HALLOWEEN OCTOBER 31

May all the readers have a safe and wonderful Halloween; don’t eat too much candy. 

It has been a while since we ran through the Rumor Mill and checked on the underground gossip. These tidbits are all rumors, but I have heard them from various sources.

Dan Mullin and Oregon’s Willie Taggart are the top two choices for the Florida job.  Mullin was OC at Florida once upon a time, and Taggart has tons of recruiting connections in Florida. Willie is not expected to apply after only one year at Oregon.

One of the hottest young coaches in the country is Scott Frost at UCF. He is a Nebraska Cornhusker ex-quarterback so you know his name is in the mix at Nebraska. He is also being mentioned at UCLA, but he would not have to move far to Gainesville.

Tenneesee has already started discussing an exit plan with Butch Jones. Butch has had five years, and I don’t think he can survive the arrest as well his SEC record. Tennessee has made three questionable hires since the dismissal of Hall of Fame coach Phil Fulmer. They have ties to Detroit Lions OC Jim Bob Cooter, as well as Chip Kelly, Bobby Patrino, and Dan Mullen.

I am going out on a limb here, but I think Kevin Sumlin has been unfairly treated at Texas A&M in regards to the constant rumors of his demise. Sumlin is in high demand, so he needs to take his buyout and get out of town. I believe enough boosters want Chad Morris of SMU to make this happen. Chip Kelly is going to be wanted by everybody, so he can name his school.

As I have mentioned, the December signing period will come into play in some of these hiring and firings. There are five big names sitting right now who could be on the recruiting trail by Thanksgiving if given the opportunity. All of the above mentioned names who are head coaches currently are not going to leave with their rival games coming up Thanksgiving weekend.

The guys I have in mind that are not coaching are Chip Kelly, Bob Stoops, Jon Gruden, Lester Myles, and Mac Brown. Stoops is done, in my opinion. Gruden loves what he is doing, and the other two will have to take lower Power Five jobs. Kelly is by far the most in demand. Tennessee would love Gruden, but he has been out too long in my opinion.

I think Myles and Brown will have to wait till after the smoke clears and see who moves up. In other words, Mississippi State, Virginia Tech, SMU, and Memphis could all open up. I can see Myles at Memphis and Brown at SMU.

Mike Gundy of Okie State and Justin Fuentes of Virginia Tech are going to get a ton of calls. I would not rule out Gundy to Texas A&M if the price is right. Boone Pickens, the stash bag at OSU, gives Gundy hell and he is about tired of it. Fuentes has only been at Virginia Tech a short time, but Arkansas, Tennessee, or A&M would love to have him.

I don’t see much movement in the Southland Conference. I think it is time for Larry Kennan to retire, so that maybe open. There is no doubt that Northwestern State will be making a change in December. I will not speculate at this time who they go after. You can bet that D2 head coaches will be searched. I think Clint Conque will win out and hold onto his job at SFA.

Jim McElwain may not come out of this turnover in as good a shape as fans may believe. McElwain owes $7.5 million to Colorado State for them allowing him out of his new contract. Stupid Florida agreed to pay CSU $3 million in order to sign McElwain as well as agreeing to pay them $2 million to come to Gainesville in 2018 to play. The rest is to be paid by Coach Mac himself. He has agreed to pay $333,000 every June 30th until 2021 to replay the other $2.5 million. Rumor is that Florida paid Coach McElwain less than a third of the $12 million buyout they owe him for firing him.  Both sides could learn a lesson in this deal.

The winner of all these coaches changing jobs is agent Jimmy Sexton. Sexton is well known as the power broker behind Nick Saban, Huge Freeze, Jimbo Fisher, Jim Mora, Tim Tebowe, Will Muschamp, Lane Kiffin, Jim McElwain, Gus Malzahn, and Dan Mullin to name a few. He represents almost half of the SEC coaches.

With this in mind, you can see where he is collecting pay checks from every direction. His coaches in the SEC earn about $30 million a year and old Jimmy gets his 5% or so. He just negotiated a buyout for McElwain, but is also working behind the scenes to spread the resume of Mr. Dan Mullin to places like A&M, Tennessee, and Florida. I expect he will have to negotiate Dan Mullin out of his buyout, then collect on the huge new contract Mullin will get. If Gus gets fired after he loses to Alabama and Georgia, his contract buyout will have to be negotiated down.

