10-18 on third down conversion attempts…
Dom and Alec…
That might be it.
Up to late in the game when we seemed to be out of the game, our team stats were pretty bad. Those last two good drives shored up our numbers but it never felt to me that we were really in this game.
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Hondru and Javon Tracy had very good games. We should have scored about 34 pts or more if Brett had any kind of accuracy. And many of his run away and throw the ball out of bounds under pressure plays - he had 5-6 seconds to throw - he is just not seeing the field.
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Quoting my wife, “On the positive side, we can start planning our Christmas trip [as we won’t be traveling to a bowl game].” I am predicting losses to EMU, NIU, and BGSU.
I thought Hondru and McWood played well on the D end. But what is happening to Salopek and Strader? I really thought these guys would have a chance at all-America teams this year. Both seem slower than last year; Salopek is missing tackles he just wouldn’t miss last year.
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I agree about Salopeck one of my Toledo friends was saying pre game how much respect he had for him. Post game he asked if perhaps he was injured.
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I was there in person today. The defense fought their tails off but what do you do when you’re out there too much because the offense can’t sustain drives and special teams puts you in a 14-0 hole immediately. Salopek did look a little gimpy at one point coming over to the sideline though he may have been exhausted as well.
Another big difference is we’re still trying to rush with just 4 on most passing downs and the pass rush isn’t as strong. It didn’t help that Ty Wise got hurt on the 1st drive. So the rush isn’t getting home and the other QB has an extra half second or so to find receivers.
Virgil and McWood were spark plugs as well. We need the rest of the team to play with that kind of desperation. Too business-like and not enough juice early in the game
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Yet we were never really out of it. That’s the rub. We made dumb mistakes and had we not, we might have won. That’s why this lost stinks. Toledo is good. We have not played well and we were never out of it. We played better than last week and Toledo is much better than UMass. I feel many emotions right now.
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Toledo is at least 10 points better than us as a Program. Especially at UT
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I’m more positive than most around here, especially with how Coach does things. We weren’t really in this game IMO. We were on the fringe of getting back in the game. 23-13 early in the 4th, if we would’ve stopped them, then we would’ve been back in the game.
And we gifted them an opportunity to score on us with a minute left in the first half. That 3 hurt.
The officials screwed us on that drive. It looked like Johnson was interfered with on the pass to him on the drive beforehand. It didn’t impact the final result, but Toledo was allowed to play through the whistle quite a bit.
Also, whoever controlled the music in between plays was effective, making it hard to think. Again, they probably took it too far a few times, but it was the right kind of annoying for the home team. The exact opposite of whoever runs our sound system.
I pulled this on UC last year. Nice. Niiiiiice.
I think the biggest positive is that the schedule is going to get a little easier
Toledo is probably better than Northwestern but likey ND-UC-Toledo and Northwestern will be our 4 toughest games
That doesnt mean we wont lose at EMu or BG or vs NIU
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Very little room for error if we want to eke out minor bowl bid w a 6-6 record. With the way our special teams and offense is playing, I would only give us a 50/50 shot of making it.
OTOH, we have shown some flashes of being able to move the ball, and if we can get Brett to stop throwing interceptions in the red zone and getting our return guys make fair catches on kickoffs, maybe we can do it.
As has already been mentioned, our schedule gets easier now and going 6-2 from here out should be doable.
I think we beat Kent and Ball State, and possibly CMU.
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Amazing but Jerry Palm still projects us for a bowl today - Boca Raton vs UTSA.
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That is amazing!
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Yep. He has 7 MAC teams qualifying.
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I am a little happier with Coach Martins post game which was less whining about the schedule and more an acknowledgment that we arent playing well
The close first game vs Northwestern was a trick because we thought they might be decent but they are probably a 2-7 big 10 team
Hopefully we clean it up this week
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Yep, they may be sucking swamp water through a straw so far, but they are still my team. Come on guys, make progress.
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