The Good, The Bad and The Ugly- Stink

[t4pizza]

The annual renewal of one of our greatest rivalries kicked of from the Rock last night on national tv. Sadly, the home team didn't seem to realize that there was a football game being played until midway through the third quarter. The level of play from that point forward was commendable but it could not make up for the poor start and once again our 4th quarter comeback ran out of time. App fell to the Stink 25-23.

The Good-

The Fans- The rock was mostly packed last night with 31,876 fans in attendance. Although many left after the poor first half, those that remained cheered and made a lot of noise that could easily be heard on the tv broadcast. We have the best fans and attendance in the Sun Belt and it shows when we pack the rock for a 4-4 team on a Thursday night.

Barnes- this kid had a career day and probably made himself 6 figures or more on the NIL market next year. He was our only consistent bright spot with 13 receptions for 160 yards and a touchdown. He did also have a costly drop, but I have to find something good.

Lewis- our true freshman running back continues to play hard. He led all rushers with 50 yards on only 6 attempts with a TD of 27 yards included in those numbers. We didn't use him much, but he answered the call when we did.

Red Zone Defense- we are truly a bend but don't break as the Stink ran up and down the field on us for 494 yards but only scored 2 touchdowns, only one was within the red zone. On all other drives into the red zone the defense stiffened and held the Stink to a field goal. This kept us in the game and gave us a chance to comeback.

The Bad-

Uninspired play- It is hard to fathom that any team, let alone our team, can come off a bye week so completely unprepared to play a game against an arch rival in a night game that is being nationally televised. To say the team lacked juice in the first half is an understatement. There was seemingly zero fight in our team. Stink scored on a 3 play drive to start the game, and made it look easy. We did finally wake up mid way through the third quarter but it was too little too late by that time.

2nd home loss- We have been spoiled with our teams performance at the Rock as we rarely lose. Since joining FBS in 2014, we have only had 2 previous seasons where we lost more than 1 game at home. In 2014 we lost to South Alabama and Liberty at home, and in 2022 we lost to UNC and JMU. In every other year we have only lost one game, or less, at the Rock. Now we just lost our second game of the season and neither of those 2 losses has been to a good team. As I stated earlier, we have the best fans and attendance but that might not last if we continue to lose at the Rock.

The Ugly-

Lack of improvement- We have now played 9 games and sadly to my eye, we have not improved. All the negative issues surrounding our team after the first 3 games still remain. We play sloppy, undisciplined, uninspired, inconsistent football. We continue to drop balls that should be caught, stalling drives and preventing us from scoring. We continue to have more penalty yardage then our opponents, last night it was 6 for 65 yards. And we continue to turn the ball over. AJ threw yet another interception within the 5 yard line and fumbled 2 balls that he was fortunate enough to recover. And we continue to play inconsistent as there are parts of every game where our team actually shows that it can play and compete and win. We just don't play that way long enough to actually win in most of the games so far. I didn't know what the season would hold, I just was hoping to see improvement as the year progressed. This has not happened and it needs to be addressed.

Rushing game- the Stink came into the game dead last in the league in rushing defense while we entered with the leagues leading rusher. Despite that seeming disparity, we rushed for a grand total of 77 yards on the night, 27 of those coming on Lewis' 27 yard td run. So without that play, we had a 50 yards on 22 attempts. That is putrid against any team but downright unacceptable against the leagues worst team in rushing defense. I know our OL is thin and banged up but our staff needs to find ways to get more than 77 yards on the night. I don't recall many, if any, attempts at sweeps or other outside runs where our guys can get the edge, it is almost exclusively between the tackles and that isn't working.

[9Steelman]

Perfect weather, excellent halftime show, good crowd for Thursday, TV timeouts were extreme too many too long 3 hour FB game turn into almost 4 hour game, In game music need more balance old folks vs young.