Don’t be shocked if Lane Kiffin’s name does not pop up somewhere in the West if he continues to put up 40 plus points per game at Florida Atlantic. FAU is 4-0 and in first place of his conference. Another name with plenty of contacts is Mike Leach. Mike has done a great job at WSU, but he has done all he can do in Pullman and he needs to get out NOW. His All-World quarterback is a senior. Every coach at a school with a rival in their own backyard hates it. This is why they all say LSU is the best job in the SEC because they own Louisiana.

WSU will always be second fiddle to Washington and that beautiful campus in Seattle. Dan Mullin has to deal with Ole Miss and he now worries that all the bad publicity coming to the state of Mississippi because of Ole Miss is going to be tough to overcome. Gus cannot get out of the shadow of Nick Saban, and Mike Gundy has done all he can do at Okie State with Norman right down the road. If he beats OU this weekend, don’t be surprised that he tells Boone Pickens to kiss his posterior. When Texas is recruiting well, A&M suffers. Tom Herman has commitments of 6 of the top 8 players in Texas.

It is  getting ready to get brutal in Florida if the Gators make a good hire. Mark Reicht is doing great in recruiting at Miami, and Jimbo Fisher has taken advantage of the past three years of weak UF and Miami recruiting. That is changing.

McNeese will try to bounce back from the disappointing performance in Conway on Saturday night against Southeastern Louisiana. This is a huge game for the Pokes at it is a must win in order to convince fans that this year was different than last year. The Nicholls loss continues to be an albatross around their necks, but they have already replaced the SFA defeat a year ago with a win, so they must do the same with SLU.  A 9-2 finish would be easy to sell that things are heading in the right direction.

LSU opened as a 21.5 dog to Alabama which is the largest spread in many years in this series. It is more proof that the SEC has two strong teams and a bunch of programs in regression. The great handicapper Danny Sheridan said he can never remember the top two teams in each division playing the second place teams and being favored by more than 20 points. UGA is 22 points favored over runner-up South Carolina.

LSU’s win over Auburn really messed up the order of the SEC West. Auburn is tied with LSU with a 4-1 conference record, but would still be a 6 point favorite over LSU if they played again. The league could have used a 5-0 Auburn tied with Alabama to set up the Iron Bowl with two undefeated programs. The problem with the power rankings is that Florida, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Missouri, and Arkansas all have losing records overall while Missouri, Tenneesee, and Vandy are all 0-5 in the SEC. It drags everyone down. The bowl revenue is going to take a hit this year with many of the SEC teams getting second tiered bowls.

World Series Game 6 is tonight in Los Angeles. The Astros are one win away from history. If TV ratings are important, baseball is having a resurgence. For the second consecutive year, the Monday night World Series game destroyed Monday Night Football. The Astros vs Dodgers game five  got a 12.8 compared to a 9.4 for the football game which is almost a 30% gap. There was a power outage in New England on Monday night and they project the baseball ratings could climb some more. The game peaked at 10:30 to 11:00PM Central time when more than 22 million people were tuned in.

It is more proof that sports has become more entertainment than the previous generations when sports was life. We are seeing it at the stadiums with drastic decreases in attendance. But if the game is a “must see” entertainment value, the demand is tremendous. I am sure there are tons of Houston fans who wanted game 5 tickets who have not made a game all year. They want to be a part of that atmosphere. It will be the same way tonight if LA wins. Game 7 will cost thousands for those “Johnny come lately fans.” I don’t care if you did not have a dog in that race on Sunday night, if you crossed that channel and felt the passion, you were tuning in.

It is a great setup for MLB as more fans are tuning out the NFL due to all of the sideshows.

 

 

 

OVER-REACTION MONDAY

Well, it is hard to talk football after one of the greatest World Series games ever, but that is what I am paid to do. LOL. I am sure most fans went to bed way before seeing the final three innings of this five hour plus marathon, but it was worth it for those that paid the price. Of course, heartbreak came to the Dodger fans, but at least they got their game in prime time TV viewing. As the experts have always said, each game is unpredictable and you never know the direction a game will take. The two best lefties squared off last night and it was a slug fest. This is what happens when manager’s over-use pitchers and push guys past their limits. It is always in the back of their minds that there is no tomorrow so let’s ride that pony until it breaks down.

