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Other than the underthrown deep ball that was intercepted, Stave has looked great, as have our receivers. The coach has also put McEvoy in a position to succeed by playing to his strengths and *gasp* he's succeeding.

Defense has blown some coverages that led to some decent passing plays but has held when they needed to.

they're winning, cool

I would have loved to have seen a whole career of Stave without his coaches being Ludwig, Anderson, and Beatty. He got blamed for a bunch of stuff that was those moron's fault. It's like the freshman season with Canada didn't happen. Normally you improve from when you're a freshman. Chryst and Gilmore are mixing pass/run up more, giving Stave some options to throw to thru logical routes and decent receivers, and he's in rhythm, spreading it around the field. As opposed to when he pretty much just had to hope Abbrederis/Erickson won their head to head match-up when the defense knew he was going to throw on 3rd and medium to long.

These Miami players look like they can't wait to get tackled.

Jesus, that dude just ran out of bounds 2 yards short of a first. I have never seen a more scared football team.

Yeah Stave looked great today. I really wish we didn't schedule Alabama game 1. That was dumb. good riddance GA. I love the use of McEvoy now too.

Hey, thanks for taking the game off for **** tennis, ****.

It saddens me to think what this team could have done with a well-coached Stave and Gordon.

The impact of better coaching with Stave couldn't be much more obvious. Ogunbowale showed a nice burst. Deal was not very good, he runs with complete tunnel vision.

Miami sucked. These garbage teams need to learn that unless they're playing another piece of crap team, an up-tempo offense will only make them worse. I'm looking at you, Indiana.

The OL is still majorly struggling though. I guess you can't blame Gare for Gault or Denlinger, or Benzschawel's injury, but typically some things happen, and his lack of attention to in-state recruiting overall is preventing us from absorbing the blows better. His numbers were low and hs coaches in the area came to despise him.

Incidentally, he got blasted by Michigan today. I'm ashamed to have supported the hire initially, but proud to have turned on him quickly after he showed his true face. I don't think there is much doubt we're better off with what we're seeing now, although it's going to take a couple years for Chryst to rebuild the o-line which is usually our identity. Against top 10-15 teams opposing defenses are going to be in our backfield to stifle the run game and disrupt the pass game. Maybe even top 25'ish teams at this juncture. I just hope we can beat the Nebraskas, Minnesotas, and Iowas of the world. 2 of 3 without more than 1 loss elsewhere, and not total embarrassments in the postseason - and it'd be hard to be dissatisfied w/ this transition season.

The OL is bad almost exclusively because of the high degree of attrition at the position. Over a 3 year period, we lost 4 of our 5 best recruits. Miller would have been our starting LG this year. Gault probably RG. Keeler would have been RT and in line to be LT next year. Meador and Denlinger would have been experienced depth. Dieter, Williams, kapoi, ball, biegel, etc... Shouldn't be starting. Ball and Williams would have rounded out the 2 deep.

I think there are a lot of areas that Gary was trash as seen by a lot of his flashy moves not panning out already. I was a big defender of him but am very glad that Chryst is here.

That said:
-However much he had to do with it, thank god he brought this defensive style/mindset/Aranda in.
-The OL depth is mostly not his fault as midranger points out.

All of that said, very glad he's gone and that Chryst is in town. Stability, QB coaching, and better talent evaluation for the fit of the school/player development.

Bold prediction: Stave is holding a clipboard on Sundays next year somewhere (I made this before the game).

We'd have the young players and walk-ons to overcome enough and significantly out-match Miami of Ohio at the LOS at home if not for poor talent accumulation in the dept by Gare. A drop-off can be explained away, but to near this extent is a poor excuse.

Bernman wrote:We'd have the young players and walk-ons to overcome enough and significantly out-match Miami of Ohio at the LOS at home if not for poor talent accumulation in the dept by Gare. A drop-off can be explained away, but to near this extent is a poor excuse.

This has happened before under a different coach.

They ran for 540 yards in the B10 championship later that year. Of course, the differences are that that team had Ball/White/Gordon so I don't expect a miraculous turnaround for having a "very good" running game by season's end. That 2012 team also had DOB, Phillips, and then a young Stave at QB, so it couldn't be bailed out by this year's version of Stave.

Point is, we've kinda been here before in times where there is a lot of turnover on the OL. In this particular case, Gault had depression, we had guys quit, etc. The running game will improve when Clement returns and the OL gets a bit more seasoning - but I don't think it's GA's fault. Poor QB handling, some ballyhooed recruits never getting in uniform, and all of the admissions issues can be more of GA's poor mark on the program.

All of that said, I do have more confidence in Chryst to fix the OL/running game issues over the next few years. Just get through this year as a good defense/solid passing team.