The Bobcat Nation

1) How many pass yards did Lulay have and how many rec yards did Wolf have? Box scores are extremely slow to appear on the net...

2) Speaking of Wolf, Bailey has finally figured out how to effectively use the TE and we used the no huddle for the whole game!!!!!

3) Congrats to Chaz Guinn for his amazingly bonehead play on the onside kick...allowed Travis to pad the stats on the last drive, he'll win BSC POW again for sure!

4) How many stupid plays is this team going to make on special teams? Dumb penalties, fumbles, trying to catch the ball along the sidelines on an onside kick when there's no kicking team player anywhere near you and the ball is heading straight out of bounds.

5) Well, at least we won. They had better do better next week though or it's gonna be a blowout. NAU looks like they may get their second loss today against PSU, that would help a bit.

6) Apologies in advance to the SDSU fans for the moron who flipped off your fans after the third quarter. Nice to see he got tossed from the game immediately afterward.

I have a few thoughts of my own. This game should have been a blowout. I have to hand it to SDSU for trying so hard and never giving up, but we were by faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr the better team. Why can't we just win one in a romp. They had aproximately 150 total offense going into the final quarter, and then match that total in the fourth! What a let down.

I really liked SDSU's running back (Watson?). That guy is a load. I thought their offensive and defensive fronts were pretty dang good. Wasn't very impressed with the QB, and I know where they will be spending their scholarships when they get more.....the defensive backfield. Those guys were not very good.

How many times did Domenick fumble today? No matter, in my opinion, I think that he runs harder each week and is by far the better of the backs. I think that we need to have M Milton in the game though to change things up and to keep opposing defenses off balance, but Domenick needs to be the featured back.

How long do we have to wait to hear some final numbers from today? Anyone have any ideas what our total offensive numbers were?

I know there is always something to be said for a win, but let's face the facts, if we play like we did today in the following 4 games we are going to get flat-out slaughtered(except possibly Sac St.)!!! I am especially worried about EWU, who will beat us like a red-headed stepchild if we play like that. This team needs to get their act together, or we will lose the next three. Our offensive play calling is totally uninspired and our D has mitigated impressive early game play with a propensity for late game touchdowns. SDSU shouldn't have even been in the game, let alone tied it up in the 4th quarter! Plain and simple, there is no excuse for them being able to score 24 on our vaunted D!

Call me a traitor or whatever, but I think there is a real chance that we lose 3 out of 4 to close the season unless we get our act together. We have been getting extremely lucky up to this point, but that has been against the softest part of our schedule. The 3 most difficult and important games are ahead of us, we are going to need a lot more than luck to come out ahead. I know the Griz have had their fair share of luck as well, but they played well enough to beat Eastern in their house when Eastern has been utterly destroying everyone else in the Big Sky. We need to seriously step it up in both strategy and execution if we hope to have come out of the next 4 games with our playoff chances intact.

I know Travis had a great game today, but that was a direct result of the impotence of the running situation and SDSU's sub-par DB's. We simply won't be able to depend on the pass alone to get us through the next 3 games. Let's hope and pray that these things get rectified so that we can see Travis lead us to some December victories!

GO CATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's a box score...

box score

They've got the passing stats screwed up on there (TYLER Lulay 33/51 for 41 yards) but from adding up the receving stats, looks like he had 411 yards. Wow!!!

Bigtime, if they keep making as many mistakes as they have been or have anymore terrible starts I don't think there's any doubt they'll lose at least 3 of the last 4 games.

I thought the play calling was very good against SDSU. I'm not sure what "inspired" play calls look like, but 411 yards in the air sure makes me want to praise the FB gods.

I haven't really been upset with our game plan for a few weeks now.. and the adjustments at half indeed show that Bailey knows how to work a good offense. Sometimes it looks like he is trying to force some aspects, but I think that is as more for the benefit of the younger starters than it is for his ego.

Oh, and how about that Travis? Everyone knew he was an ace in the clutch and on the scramble, but now that our recievers are getting more comfortable Travis is starting to become, dare I say, prolific. Almost 800 yards in two weeks agains two good defenses... this is what I think we were all expecting the last two years. Let's hope that it is indeed a trend and not just a spike. And lets smile and remember our friends in Missoula, and how they like to bash Travis' modest passing production. They'll get a chance to see how modest it is in a month or so.

Shoutouts:

HOW BOUT THAT RICK GATEWOOD? (CHEER!)

HOW 'BOUT THAT CATCH BY CHAZ GUINN ON THE LAST DRIVE? (WOOT! WOOT!)

HOW 'BOUT THAT BLAKE WOLF! (BIG(NELL) CHEER!)

D-LINE GETTING SACKS! DB'S CRUSHING RECIEVERS! aside from the last 2 minutes of the game

You're almost there, men, don't let up!

p.s. Have I mentioned how good we're gonna be next year? You're right! One week at a time!

GavinDonos wrote: And lets smile and remember our friends in Missoula, and how they like to bash Travis' modest passing production. They'll get a chance to see how modest it is in a month or so.

He now has more passing yards than Ochs for the season. He is 3rd in the BSC, behind Hetherington and Meyer.

