I seen signs. Mertz threw for what? 330+ and was under severe pressure. Point being if our 2 NFL line coaches can get the line under control and protect Mertz, he could be pretty good. I think the defense is better. Special teams were disappointing.
On that 4th qtr play when Mertz got hit by the Utah defender and over threw a wide open Pearsal in the endzone, I thought that was when Napier should have called time out to try to call a better play and settle the team down. Instead, Mertz gets sacked and its 4th & long, then Napier calls a time out. By that time, it was too late - turnover on downs.
How important is Kingsley Eguakun to this offensive line? The QB, WRs, and RBs are all good enough to make the plays. However, this OL is going to be a problem if they keep playing turnstile in pass blocking and not driving the DL off the ball for MJ and TE to work their magic. D is improved. If we can fix the OL, we will see an improved product over the 2022 team.
Exactly! Our problem is not our players. It never has been. There's a reason we are burning through all these head coaches. And it's not the players. Someone remind me the last time we had an Offensive Coordinator......you know...a REAL one.....
Maybe I’m more sober than some, which is my fault, but I see correctable mistakes. We gifted them 7 points in the first 10 seconds of the game due to a mistake by a true freshman safety. Our kicker misses a chip shot. That’s 10 points we spotted them. Utah sold out to stop our run. No surprise there so why betch when we take what the D is giving us. We put the ball in the air and fairly consistently moved the ball minus dumb penalties (3 drive-killing penalties by the same offensive lineman). We had 70 more yards of offense than Utah after subtracting 40+ yards in sacks. Our offensive game plan as called by CBN could have easily had 400+ yards without the drive killers (correctable). Mertz played well and I consider him equal or a slight upgrade to last year’s QB play from what I saw tonight. Our D played pretty decent for a first outing. We shot ourselves in the foot 15+ times allowing #14 returning pac 12 champs to beat us by 13 after spotting them 10. Set down the sauce and let’s talk tomorrow
I'm going to leave all the the post game analysis to you younger guys. I retired from work at 68 and now at 72 I'm retiring from getting worked up over football, especially with all of this NIL crap. I'm going to spend my time on the Paw Paw tour.
Was at game…no energy, no fire, no leadership. Appreciate infusion of new talent and staff, but without desperately needed coaching…more of the same
Huh? Early to mid 80s had some great teams. Never close to a losing season. Maybe ur thinking of the late 70s.
I only listened to the game. Seemed like the offensive line didn't show up, I mean did we get any good runs at all? Well, all the talking heads said this year would be like last year. I love Billy, but he needs to nut-up and make some hard decisions on play-calling and ramping up the energy. Couple of red bulls might be good. But even that isn't all of it. He still doesn't have a complete complement of his guys. I still think it's 2025. But there are no excuses for time management issues and stupid errors like two guys in the same jersey. I remember during the Doug Dickey years we used to look like a pro team between the thirty's. once we got in the red zone it all fell apart. A well-disciplined team should be able to execute down there. It's unfortunate we stumble where it counts the most. I hope we can dig deep and make the necessary changes. I didn't hear on the radio any long passes. I guess their D kept it all in front of them. Go Gators.
To be fair, the defense adjusted after half time and held them to like 30 total yards in the 2nd half. If not for the tipped INT off of Pearsall hands they wouldn't have even scored in the 2md half. Mertz went 31/44 for 333 yards and a score. Not terrible. The 70 yard TD on utahs 1st play of the game, twice getting a penalty on 3 and 1, the crazy penalty of having the same jersey number on a punt return gave Utah a new set of downs, the missed field goal all led to points for Utah or points off the board for us. We clean up these mistakes and this game is a different game. With all the freshman and new faces across the board we played ok after the 1st half, and still drove down the field fairly frequently. Penalties and procedural issues caused us to stall drives and were some of what we expected in the 1st game against a tough opponent on the road but those are fixable issues. I'm bummed we didn't win but we kinda beat our selves this game and I hope we can fix those issues with more live game time as a unit.
The flip side is all the points Utah left on the field. Two wide open drops before halftime that would have been 7. easy to play the we gave points away but that cuts both ways.
Easier said than done. The “known quantities” that would actually be successful here aren’t interested, for a bunch of reasons.
We have 2 OL coaches, yet the OL still sucks. Time to let one go and hire a ST coach. Mertz played decent enough but not great, average QB play is what to expect for the rest of the season.
This loss is not on the QB or the defense. We outgained them on offense and our D gave up a huge gain and a QB touchdown run but was decent. This game is on the coaching and the offensive line. We were in the red zone and just folded with dumb penalties. How do you allow two guys with the same number on the field? This Utah team was at half strength and we just played horribly. I am a BN supporter for two reasons: he inherited a terrible culture/roster and is turning it and he is our coach for at least the next two years. BUT, you cannot tolerate false starts like that in the red zone. You are either an alpha who demands success or you are a fired Gator coach. Not giving up but that S%^t cannot stand.
It will only get worse for that OL when the D has 7-8-9 man boxes and brings pressure. If we allow the opponent to dictate the game to us we will loose. At any point in the game tonight did it look like UU's D was being forced to react/adjust to what we were doing? Outside of 1 play they kept the entire game in front of their safeties.