I love and respect our players. I respect our coaches and feel that they are up for the challenge. I like and respect John Hardt and the positive things I have seen him do.
Tonight, we are seeing the stark facts, as I see them, about our program:
1 - Joe Mancuso still makes mistakes that good quarterbacks don't make. Huesman said at the half that English only put seven points on the board in the first half. But English didn't throw the ball into the atmosphere twice when he could have run for the score, and then didn't throw back against his body over the middle where he couldn't see the coverage because of the defensive linemen rushing. We made enough mental mistakes on offense and defense in the first half to where it wasn't English's fault that we only put up seven points. I respectfully didn't agree with Russ on that comment.
2 - Why did Tristan Wheeler play so rarely tonight? And why did so many linebackers NOT break down and get faked out by the RBs? And what is this hands to the face crap? Twice?
3 - What were the defensive backs thinking tonight? I know that the QB had a quick release - but he and his receivers moved through us like a knife through butter. With all the coaches on our staff labeled "defensive" something or another, they better do an improved job of teaching our players on defending against the pass, especially since Elon has had the same offensive coordinator for a while.
4 - How can young men who are so academically sound make so many mental mistakes in one game? I thought I saw Charlie Brown in the press box saying, "Good grief!" It is a wonder that Huesman didn't have a stroke. Poor man.
5 - I still maintain that, when a coach leaves a school, there are many more reasons to leave than the fanbase realizes - even an educated fanbase like ours. When Rocco left, we were small and thin throughout the entire defense. He left us Lauletta - but he swung and missed at lots of good recruits in his last two years. We are still building our offensive and defensive lines and are still likely a year away from being good, especially if we leave Mancuso at quarterback. I would like to see better results. Two years ago, our defense couldn't stop squat in the first part of the season; but then we played Delaware into overtime, shut out Villanova at Villanova, and held JMU to the second fewest points in two-and-a-half years. I still believe that we will improve, and we will improve this year. But will we improve as much as we want? That remains the question.
So - that's my Two Cents. Feel free to disagree - but let's stick with our players and our coaches. Good things can still happen. Sometimes, they just don't happen when we want them to happen.
