Tough lost. Good effort. Defense looked good. Offense can move the ball but need to clean up turnovers. Be better in the red zone. New kicker looks solid, 1 bad miss but hit the laces were showing. Would like to see some more creativity in run game. Specifically would like to see some 2 back looks with bangura and Allison. Could run some triple option with those 2 in at the same time. If Harris is in for extended time he is more a runner and think would suit him more to have some more running plays.

Definitely agree that abandoning the running game was not the best idea. The coaches called though I feel enough correct plays which could have made an impact if we would have converted. CJ Harris really looked like third string sometimes tonight as did a WR or two.

Head or knee, neither are good.

First game of the season always turnovers errors dictate who wins if all other things are even.Well the game went kind of similar to what I thought not that I thought San Diego State would win but the general pattern of the game. given its first games there's always these things turnovers Etc timing isn't right can't really take it that serious. as one of your posters just said yes the games that are non-conference with G5 teams our best Just For Preparing for the season is the only thing you will get out of them if you win it's maybe some consideration if you're very good for a top 25 ranking but otherwise that's it. I don't think Ohio you or San Diego State is going to be in that category this year. no I would not waste a good talent by getting injured prior to the conference. As I mentioned the strength of this team is their pass Defenders they just incredibly deep and safeties and cornerbacks and linebackers. the defensive line is a work in progress but they'll be pretty good I think. losing your quarterback cost you the game no question about it I think you would have won otherwise but you never know. scoring 20 points a game and 300 yards is pretty much what we did all last year horrible.
I see some bright spots for both teams once they get timing and other things corrected you should make a run at the MAC Championship I would think. I don't know if we can get past Boise State and certainly not past UCLA and Oregon State but we might have a pretty decent year. We've had great defenses for years but the problem is we haven't had an outstanding quarterback since God knows when you can't win championships without that.
I wouldn't blame your backup quarterback too much he got clobbered on his first play. you guys have a very physical football team and our defense is just Savage. The Aztecs are perennially up in the top and interceptions just like they're at the bottom in passing.

I don’t like the new rules about no stopped clock after first downs. It’s shortened the game, and it will result in less scoring.

My thoughts exactly in the Rourke thread. I mean if this were Long Island I almost get it. But for Timmy to come out and say there was no concussion and no further damage done to his knee, then why in the hell did they take his helmet away on the sideline and not let him play?

There hasn’t been this much hype surrounding an Ohio football team in decades and then you don’t allow your star QB to play in one of the biggest games of the year on national tv after he said he was fine? For crying out loud, at least let him handle one series and see. This whole thing is just so bizarre. Classic Timmy. On to hoops season.

I think even more than 28 with Rourke…. Would’ve won like 38is to 20ish.

Gonna have to consider sitting Rourke until MAC games now. Total bummer.

I dont blame Albin for sitting Rourke - I said all along there is no way he should be playing, for which I was flamed by everyone.

I blame him for 1) Not having CJ ready 2) Having CJ as the back-up 3) Calling a game that I would be hesitant to call for Caleb Williams

42 passes for a guy that absolutely cannot pass, cannot read defenses and doesn't believe in his own arm IN A ONE SCORE GAME is so laughable I can't even believe it happened.

Bangura should've had 30 carries. Allison should have had 20. It's so insane we're even talking about this today.

So many opportunities to win the game even with CJ Harris at QB. Two drives stand out to me here.

Our last drive of the 1st Half...
CJ Harris Interception on the SDSU 19 yard line. Obviously a horrible decision and throw on the screen pass. The drive likely would of resulted with a FG...instead SDSU comes down and scores a TD going into halftime. Big time momentum swing.

Our first drive of the 2nd Half...
19 plays, 62 yards, 7:43 drive...resulted in Missed FG.
We nearly burned half of the quarter only to miss a 31 yard FG..yikes.

I'm not going to complain about not playing Rourke. We don't have all of the information. I'm sure the staff would have loved to have him out there but if they had reason to protect Rourke's career over trying to win the game then good for them.

I'm not going to complain about Navarro not seeing any playing time because we have no idea what the coaches saw from Harris and Navarro in camp. Obviously, all offenses look better against bad defense but the two games when Harris had to go up against some of the best G5 defenses he looked completely different than he did in his other games. Its a limited data set but...yeah...he seems to struggle.

I do have to say that having Harris throw that much doesn't seem right and I wonder if the staff is asking the same thing this morning. We did run it 32 times to only 3.2 yards per attempt. Running is what SDSU was expecting us to do.

It was 50/50 with Kurtis against a good G5 team on the other side of the country. Once he was out of the game this was going to be a tough one to pull out. We outgained them but lost the turnover battle and we only averaged 4.5 yards per play for the whole game.

Yeah, I was thinking that same thing. If we can't get two yards with Bangura or Allison then I dunno.

This game came down to one play and one play alone. We all know it now, and we knew it when it happened.

That screen pass before the half. We know now it was at least a 7 point swing, probably 10, maybe 14. But we went from "I think we got these guys" to "game over" in a flash.

Btw, I thought the whole scenario looked familiar. Thinking back to and then rewatching the scrimmage recaps, I figured out why.

Start at :55 on this scrimmage 2 video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ChHYDhyfso

I hope CJ recovers to have a great season if he ends up playing more, but this trend scares me.

What I don't want to hear about from coaches is how our playbook is the same when CJ comes in. It shouldn't be, by any stretch. He doesn't throw like KR. We need him out in space, run/pass option, but he also needs to hit a deep ball to make defenses respect it and open up the run game. And we just can't have what we saw above.