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I'm very glad UCF won, but this game didn't really do much to ease my long-term concerns about Malzahn's offensive scheme and play calling.

For someone who is purported to be an offensive mastermind, he's really had middling offenses the last several years at Auburn and now.

My hope is that Gus recruits so well - and there's certainly early indications that he's going to be a much better recruiter than Heupel and Frost - that the sheer amount of talent he is able to bring in will overcome what I really feel is an outdated and overall lacking offensive system.

That's pretty much what Luke Fickell has done at Cincinnati. He's hardly an X's and O's guru, but he's recruited so well at Cincinnati that they are really stacked talent wise compared to their G5 peers.

glad they squeezed one out last night, learn how to grit through this stuff and hopefully it helps later.

I cant help but think they get steam rolled next weekend, especially if they're still missing a bunch of people

finish the season respectably and hopefully recruit really well

nymets1 wrote:That game vs ECU tells me we don't have a true starting QB without Dillion Gabriel, might have to manage the QB position the rest of the year until we get Thomas Castellanos next year who I think is the starter next year until Mikey Keene earns it.

Mark Anthony Richards showed last night he has to the be guy that RB if Bowser is out. I understand sprinkling in coles and richardson here and there but Richards has to get the majority of snaps. And Alabama lost so Georgia obviously will be ranked #1.

How does it make sense to say Keene needs to earn it while in the same sentence saying you'd give the starting job to a kid in HS right now? I'd say odds are probably leaning towards DG coming back next year anyway because of the injury, but if he does leave I'd say Keene has earned that starting nod so far. He's played well overall, the team's struggles aren't really because of anything he's doing or not doing.

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ECU game was obviously ugly. Defense finally showed up a bit, but the offense really struggled to get anything going. And honestly to me it was a play calling issue. I don't know if someone has insights and is willing to convince me otherwise, but even before DG went out, it seems like our 3rd down play calling has been horrendous. We're not picking them up, and when we fail to do so, i'd say 80% of them are because the QB checks down to the RB or WR that is at the LOS with no shot at getting to the line to gain.

I'm almost annoyed enough to go back and do the research and figure out the exact number, because it's so frustrating to watch us on 3rd and 6 or more have a guy hanging out at the line of scrimmage and getting dumped off to when the QB can't find anything down field. Why not send that dump off guy to the sticks and have him run a route that might pay off? Instead our QBs are either panicking or dumping it off too early and the guy has no chance at getting the 1st down.

That's honestly been my biggest frustration with Malzahn's offense so far. And it wasn't just DG (though I think his exp helped as he knew when to run while Keene doesn't), Keene is doing it even more so.

Obviously big game this weekend. Huge underdogs. We'll need everything that has gone wrong to suddenly go right on the field to have a shot against a really good Cinci. Doesn't help that Kalia Davis now out for the year (yet another leader injured).

agreed on the 3rd down calling

I knew today was gonna be horrific, could only watch the first quarter. With a new coach and all the missing guys it just had bad written all over it. I hope Cinci continues to roll and picks up where UCF left off in trying to break through this broken playoff system

Damn getting demolished....

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Optimus_Steel wrote:Damn getting demolished....

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...by the 3rd best team in the country.

This is Cincy's year. It helps us if they can make the playoffs, so I'll root for them to do just that.

We'll be good again. Too many things going well for us not to be.

Kent wrote:

Optimus_Steel wrote:Damn getting demolished....

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...by the 3rd best team in the country.

This is Cincy's year. It helps us if they can make the playoffs, so I'll root for them to do just that.

We'll be good again. Too many things going well for us not to be.

Certainly. I'm just glad that the Big 12 thing came before the 2021 team got exposed. Those conference committee people are fickle.

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dsg2003mach1 wrote:agreed on the 3rd down calling

I knew today was gonna be horrific, could only watch the first quarter. With a new coach and all the missing guys it just had bad written all over it. I hope Cinci continues to roll and picks up where UCF left off in trying to break through this broken playoff system

I didn't watch the game at all, i heard it on the radio in the car driving places and once we went down 7-0, we were done. It's hard to watch this team now, we are having a hard time and seem scared to throw the ball 10 yards or more. Since the ECU game, ECU and Cincinnati are stacking the box to stop the run cause opponents don't respect our passing game without Dillion Gabriel. If you not ready to play Memphis and throw the ball consistently vs Memphis, Memphis is going to do the same **** with stacking the box to stop our run cause they don't respect our passing game like ECU and Cincinnati doesn't.

yea it was tough to watch. I had to turn it off after we were down 35-0 and find something to take my mind off of it.

I think what we've seen is that the depth on the team was very shallow. Injuries to a few key players really rocked our season. Gus is refusing to have Keene throw the ball downfield, and you have to think there's a reason for that. I mean his YPA is under 3 I think, that's crazy. So our offensive threat was basically held together by DG. It doesn't help that we've lost a number of RBs, our WR1, and a lot of defensive starters. i think we have 10 or 11 guys that were either starters or the backups to those already injured starters, lol.