It is somewhat ironic that the announcers said that both managers would throw their aces to their arms fell off because it was their last game of the year. Hum, neither lasted five innings and theoretically could pull a Bumgardner and throw an inning on Wednesday if the series goes that far.

I am sure there is plenty of over-reaction in Houston and Los Angeles with the planning of the parade in Houston and the negative thoughts in LA that the series is over, but nothing compared to the fanatics in college football.

I am sure it starts right here in the Lake Charles area as fans will state that they knew the Pokes were over-rated and not very good and of course, UCA is great and head and shoulders above everyone else in the Southland Conference. Unfortunately, that is the way the public view results from one game. It is great when both teams play their best game of the year and there is no doubt in the result. Usually you get a great game if both teams are on their game. If both teams wilt under pressure in a big game, you get four turnovers on both sides and some sloppy play. If you get one team playing great and the other one wilting, you get a blow out.

I could give you a million examples, but the astute fan knows this already. There is a reason that rematches are often over-turned and the opposite team wins. I have lost on the road by 15-20 points, yet win that game at home two weeks later. I remember seeing MSU destroy Western Kentucky at home, and then lose the national title game. McNeese clearly proved who was the best team in 2015 when they beat Sam Houston by 17 in the regular season, but lost 34-29 in the playoffs. When both teams brought their A game, it was a thriller with MSU being on the one yard line in the final two minutes.

Maybe you do not want to buy into the theory that McNeese could have competed with UCA very easily had they played a great game without the two defensive touchdowns and the two gift touchdowns. There is nothing I can say that will alter your opinion because there is still a lot of anger in many fans. All I am saying is that I do believe that Ohio State could beat Oklahoma in a rematch, and I do not buy the fact that OU is head and shoulders above Ohio State. On that one night in September, they were. I know the bookies thought Ohio State was about six points better than OU, but the Sooners won by 16 points.

I don’t think Syracuse is better than Clemson; in fact, I think Clemson beats them by 25 in a rematch. I really don’t think Clemson was 31 points better than Ohio State in 2016’s playoff, but that is what happens when one team plays an A game and the other plays a D game. In 2011, LSU went on the road and beat #1 Alabama 9-6 and everyone declared that LSU was the best team because they won in Tuscaloosa and Bama could not score. They played less than six weeks later in LSU territory in New Orleans and Bama had 21-4 edge in first downs, 380 yards to 91 yards in total offense and basically kept LSU on their side of the 50 all night long. It ended up 21-0 Alabama.

So all I am saying is don’t over-react to one result and think UCA is light years ahead of everyone else. I really believe if Southeastern played them again, it would be a dog fight, and of course, Sam Houston would love a rematch as well. But you only get one chance in many cases, but you never know if the NCAA tries to square up Sam and UCA in a quarterfinal match-up.

Forgive me for thinking this way, but my experience in coaching has brain washed me into believing this theory. Bobby Knight had a big influence on my philosophy because his lecture was on the premise that “It is not how good you are, but how good you play.” Teams that do not turn the ball over, execute their plays, win the kicking game, and are disciplined are damn hard to beat regardless of size or speed. When you have limited talent, but you are coached this way they call you TCU, Kansas State, and Georgia Tech. When you match great talent with the same philosophy of not beating yourself, you are called Alabama.

This is why I am so hung up on performance charts and playing against perfection. Coach Lee Corso repeated this exact philosophy on Game Day. He said the worry is not about the opponent, but about the chase for perfection. How many teams would beat McNeese in 2017 if they did not allow a kickoff past the 20 yard-line and offenses had to drive the ball 80 yards? How many touchdowns would be scored if the defense did not allow any passing plays over 20 yards and running plays over 10 yards? How many points would McNeese score if they had ZERO turnovers, less than 50 yards in penalties, and the quarterback averaged 66% completion rate? What if they hit the mark with ZERO sacks, yet they collected three sacks on defense?

There is a whole board of performance initiatives that are chased by all teams. Punting the ball inside the 20 yard line three or four times in a game changes the entire structure of a game. Being able to return punts for field position and being able to return kickoffs outside the 30 yard-line are all things you can control. It is also a performance goal to score touchdowns when breaking into the red zone, and it is a must to convert 4th and short.

So any team that hits 90% of these goals has an A performance. Those that hit on about 50% of these goals get a “D” performance. If I went back and graded the performance sheet of our opponent, they probably were close to a high “B” or low “A”. As to McNeese, it was bad when you check off all of the performance marks. Do it and see what you come up with!

