distinguish themselves either.

* Our offense in the second half seemed to wake up. Getsy's passes started hitting guys in the numbers instead of sailing over their heads. The offensive line began creating at least a little room for our RB's. As per our redzone performance all season however, we consistently shot ourselves in the foot and blew opportunities to blow the game open.

* Swiger's UCONN foot made a guest appearance. That was scary. His 39 yard attempt, with a very strong wind at his back, barely made the crossbar (a miss to the side).

* I have no idea what JD was thinking when he eshewed the FG on 4th and 2 from around the 20, when we were down 7-0. Maybe he knew Swiger was off? I doubt it. We should have taken the points.

* I will continue to say we need a bruiser fullback.

* A win is a win. Buffalo won't go O-fer this season. Their defense will give some MAC teams trouble. Take the win and run, Zips fans.

* If we play like we did at game's end, we will compete with Miami quite well. But we need to play 4 solid quarters of football to do so. So far this season, we haven't been able to do play 4 solid quarters of football. Our O will need to keep our D off the field. Can they?

In other notes of interest:

Iowa pounded Purdue.

CMU beat Army 14-10

[RACER]

c/k what was the two back to back personal fouls about? of couse the radio guys didn't

tell us much. our offense is bad enough we do not need to hep the other team with stuipd penalites.

[GP1]

c/k what was the two back to back personal fouls about? of couse the radio guys didn't

tell us much. our offense is bad enough we do not need to hep the other team with stuipd penalites.

It was about us getting screwed by the referees. I hate when people blame games or problems on bad calls, but it was just silly yesterday. At the same time though, they players can't put themselves in a bad position in a close game.

[Captain Kangaroo]

c/k what was the two back to back personal fouls about? of couse the radio guys didn't

tell us much. our offense is bad enough we do not need to hep the other team with stuipd penalites.

It was about us getting screwed by the referees. I hate when people blame games or problems on bad calls, but it was just silly yesterday. At the same time though, they players can't put themselves in a bad position in a close game.

That's a fair assessment. I still don't know what the first one was all about...everyone in the stands was puzzled too. The helmet-to-helmet hit by Rohr on their QB was a legit call. It wasn't malicious, but the ref is going to call that one evey time. Luckily, it didn't matter.

[Captain Kangaroo]

A few more, brief notes about the game:

* Sullivan nailed a HUGE punt with 2 minutes to go to help seal the win. It was a 40+ yarder into a very stiff wind.

* The punt should never have happened. Getsy had the first down by at least a 1/2 yard on the previous play. Nice home spot for the Bulls.

* Brion Stokes and Jermaine Reid continue to be terrors. They both seemed to get stronger as the game wore on.

* Jabari had his best game in a while. He seemed to get his confidence back. Made a couple nice grabs, and was ready to run once he caught the ball.

* When the instant replay gave the ball back to the Bulls with 2 minutes remaining (punt return fumbled) you should have seen our D come back onto the field. They were whooping it up...they wanted to be out there to ice the game! It is scary how good these guys will be in 2006.

* I didn't see refigerator Perry anywhere. All that way, and no 'fridge! I want my money back!