HAPvsOA

It was nice when AU had some NIL money left over for basketball. Obviously, it sucked that Harsin wasn't catching the fish that Hugh is to use up our NIL pot. And I have no doubt that Pearl can still succeed with us trying to be a football school first again, but it was also nice to have players like Jabari, Kessler, Okoro, etc. while it lasted.

Teams watch and copy AU's strategy from last week and decide to double team Bowers so that he can only make one handed circus catches without breaking right or left, which he still does now and then. But Georgia loses 3 SEC games and misses the SEC Championship and playoff.

Ouch.

While I think Thorne has been awful, I disagree. Thorne has thrown for more yards than most AU QB's that I can remember. So we know he can be decent when he's confident. Maybe we need to shelve Robby for a bit and go all in on Thorne with a focus on getting him comfortable and confident. A&M got their QB comfortable right away with short scripted throws outside the pocket, but we didn't have a different plan when A&M sold out against the RPO, which is what seems to get Thorne comfortable. That or go 100% Robbie and try to go that direction. Either way, I wish they'd pick a direction and stick with it for more than a couple of games.

A forward pass that looks akin to something you've seen other offenses do in the 2000's. If I'm feeling greedy, perhaps a forward pass where both the QB and WR look comfortable and confident at least once.

well, the incumbents got a little more breathing room with Nix torching Deion's buffs.....well at least for a week.

My 1st thought seeing that was the less traditional 4 field goals and a safety.

24 (via 8 field goals) to 0 Georgia. I'm not picking our offense to score another point as long as we stick with this 2 QB system.

ouch

Perhaps. But I wish we'd just pick one and stick with it for a couple of games and stop all this back and forth wishy washy stuff. It seems like our entire offense is confused and not prepared to pivot if their defense is set up to stop exactly what we're running (e.g., the RPO in this game). We should have had Thorne and the receivers ready to make A&M pay for selling out against the RPO.

A&M's Havoc Rate was insane. I think that they sold out against the RPO to the point that Thorne was rattled and the passing plan couldn't get in sync bc it was supposed to be based on the RPO. We should have had some quick slants mixed with fake throw and go routes ready to try to make them pay for that, but we didn't seem to have that ready yet. We better have that ready for Georgia in case they mimic that same game plan.

While this may be true. I wish we'd pick a direction and stick with it for a couple of games instead of wishing washing back and forth.

bummer, but I don't blame him after seeing our passing attack this year.

Better on Defense and worse on Offense thus far. Here's hoping that this is the week that the RPO game starts to come to life.

Sure, but if there is 1 person that could lose a game like this with 14 more 5-stars, it's Jimbo. 😎 For some reason, I am feeling more optimistic about this game than most. But that's mostly built on hope that Jimbo cracks under pressure, AU's defense is better than expected even with the injuries, and that at some point Freeze takes off Thorne's training wheels during this game.

19-3 AU if the defense is legit as good as it's looked thus far and TAMU doesn't show. 19-17 AU if TAMU shows up.

I know the head coach at MGM, the team that beat Foley, and he was planning a scheme to try to stop Perry since mid-Summer. That's how good he thinks Perry is.

Stamford had almost a record breaking offense last year and is returning most of their starters, so I am going 45-41. Yikes! But I really hope that our pass rush and secondary are good and that I'm wrong. In that case 45-27.

TBH, I mainly just want to get through this one with a Win. I know our D looked much better at Cal, but this Stamford offense is really good and is returning a lot of starters from their best offensive season ever last year. Also their run D is their weakness, so I know we'll be tempted to run a lot to control time of possession. Based on that, I really want to see: More than 20 pass attempts by Thorne 2 or more throwing TDs A blistering pass rush and a strong pass D. I've heard so much about our new edge players and they're going to get a lot of chances this weekend.

Supposedly CHF and the Montgomery run the SAME offense or at least almost the same offense. That was one of the reasons Montgomery was going to be a "great fit" according to the press releases when he was hired. Let's revisit this topic after the Texas A&M game. If he can't get Thorne and the receivers on the same page by then it will be worth the hand wringing. @W.E.DI was surprised by our last scoring drive at Cal, so it does make me hopeful that they've been holding onto some plays for TA&M.

Just curious if there is any recent news in Shaw's recruiting? It sounds like we're in it and last I heard was that Notre Dame and Clemson were pushing hard as well.

Does this mean that we're not feeling confident about getting Shaw in this class?

Yeah, he has looked better than Hunter at Cal but they both gave one away. But either way, this is a good problem to have. Once Hunter shakes off the rust, it'll feel like we have 3 great backs that will hopefully find more space once Thorne starts making people pay with better passes down field.

Agreed, but on one play when Miller got embarrassed by their DE, he came back the next play and embarrassed that same DE, which I was glad to see. But you're right, that can't keep happening if he wants to remain the starting tackle.

Agreed. Look what he did with Malik Willis. I think he was hoping that Ashford would have a similar trajectory.