This is why I am constantly checking out McNeese basketball performance goals. I know from coaching in about 150-200 high school basketball games that hitting those goals almost always predicts outcome. You tell me the turnovers will be in single digits, we win the rebound totals, we hit 75% from the free throw line,  we hit 45% or higher from the floor, and we limit our opponent to 47% or lower, and we win at an alarming rate. It holds true in college and in high school. It is not how good you are, but how trained you are to perfection.

One of my favorite quotes of all-time from a coach came from Lou Holtz. When he took over at South Carolina, he was asked at his first press conference how he would reduce his quarterback’s interceptions from the previous year. The total was 19 for the previous USC quarterback. Holtz made a promise that day that I will never forget. He promised the media and the fans that his quarterback would not reach 10 interceptions in a season. How can you promise that, Coach? He said because on the 9th interception, his butt will be carrying a clipboard for the remainder of the season.

So the bottom line is McNeese certainly would not defeat Southeastern Louisiana, Sam Houston State, UCA, Nicholls State, or themselves if they filled out a performance sheet like they did on Saturday night. I give much of the credit to the opponent, but many of these mistakes are self-inflicted due to individual performance. Penalties, forgetting a responsibility,  missing a blocking assignment, over-throwing a receiver, dropping a ball, fumbling, botching kickoffs, punts, or whatever, are all self-inflicted, in my opinion. You can debate it all day long, but I have to take that attitude. Those horses you have are not going to change(this year) so you have to prepare them to the best they can be this year.

I would not want to coach at Mississippi State, Duke, Ga Tech, TCU, Iowa State, Kansas State, Washington State, Northwestern, and several others that do not have the resources or the talent base of their opponents. So you either give up, or you coach to perfection and hope that your “A” game will defeat most programs that are satisfied with playing a “B” or “C” game.

COACHES’ HOT SEAT

Jim McElwan- Florida Fired on Sunday

Butch Jones-Tennessee on life support

Jim Mora -UCLA at end of season.

Barry Odum-Missouri all but gone.

Bret Bielema- Arkansas- probably gets one more year.

Kevin Sumlin- Texas A&M- up one week, down the next(King of over-reaction)

Lovie Smith-Illinois- 3-19 but has $30 million dollar buyout

Mike Riley- Nebraska- could be gone after the season with Scott Frost having such a good year in Florida.

David Bailiff-Rice – all but gone.

Kliff Kingsbury- Texas Tech- They love him but they cannot keep him.

David Beaty- Kansas- David got a three year extension for beating Texas last year and has a $3 million buyout. He has beaten 2 FCS progams and Texas in his 32 ballgames coached.

*There are several more, but I am running out of space. The SEC could fire another five guys this year. K. C Keeler is rumored at UTEP(Who would want that job?) and Rice.

 

 

THE DAY AFTER

Well, my greatest fears all came to pass. It was a total disaster from many perspectives; but more importantly, the game answered some questions of which we are not going to like the answers. I will speak only with one opinion that I hope is sensible and well thought out. I despise fans who run to the computer after each loss in Baton Rouge, Gainesville, Lafayette, or College Station and vent anger without much thought or sense. I know there are fans who lie in the grass and do not compliment when things are going well, but come out of the woods when things are going badly. I have been through three overthrown governments( coaching staffs), so I have experience in deciphering the difference between supporters and fans.

It is not my intent to get personnel, so I will not criticize players. Believe me; the old coach in me has a few choice words for some of the performances, but that is not the intent. What I generally would say is that this one is on me, the coach. Not because he fumbled the ball, threw interceptions, or missed assignments, but because I do not believe the statement “We have a great plan for offense and a great plan on defense.” Everything  that I had listed as a major concern became a reality.

First of all, I said on more than one occasion that I was really worried that UCA would abuse us deep in the secondary. We cheat too much with our defensive backs and an accomplished quarterback can burn the out of place safeties. We are at our best when we play quarterbacks who cannot read the mistakes, or one who is behind a poor offensive line. I warned that those problems were there in the first three games and three good quarterbacks exposed those problems. The last four teams have had weak offenses with quarterbacks not able to take advantage of what we were giving them.

