It would be unfair to give a failing grade to a game that featured such a well-functioning offense in the first three quarters AND a surprise giant manbeard courtesy of punter Will Goggans (above) in the fourth. There were aspects of the game that were fun to watch, even though the endgame drama had been sucked out of the Superdome by the end of the Trojans' fourth possession. Jerrel Jernigan is going to get a chance to succeed in the NFL, and we hope he makes the most of it; embarrassing the Ohio defense isn't exactly difficult to do, but he was the most athletic player on the field all the same, and some of the moves he made in stride were Sunday-worthy. It's just a shame that between the television audience and the laughably sparse Superdome crowd, probably under 100,000 people actually got to watch him. Still, this game was as anti-climactic as the first two, so we must grade sternly so as to send a message to the rest of the bowls: this will not do. Grade: D-

And this is exactly why so many people say that there are way too many bowls and that many of them are a needless drain on valuable university resources. 

The thing that stuck out to me the most though was the speed disparity.  The play that really illustrated this was the third down play when we had the ball late in the first half and Boo went back to pass.  Both defensive ends BLEW by the tackles and sandwhiched him for a loss.   We punted, they scored again and it was 38 -7.  And we didn't even get to see the band march.

Just a really bad day to be a Bobcat.  Like 69, my friends who started paying a bit of attention to OU with the Pitt game, a little more with the 08 OSU game and of course with Georgetown, want to know what happened this year - first Kent then this debacle.  Thank goodness for caller id. 

Well at least now we know what the rest of the world thought of that joke last night.  Interesting take on OUr program/performance and coaching grade.  Nuff said!

That's easy. They would have beat us by 50.

Haha......cement overshoes.....I just love gallows humor.

Hard to move when the up field rush is beating the tackle off the ball and collapsing the pocket.  It is also hard to move the pocket when you only have one back in the house as well.

Grade their performance?

I'd rather go Dean Wormer on their arses...

MAC bowls never get any respect. Every year its the same thing- reporters make their list of most interesting bowls to watch and the MAC bowls are always at the bottom. However, last year's game between CMU and Troy ended up being rated the #2 bowl to watch AFTER the bowls had been played. In other words, people like the bowls when they are close, even when its between two "crappy" teams. OHIO gettting blown out by Troy is no less boring than the Suckeyes getting blown out by (insert name of SEC team here). That doesn't mean we didn't "deserve" to go and it doesn't mean we shouldn't have gone.

I said this earlier in the season- On any given day the top 5 teams in the MAC could beat anybody... or get blown out by anybody. All of us have had games this year where we're left asking "wtf just happened?". Unfortunately for us that's what happened the last 2 games of the year. That doesn't mean we can't beat Cant and couldn't be Troy. it just means that we didn't on those days.

In my opinion as soon as Troy saw that we were going to play a QB on every down that can't throw the ball they just pinned their ears back and let it rip on offense and defense. They knew they could be overly agressive on both sides of the ball because we had neutered ourselves from the get go.

Lots of blame to go around but the only constructive thing we need to look at towards next season is- WHO IS GOING TO BE OUR STARTING QB OF THE FUTURE? Troy's QB is a red shirt fresmen, Miami has 2 QBs that are a fresman and sophomore, Toledo has a strong freshman backup QB... these are all schools we can and should be competing against on the recruiting trail, absolutely no reason why we can't pull in an equally skilled QB that we can play for 3-4 years. We'll get to MACCs and bowls without one, but we won't win them until we do.

29,154 was the announced atrendance for the bowl. TROYS side was pretty full even the 2nd deck. ESPN didn't show the Troy side much, I guess since we were home side.

If Bates is the QB I would blitz every play, actually send 11 players because he couldn't pass it if his life depended on it. That's the whole point everyone is making, with him in you are conceding the game. Why do NFL teams run the Wildcat occassionally, it's because when you run it "every"single play you will eventually be running backwards.

The sack thing gets back to the Game Plan which must be given a grade of F!  If Bates is primarily a runner, why not roll the pocket, get him to the edge and give him a choice to run or throw.  To my recollections every sack was directly behind center.  I though the D-ends rushed hard and the middle guys pushed the pocket back so there was little opportunity to step up.

Bottom line is still we need bigger, faster, stronger O-linemen to compete outside the MAC!

I think we are talking about a different play. 

The play I was referring to was the only sack that #79 gave up in this game (which is one too many).  I must aplogize, I am a bit partial and watch that side of the field the entire game.  There was 20 seconds left in the half and the QB was looking for the long ball.  With the blitzing, I got my information from someone that was actually on the field and my observations watching the game.

The Bobcats not only got beat up front, they were beaten in every single facit of the game.  There is plenty of blame to go around if that is what you want to do.

I come to this board to get information and follow this team.  It is hard to read people critisize the efforts that these players put into this program.  Put yourself in their position.  Do you think they didn't want to win this game?  Do you think the didn't work their a$$ off the entire year to get into the situation of playing in a bowl game?  Do you for even one second think you could possibly feel any worse than they do about this game?  Do you even really care?  Probably not......

How many jet sweep runs (espec with Bates) did we try or fake in the last two games?  How many times did we roll the pocket out?  How many screen passes or shovel passes to running backs up the middle did we try?

Wanny--I know you'll give reasons why those tactics couldn't possibley have worked.  D'ya think it might have made sense to try some of these things instead of doing the same old stuff which was resulting in us getting clocked?

From the perspective of offense, we had no answer and let kents and Troy totally dictate and control the game.

Wouldn't it have made sense to try something other than what was proving to favor the opposition?