In Reply to: Morning after thoughts posted by mh on November 24, 2024 at 10:23:07
Agree that Malloe did a solid job on D and although not coming close to our 2023 Total D ranking of #10, he came in better than expected at #46.
OTOH, our O was a disaster all season long, coming in at a dismal bottom 10% in Div 1 at #120. It was doubly disappointing in that $cum's D was a horror show the last two seasons averaging a #110 ranking, or bottom 15%! Lynn came in literally exactly where I thought he would, rising from that bottom 15% in Total D to a slightly above avg ranking at #65 in one yr. I expect them to improve even further in 2025 when he gets his own players in. Meanwhile, if Malloe could maintain his D ranking of this yr in 2025, I'd be giving him an ovation in the sense that he loses an unsettling half of his 2-deep 28-man rotation on D to graduation.
Opposition D coordinators found multiple holes in Bieniemy's O schemes, as they were generally the 'Frenchiest' of vanilla and utterly predictable. Pounding the middle of the line of scrimmage on the early downs to little success and then finding 3rd and longs wherein $cum blitzed with LB dogs and an occasional DB blitz. EB didn't exactly have a Mahomes back there to make them pay for those D overloads.
Fresnik State won't exactly be a walkover, as they became Bowl eligible last night. They're not great on the road (2-3) but UCLA will likely be down after dropping a winnable game at home in their spotlight game of every season. It's not that 4-8 would be a shocker of a season, but rather what could have been.
As so often happens, our season once again comes down to schadenfreude. It still strikes me as incredible, that TheBestLittleWhoreHou$eOnFigueroa will finish this year with their THIRD non-winning regular season in the last SEVEN years, as #5 Notre Dame (undefeated on the road and #4 in Total D) is not going to crater their season against a team that barely achieved Bowl eligibility. THREE of SEVEN fiascoes just seems like a dream to me, for the best team money could buy, both UNDER (for decades) and now OVER the table.