3 areas of the game that contributed to our loss at ECU were corrected this week against Montana and are directly related to our victory. This the kind of stuff we want to see week over week with a young team and 8 new assistants. Nice work!

APP Turnovers - vs. Montana 0 vs. ECU 3

APP Penalties - vs. Montana 5/42 yds vs. ECU 11/100 yds

OPP Return Yds - vs. Montana punt ret 1-3 yds ko ret 1-21yds vs. ECU punt ret 1-43 yds ko ret 1-90

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For what my opinion is worth - which is nothing - I think Montana is a better football team than
ECU ---

You are correct. We still need to work on giving up the big play.

I thought it was a pretty evenly matched game. They gave up 4 turnovers, we gave up 2 bigs plays. Our playcalling got a bit conservative when we got a two touchdown lead and then again on our last possession. JJ throws darts though, and we had a few dropped passes. He looks a little better running the ball this year too.

Montana ought to nickname #35 tatanka. That young man looks like a freakin buffalo running down the plains. He looked like Jerome Felton on speed.

We survived this game and I think we got some good coaching points for our young guys. We HAVE to tackle better against these power runners. You simply can't tackle a guy like Moore by grabbing him around the shoulders. We seemed to figure that out in the 2nd half, but then we were just diving at the runner's feet (giving up an 85 yard touchdown off a screen pass).

The guys are young and they hung tough and pulled out a great win today. The OL will continue to improve and that will create a better running game.

Great job against a strong opponent for this YOUNG Apps team!!!

Special teams was night and day better. Coverage, big hits, perfectly placed kickoffs, just what it should be.

I hope it stays that way, we had that same problem in 2007 in conference play, one week it'd be fixed, next week it would bite us. Gotta keep it up like last night.

Any word on Martin's injury?

HighPointApp wrote:Any word on Martin's injury?

He said both legs cramped.

Gotcha. Why are our guys cramping so much or am I missing something?

In watching Sam after he came limping off, it looked like his plant foot was the problem rather than cramping. That plant foot is crucial for kickers.

DaphneUrquhart wrote:In watching Sam after he came limping off, it looked like his plant foot was the problem rather than cramping. That plant foot is crucial for kickers.

I thought it looked like the plant leg as well. When I first noticed, watching on tv, was when he was coming off the field after fielding a high snap and getting the kick off quickly. Look like he may have tweaked his groing the way he was coming off the field, kindof straightlegged, a cramp will make you walk like that too though. It didn't seem to affect his punting or kicking though.

He was asked in the postgame show about his problems and he replied they were cramps. He said he worked with the training staff at halftime and things were better.

The biggesti improvement was special teams. We had good coverage on punts and the one kick that wasn't at touchback. I also liked that we cut down on the penalties, still need more work in this area but it was an improvement. We need to run Frazier in 3rd or 4th in short if we are going between the tackles, Miller is just too small for that role. We played well and beat a good team, or at least what appears to be a good team at this point in the season. Hopefully we continue to improve and we make another championship run, this time to Frisco.

WVAPPeer wrote:For what my opinion is worth - which is nothing - I think Montana is a better football team than
ECU ---

I agree, thinking the same thing here.

It's not so much of an improvement from week 1 to 2, but more from season to season - our defensive backs are TURNING AROUND and playing the ball! I have very little doubt that the final Montana pass of the game would have been pass interference during the last 2-3 seasons. Our DBs have the athletic ability to cover most receivers in our league 1 on 1, and will be dangerous if they continue to attack the ball.

I'm going to drive around Boone tomorrow and buy up every ChiaPet I can find to give to the S & C staff until my order of Chia seeds arrives