[BambooRdApp]

Good. Swann threw for 348 I believe
Bad - Swann threw int at most inopportune time and did not need to make the throw
Ugly- first half O and D

[asu2000]

Here we go with another survey - are we going to get surveys after every game? Can they not get anything right.
At this point dump the damn DJ's, no originality, at times they have bad timing and not "reading the room" / reading the stadium" For the next two home games save a few bucks and only have the App Band Play - lets strip this thing down to the basics, its a rebuilding year for the football team - lets rebuild the "Game Experience" as well.

31,876 - I am glad we report those numbers and get close those numbers - but that is not a "butts in seats" number last night - the university was dumping tickets left and right locally, as they should for this game. I understand why we report high numbers and such...but

At this point the "NFL" connection seems to have run its course - that is great to try and recruit, but NFL everything doesn't translate at our level - maybe it works in the SEC and Top 10 programs, but dial it back and realize that this ain't the NFL all the time. DLO needs an offensive in game true assistant if he is going to keep calling plays, he can't control all game flow and have offensive plays running in his mind the whole game.

[WASU 93]

Good. Swann threw for 348 I believe
Bad - Swann threw int at most inopportune time and did not need to make the throw
Ugly- first half O and D

Swann threw for 348 because his wide receivers bailed him out. Over half of Barnes catches were either acrobatic or slide jobs.
He underthew two TD passes. (One to Barnes and the INT) and he threw back to back INT’s (GaSo just whiffed on the first).
Most of his completions were off Target that the WR’s had to go get and he threw critical passes short of the sticks.

Not a Good performance

Good: Barnes
Dubinion’s moves when there was no home to run through
The defense in the Red Zone
Bad: The homegirls offensive performance from Q2 of Coastal to Q4 of GaSo
Ugly: Wasted a great home atmosphere on a Thursday night in Boone for the Second Straight Season

[BambooRdApp]

Good. Swann threw for 348 I believe
Bad - Swann threw int at most inopportune time and did not need to make the throw
Ugly- first half O and D

Swann threw for 348 because his wide receivers bailed him out. Over half of Barnes catches were either acrobatic or slide jobs.
He underthew two TD passes. (One to Barnes and the INT) and he threw back to back INT’s (GaSo just whiffed on the first).
Most of his completions were off Target that the WR’s had to go get and he threw critical passes short of the sticks.

Not a Good performance

Good: Barnes
Dubinion’s moves when there was no home to run through
The defense in the Red Zone
Bad: The homegirls offensive performance from Q2 of Coastal to Q4 of GaSo
Ugly: Wasted a great home atmosphere on a Thursday night in Boone for the Second Straight Season

Your opinion. I have mine...
7 good. He averaged 3.3 yards a carry... Maybe you mean 22. He averaged 8.8

[WASU 93]

Good. Swann threw for 348 I believe
Bad - Swann threw int at most inopportune time and did not need to make the throw
Ugly- first half O and D

Swann threw for 348 because his wide receivers bailed him out. Over half of Barnes catches were either acrobatic or slide jobs.
He underthew two TD passes. (One to Barnes and the INT) and he threw back to back INT’s (GaSo just whiffed on the first).
Most of his completions were off Target that the WR’s had to go get and he threw critical passes short of the sticks.

Not a Good performance

Good: Barnes
Dubinion’s moves when there was no home to run through
The defense in the Red Zone
Bad: The homegirls offensive performance from Q2 of Coastal to Q4 of GaSo
Ugly: Wasted a great home atmosphere on a Thursday night in Boone for the Second Straight Season

Your opinion. I have mine...
7 good. He averaged 3.3 yards a carry... Maybe you mean 22. He averaged 8.8

No, 7 was good. He should have averaged 0.0 and turned it into positive yardage.

Swann is easily our weakest starting QB in the FBS era. He is very inaccurate.

[Stonewall]

He makes bad decisions and he is not a threat in the run game. When he is hot he can sling it but he can’t maintain it. Kohl is similar. My opinion anyway.

[Saint3333]

I don’t think our 2026 QB is on the roster, just a hunch.