I am not going to criticize the scheme, just saying that you are better if you can get pressure up front and not have to have artificial pressure. This is the fourth game this year that we seem to be under-prepared for what is being thrown at us. In other words, you can do a lot of things when you have the better players and are winning battles. It is when you face equally talented offenses, or better talented players that you are exposed. The key is that if you know your limitations, you fit the players to the schemes. I thought we had two very weak positions on defense last year, and we continued to expose those two players.

If I am to be perfectly honest, the game went pretty much as I predicted minus the easy touchdowns. I thought the defense would limit them to under 30 points and be in the 24-28 point range. I did not expect two defensive touchdowns by UCA, nor a blown coverage call that hand wrapped a tight end running right down the middle of the field unguarded. The other plays I knew would pop up sooner or later because it is in our DNA when facing a good quarterback. The 5th play of the game we flushed Hildebrand out of the pocket on 3rd down , but a corner let his man loose and it was an easy 30 yard completion which put the ball on the MSU 21.

If you had told me before the game that UCA would get 11 first downs, be held to 73 yards rushing, and a total of 323 yards of offense, I would have taken it in a minute. The one run of 25 yards by Kierre Crossley constituted about 33% of their entire rushing totals. The Bears averaged 2.1 yards per rush and that included Crossley’s 25 yard gain.

The killer was giving up a 55 yard touchdown throw, a 48 yard touchdown throw, and two defensive touchdowns. Offensively, I predicted the Pokes at 20 points. I think this was very manageable especially when you get first and goal at the 4 and come away with only three points.

I am not going to spend 2000 words trying to go through all that went wrong last night. We got whipped all over the place in the kicking game and have for most ballgames. Our solution to not being able to cover kickoffs is just give them the ball at the 40 or 50 yard line; at least they did not run it back. I don’t get some of the decisions, but I am not going to get into all of that.

I will tell you that I do not buy that we cannot kick off. We have had the wind behind us at least 50% of the time in these games, and if a college kicker cannot kick the ball to inside the five, you need to find another kicker. I do believe we can do this, but we are now just giving up and pouching the ball. The result is a disaster.

McNeese took over the ball at the 16,9,15,17,2,25, 30, and the 14 in the first half. I did not even look at the second half stat sheet. On the other hand, UCA took over at the 32, MSU 49, MSU 46, 22, 37, MSU 45, and the 9 yard line. Folks, there is your most obvious disparity in offensive possessions.

UCA fair caught punts, yet we tend to let balls bounce and we lose 10-15 yards in punt  exchanges.  Our opponents kick the ball deep on kickoffs and we are lucky to get the ball back to the 20. If we break it out to the 30, it is a real feat. Our opponents generally expect to get it out past the 30.

I will be honest; I don’t get all of the wasting of time outs in these ballgames. We are always just giving away five yard delay of game penalties on field goals or punts around the 50. IF a punter is skilled, he can kick it high and get the ball inside the 10 regardless of if the ball is at the 45 or 50 yard line. I guess we are scared he is going to kick it into the end zone, but I just don’t see this in all the games that I watch.  We burn at least a timeout or two in each game due to substitution or some set that the defense or offense does not recognize. Even if we had gotten the ball back with 2 minutes to go in the first half, we had only one timeout.

The offensive game plan was not much different in what we have seen week after week. I will see the fade route in my sleep for the next week. I understand the problems we are having up front, but UCA played a very simple, conservative defense, and they get more pressure up front and they defend better in the back end. Yes, we got a couple of deep balls on them, but it was because of great catches. On the other hand, they got guys running free without any defender within ten yards of them.

I will finish up by saying it is very disappointing on many levels. We have been underdogs in four games in less than two full seasons, and we have not over-achieved in any  of these games. Kansas State, Mississippi State, Duke, Georgia Tech, Iowa State, TCU, and too many to mention have reputations of making steak out of ground meat. In a game like this, I expected the performance to be one of few mistakes and the grade would be based against how we played. My philosophy has always been perfection against your own capabilities. Losing is not bad, nor is C’s if you are reaching your potential. By the time you are in your 8th game, you should not be having wrong sets, receivers lining up in the zone, or moving toward the line of scrimmage, and all the other garbage.

I am not going to buy the excuse that your opponent determines that fate. Well prepared teams that are playing against perfection and are held accountable for failures are peaking this time of year.  I have not liked the punter running sideways to make a rugby style kick. Steven Campbell had his linemen slanting to the punters left because they knew where he would be punting the ball. We should have had a second punt blocked, but they ran into our kicker and just missed it.