Hopefully we can turn the season around and at least finish stronger. The good news is the recruiting class seems fairly strong so far. let's hope that continues and Gus can beef it up even more, because we're going to need it once we go to the Big12.

Cinci is pretty legit though. i don't know if they've earned the #2 ranking IMO, but they're a damn good team and i'm glad they're going to get their shot if they keep it up.

I've been saying it since week one.. Gus' offense is horrible. For someone that is supposedly an offensive guru, his offense sure doesnt look that way. Even prior to the injuries we didnt look that great offensively. I feel like DG was held down by the play calling. DG never went an entire game where he threw under 200 yards until the Louisville game. That alone is telling about this offense.

OrlMagic05 wrote:I've been saying it since week one.. Gus' offense is horrible. For someone that is supposedly an offensive guru, his offense sure doesnt look that way. Even prior to the injuries we didnt look that great offensively. I feel like DG was held down by the play calling. DG never went an entire game where he threw under 200 yards until the Louisville game. That alone is telling about this offense.

I dunno. I'm not sold that his offense is horrible, yet. I mean Louisville was disappointing, sure. But the sample size with DG in this offense was three games, and we put up 30+ in all three. It's tough to say if the offense was healthy and DG was in if we wouldn't still be putting up 30+ every game. Early on I thought the play calling was frustrating at times, but that the real issues were the defense.

i have to give him a pass for this year regardless. But the play calling on 3rd down has been VERY frustrating. I'm hoping that it's really just injuries and lack of depth and experience, but we'll need to see vast improvements in year 2 for that to prove out.

Every time they go wild cat on offense makes me cringe. Ruins the flow of the offense with a predictable run.

They need 6 wins to be bowl eligible but I think they need the 7 wins to be guaranteed. Only have 6 wins and 3 of those wins are against Bethune Cookman, Connecticut and USF + beating Memphis without their starting QB, Our resume is bad. Our best wins vs Boise State and ECU, They solid starts but don't have a true good resume win.

I got the Moderna booster shot yesterday and my arm started feeling kinda sore at the game.

glad the defense showed up.

the 3rd down play calling and rotating QBs has to change. I dont think they managed a second set of downs on either of the 3 interceptions, couldn't even run the clock out.

nymets1 wrote:They need 6 wins to be bowl eligible but I think they need the 7 wins to be guaranteed. Only have 6 wins and 3 of those wins are against Bethune Cookman, Connecticut and USF + beating Memphis without their starting QB, Our resume is bad. Our best wins vs Boise State and ECU, They solid starts but don't have a true good resume win.

I got the Moderna booster shot yesterday and my arm started feeling kinda sore at the game.

Shockingly, I think salvaging 8-4 is still possible.

Temple, Tulane, UConn and USF are all pretty terrible. The Knights will be favored in all four games.

dsg2003mach1 wrote:glad the defense showed up.

the 3rd down play calling and rotating QBs has to change. I dont think they managed a second set of downs on either of the 3 interceptions, couldn't even run the clock out.

I didn't watch the whole game but I think it had more to do with how bad the Memphis QB was.....that dude was dreadful....

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Knightro wrote:

nymets1 wrote:They need 6 wins to be bowl eligible but I think they need the 7 wins to be guaranteed. Only have 6 wins and 3 of those wins are against Bethune Cookman, Connecticut and USF + beating Memphis without their starting QB, Our resume is bad. Our best wins vs Boise State and ECU, They solid starts but don't have a true good resume win.

I got the Moderna booster shot yesterday and my arm started feeling kinda sore at the game.

Shockingly, I think salvaging 8-4 is still possible.

Temple, Tulane, UConn and USF are all pretty terrible. The Knights will be favored in all four games.

We just need to get to 7 wins to secure a bowl game, We don't really accomplish anything more about going from 7 wins to 8 wins.

Knightro wrote:

nymets1 wrote:They need 6 wins to be bowl eligible but I think they need the 7 wins to be guaranteed. Only have 6 wins and 3 of those wins are against Bethune Cookman, Connecticut and USF + beating Memphis without their starting QB, Our resume is bad. Our best wins vs Boise State and ECU, They solid starts but don't have a true good resume win.

I got the Moderna booster shot yesterday and my arm started feeling kinda sore at the game.

Shockingly, I think salvaging 8-4 is still possible.

Temple, Tulane, UConn and USF are all pretty terrible. The Knights will be favored in all four games.

It's looking increasingly like DG could be back pretty soon, IMO. Wouldn't surprise me if he's back for the last 3-4 games. If he's back it changes the dynamic and makes 8-4 very possible, with 9-3 even within reach somehow. that's the homer in me though

Optimus_Steel wrote:

dsg2003mach1 wrote:glad the defense showed up.

the 3rd down play calling and rotating QBs has to change. I dont think they managed a second set of downs on either of the 3 interceptions, couldn't even run the clock out.

I didn't watch the whole game but I think it had more to do with how bad the Memphis QB was.....that dude was dreadful....

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agreed, we won't see interceptions that easy very often but they were in the backfield knocking him on his ass on a regular basis