+1

gonna be really difficult getting any lipstick to adhere to this pig. i'm about ready to join monroe. that's how bad today was. how do you not find someone to make a play at some point.

we had no real answers today and i'm truly afraid we won't have any answers all season.

add me to the list of it's time for frank to retire. he can take his entire staff with him.

let's find some 30-something assistant and give him a chance.

wow, i'm not sure we get more than two wins now. in fact, we might not get two.

So...was this officially longest Ohio game ever (kickoff to final)?

I guess I can't feel the hate on offense like others...they put up 38 points in regulation and another 16 in 3OT. Even after Sprague leaving QB position and losing AJ in first series, they still managed 54 total points, which you'd think would be enough. Our defense though.....they used be a bend but don't break D, but they broke a lot. And that 2OT unsportsmanlike.....gees.

This program is broken. I still feel like Solid does the best job he can do. But it's clearly not good enough. The complacency is particularly obvious. I feel like everyone on the staff is too comfortable an satisfied. So there's really nobody pushing these guys to truly be the best they can be.

It's all on the coaches. I still like our players - our D-Line should be great. We've got solid RBs with potential. And so on.

The marriage is stale. Hopefully this awful loss is a wakeup call and not the end. I think it could be. In a way, I'm glad we lost yesterday.

I decided to wait until after the looongest day to post a few thoughts from the game yesterday.

1. Windham has the strongest arm we've had in a while. It was nice to see our receivers not have to adjust back to the ball on the deep routes. Accuracy...not so much. Although his numbers were good, our receivers had to work too hard, make too many adjustments to make catches on the short and intermediate routes. Certainly cost us yards after catch in several situations.

2. Way too many bad snaps. I thought Windham did an outstanding job of frequently digging the ball off the turf, and it's surprising (and sad) that it didn't catch up to us until the last play of the game.

3. If the injury to AJ is significant, and my gut tells me it may be, one of our backs will need to step up and be the man...and I think it's Dorian Brown. Even though their numbers were essentially equal, Brown's running style is much stronger than Iron's. He gets his pads low to the ground and knocks defenders back when there's not much of a hole. Irons is upright and was stuffed on several critical occasions (e.g. 3rd and 1, 4th and 1, turnover on downs...). Maleek certainly made some good plays, but I'd rather see Brown in on tough short yardage situations.

4. Our young secondary was taken to the woodshed by a quarterback who was much more accurate than ours.

5. Papi is an incredible athlete...but please catch that first pass...I'm sure he's seeing that ball drop through his hands in his nightmares. He redeemed himself with 38 seconds to go, but our defense let him down terribly.

6. We lost the game in the first half. We let an inferior team hang around and gave them hope...always a bad idea...even though all the drama was in the second half.

7. Lack of discipline. Especially the Blair Brown personal foul. Embarrassing to the team and the institution. Taken in isolation, you could say "stuff happens", but for Ohio, it happens way too often in critical situations

8. On the students leaving after halftime: We have always struggled with that in Athens. However, yesterday was an endurance test on multiple fronts. Putrid first half football combined with scorching temps on the student side. Even though I have season tickets, I sit with my Bobcats on the student side (and we stuck it out). It was very hot. But what was worse, is that the water fountain on that side has been inoperable since last year. Inexcusable and dangerous. The Romans figured out how to deliver water, so I'm guessing that the administration is either being lazy or greedy (trying to sell $3 water to a bunch of broke students). So, I don't really want to hear a bunch of Tower Club-sitting, cold beer-sipping posters complain about students leaving yesterday.

OK - here goes. This is far from scientific and probably not complete. But here's what I remember (not so fondly...), and aided by some quick interwebs research:

2011 MACC vs. NIU - Hasting ejected in 3rd qtr for throwing a punch - NIU 23, Ohio 20 - Nationally televised

2014 NIU at Ohio (Freezer Bowl) - Brown ejected for targeting - NIU 21, Ohio 14 - Nationally televised

2015 WMU at Ohio - Wells ejected for targeting - WMU scored first touchdown against depleted defense...avalanche begins thereafter - WMU 49, Ohio 14

2015 Ohio at Minnesota - Final Minnesota drive, no personal fouls on that drive, but two offsides penalties, and a pass interference gave Minnesota critical yardage. Followed by the Ohio delay of game penalty that will live in infamy (off topic, but hard to let go).

After years of stagnating at seven-ish mediocre wins a year, this program has taken a big step back. Maybe that's a good thing because the mediocrity will end. Of course, it's only a good thing if it is not going to lead to a Miami-style dark decade or an EMU-style black hole. I don't see much reason to have any kind of hope for this year.

The student exodus was the biggest I've ever seen, but who could blame them? That was one of the slowest and most disappointing halves I can remember, and I was at the infamous Utah State game during my undergrad years. From my roost on the Tower side, I could see golfers on the seventh green, and I envied every group I spotted. Sitting through that game was like stubbornly eating a bad meal just because I had paid for it. Incidentally, for those whining about students leaving, there were large swaths of empty seats in the Tower Club, so I don't think I was alone in my disgust. I heard (and thought) "gonna be a long season" about three dozen times.

Zervos just announced as special teams MAC East POW.

[/QUOTE]Thank you. Sums everything up nicely. #7 Lack of discipline, the personal foul, "Embarrassing" was it the Minnesota game last year?
[/QUOTE]Seems like almost every game. And when are we going to get a clue on kick returns? First play of the game, Brown fields the the kick deep in the corner and starts the offense off in a hole. If he lets the ball bounce, it either goes in the endzone and we get it at the 25 or it goes out of bounds and we get it at the 35. If this was an isolated brain fart, maybe I could live with it, but it happens again and again and again and again...........

+1
I'm looking forward to the Kansas game.

Totally amazing that our QB - starting his first game ever - has statistically one of the best games for us since god knows when, and no one can find anything nice to say about him.

Yup! Who would have ever thought we'd be on the same page? :)

Here's how I'm feeling these days...just enjoy the team, enjoy the game and have some fun. Solich will probably not win a MACC here at Ohio, and that's just how it is. It would have been nice if he could have taken the program one step further, but it did't happen.

There are some good young athletes on the team...lets see if they can come together and have a nice season.

Because the offense does one of two things: it moves the ball in a hurry, or it gives the ball back to the defense in a hurry.

What do you not want to do as a favorite against a major underdog? Let the dog hang around! Look at the black hole that was our offense in the 2nd quarter:

-7 plays, 30 yards, missed FG
-3 plays, 2 yards, punt
-3 plays, 5 yards, punt
-4 plays, 23 yards, punt

Windham was 5 of 12 during that quarter, with 33 yards passing and 11 yards rushing during the 2nd quarter. His completions were for 15 yards, 4 yards, 0 yards, 0 yards, and 14 yards. After the missed FG, Ohio never moved the ball beyond its own 27.

Meanwhile, Texas State managed 2 TD drives in the second quarter and took a 14-6 lead into half. If you are a 21 point underdog, and you go into half with more than a TD lead, you are doing something very right and the opponent is doing something very wrong.

But there's no problem with the offense because our QB threw for 380 yards in 4 quarters and 3OT.

(Officially, I don't think Windham did horribly. He missed some throws early but settled in OK. I think he could have done even better though if we'd let him throw deep more, especially in the 2nd half, as that would also make the defense play more honest. I don't know how many times I caught the safeties cheating up hard because they knew our offense wasn't going to go deep over the middle. It's slip screens and dump offs galore!)