Has anyone noticed that Travis is putting more touch on the ball? Even the intermediate balls that he usually throws like lasers had "touch" on them yesterday. His deep balls hit the receivers in stride and all of the passes to Wolf except one were right in stride. It may have been the separation the receivers were getting leaving more room to fit the ball in but travis looked really sharp yesterday on the longer throws.

Travis looked great yesterday. He made smart decisions, threw no interceptions for the first time since the Adams State game (I think?), and only threw one bad ball, an ugly duck over the middle that was still caught by one of our guys. His confidence is definitely back, and he clearly has grown much more confident in his receivers' ability to catch the ball. The thing most encouraging to me was his touch against SDSU on the mid-range/long balls - he threw those very nice for the first time in ages. The more I watch this kid, the more impressed I am by him. Keep up the good work, Travis. Great players always strive to improve, and he has clearly worked hard on becoming a better player every week - and the results speak for themselves.

I agree that the past 2 weeks, Big Red may have looked as good as he ever has. He is definitely gaining confidence in himself AND in his receiving corp.

That being said, however, I have to be honest that I feel the odds of this teaming winning the BSC with the schedule we have remaining are long, indeed.

Simply put, this team should have DESTROYED SDSU! The only thing standing between the Cats & a blowout win was THEIR OWN MISTAKES. Unfortunately, I don't see this fact being an anomaly; the Cats have shot themselves in the foot ALL season and we simply aren't good enough to overcome the mistakes we seem to make every week when we play AT NAU, at home vs EWU, or in Missoula...

IF this team can eliminate or reduce the turnovers & STUPID penalties, I think their talent & penchant for winning late DOES give them a chance at the 3-peat. If these mistakes continue, however, I can easily see us losing 2 and possibly 3 of our final 4.

I'm not hatin'; just hoping we find a way to stop all the self-inflicted wounds!

That is how I feel, more or less. My other post was on the assumption we play as well as we can. If we do, I think we can win out the rest of our games. But if we continue to put the ball on the ground, or get a lot of penalties, or both, then I can see us easily losing at least 2 more games this year. I feel the team most capable of beating the Cats right now is the Cats.

CelticCat wrote:I feel the team most capable of beating the Cats right now is the Cats.

Amen Celtic!

Given what I've seen of the Sky thus far, I don't see ANYONE having superior talent to our team. But I see teams like the Griz & Eastern NOT hurting themselves the way we seem to.

Limit our mistakes to a "normal" amount and I think we are the 3 time Big Sky champs.

Make mistakes like we did Saturday? Not a good prognosis...

MSU01 wrote: 4) How many stupid plays is this team going to make on special teams? Dumb penalties, fumbles, trying to catch the ball along the sidelines on an onside kick when there's no kicking team player anywhere near you and the ball is heading straight out of bounds.

Listening to Kramer on the Sports Nuts and he addressed the onside kick very specifically. He said that his theory is that we will ALWAYS try to field the onside kick. Thus he said Chaz did nothing wrong other than not hanging onto the ball. His reasoning for always fielding the ball rather than trying to let it go out of bounds was what we did to NAU last year on our onside kick. If you remember that one, NAU let it go and Joey Thomas(I believe ran up the sideline and caught it before it went out. Good point really. What do others think?

Well, it was Corey Smith who got it. Otherwise, I agree with Kramer here - a football can do crazy things, it is not worth risking it to just let it go... next time, just catch the ball!

That's right Bozone, thanks, couldn't remember for sure.

At some point it becomes a judgement call. Last year that ball thay Corey pounced on was moving pretty slow. The one SDSU just did looked like it was flying out of bounds at a pretty good clip. Who knows...

I happened to be sitting almost directly above the play in question & my gut reaction was that it HAD gone out of bounds. My vision was blocked by SDSU players on the sideline so I didn't even SEE Guinn there. As I said, my initial instinct on seeing the speed and direction of the kick was "Whew! It's going to go out of bounds..." I have to admit I sat there from that moment til the game-winning kick thinking he should have let it go out because in my mind, there was no doubt it would have.

I don't have a problem with Kramer's position but I seriously doubt he'd have chewed Guinn's arse for letting it go out, either! Coop had moved up to block the first Rabbit down, so Guinn's vision was clear; his only real mistake was simply not catching the ball. Figures; we start catching the ball on offense and then start dropping it on special teams!

My impression at the time was that the SDSU kicker kicked the way too hard and it would've gone out of bounds well before a SDSU player could have gotten there...this was backed up by the replay I saw on TV. If Kramer has taught the players to always field the ball if possible then Guinn did the right thing I suppose, but it isn't easy to cleanly field a football traveling that fast along the ground. Cook's kick against NAU was much better, and was going much more slowly...strangely it just never took the big hop most of those kicks do.

Cooper also missed his blocking assignment on the onside kick, and it was his man who recovered the football...

thoughts....Lulay was fantastic as were others in their roles...just don't think we have it all together yet as a team...we win, but that is because we are made up of super athletes who can use their athletic ability to overcome some of these bad mistakes...and we can't always blame the kids...everyone fails...but it is up to them now...and coaches... to correct their mistakes and go on to have three and four good quarters...I really feel it will come...rather have a team peak at the end, then the beginning....