I’m not being pessimistic, just trying to be objective and realistic.
I left the game yesterday quite discouraged about our performance. The mental mistakes we saw would be frustrating in game 1 or 2, but by game 10 they are just simply unacceptable. I genuinely don’t care about the score; I care about the way the team performs, and this is what i saw:
- An o-line that was repeatedly flagged for pre-snap penalties, holding, and other mental mistakes.
- An o-line that gave up 3 sacks to an FCS school.
- A BYU QB who struggled to find open receivers and failed to find a groove.
- A defense that allowed an FCS RB to amass 130 yards rushing.
- A defense that failed to get pressure on an FCS offense (0 sacks).
Critics of my post will say that I’m expecting too much, being unrealistic. I genuinely don’t think so. What I hoped to see was a clean, crisp team win against an overmatched opponent. What I saw was a sloppy, unfocused team win against an overmatched opponent.
We won because we were athletically superior at every position - something we can rarely expect against our schedule (even some of the bad teams like USF).
So back to the SDSU game....
Bottom line: I don’t think our offense is consistent enough to score 20+ points against SDSU’s stout defense (best D we’ve played since UW). And I don’t think our defense is good enough to limit most poor offenses, like SDAU’s, to less than 20 points. Throw in a few other factors... road game... last game in a vacation city with a bowl game secured... and I just don’t feel good about this game. I simply don’t think we are mentally focused enough to get this win. Hope I’m wrong and will happily eat crow. SDSU 24, BYU 16