So we go back to 2016 and expect a well played game against the most important game of the year with ULL. We made enough mistakes to hand them a easily earned victory. We gave up 30 points which included at least ten points of free gifts. As to SFA, we were actually favored at home, yet we gave up 31 points and lost. We were either a point or two favored at Southeastern Louisiana and we hand delivered at least two touchdowns in the secondary as well as having  a punt blocked in the  end zone. Regardless of opponent, we have to give ourselves a D- as to playing against perfection.

 

We hosted UCA in a game in which they may have been favored by 3 points at best, and we lose 35-0. We were underdogs at Sam Houston State, but we gave up about 700 yards of offense and 56 points. So we give up 30,30,31,35, and 56 in our five losses, so we fire the DC. OK, I was fine with that. But the old saying in coaching is that your weaknesses are covered up by weak opponents and good opponents expose your weaknesses. Every quarterback who can have enough time to let the WR do a double move in the secondary, has burned us. Nicholls State put up 37 points and now UCA hanged 52 on us. It is a pattern, folks, sorry to say. So let’s see; that is 39 points per game in our seven losses in the Guidry Era. To be fair, our offense and coverage units have given up probably 45-50 of those points, not the defense.

This is not to say our defense is not good. We are fast, we run to the football, we tackle well, and they put pressure on the offense. What the problem is we are Nolan Ryan from age 19 to 35. Nolan had more strikeouts, shutouts, and no-hitters than anyone, yet he was a .500 pitcher during this era. He also gave up more home runs due to mistakes down the middle of the plate. It was not until he got to age 35 and became a complete pitcher that his ERA went down and his winning percentage went up.

Lance Guidry must find a way to reduce the home run balls while keeping the “stuff” that makes them good.

 

There are solutions, but I am not the problem solver. We have played UCA twice now in 12 months and we have given up 7 turnovers of which 6 have been in our end of the field. UCA had zero turnovers. Creating 110 yards in penalties is not my idea of a well played game. The 417-324 yard advantage is hollow in a sense because it makes it even more frustrating knowing that we just are not paying attention to detail. In big games, UCA does not turn the ball over. Last night they had zero turnovers while the Pokes had two which gave up 14 points. It could have been three turnovers had the Bears not been called for off sides.

We have gotten away with such mistakes, penalties, etc in past games because we were just better, period. I guess it is a difference in philosophy, but I preach this all the time in basketball. It is not how hot or how cold your shooting is that produces losing seasons; that kind of stuff will even out if you are getting excellent shots. Mistakes are a derivative of lack of mental discipline, and in my opinion, the lack of fear of accountability. Mistakes are not eliminated unless the athlete mentally focuses on not repeating the mistake because he fears the consequences.

My wife teaches writing and she sees the same response.  When she evaluates a first draft of an essay and points out the mistakes made, she expects the students to pay attention to her comments on the revision for the final draft. When the student dismisses her comments and doesn’t take her suggestions seriously, his/her essay grade suffers.

I am still waiting for that near perfect game against someone in which we are underdogs against.  Southeastern Louisiana is good, a lot better than the first three games of the year. They went toe to toe with Sam Houston last night. As Ron Roberts likes to brag, he owns the Louisiana FCS programs. If things don’t change, he will have another feather in his cap this weekend.

 

GAMEDAY OCTOBER 28

FRIDAY NIGHT SCORES:

Houston 5 Los Angeles 3– Yu Darvish got roughed up and that was it.

SMU 38 Tulsa 34 – Ponies become bowl eligible in front of about 2000 brave fans who sat through 20 mph wins and mid 40’s. Trey Quinn had 8 catches for 102 yards and 2 TDs.

Memphis 56 Tulane 26- Memphis appears to be pretty good!

GAME DAY IN CONWAY

It should be a good night for football with the temperature around 50 at kickoff with 5-6 mph wind. The temp should drop off to around 42 by the end of the game. It is Homecoming, and Conway is going all out for the big game. A parade through town should be mid afternoon.

I did see a video in which some football players were making fun of “DWA.” I assume after putting 35 on the Pokes last year, there is not too much respect. Coach Campbell made up some Tee-shirts that say ” Beat McNeese ” on them so the football players will probably be wearing them under the uniforms. It has been an easy year for the marketing department at UCA.

I looked back at week three and they had a strong push to fill the stadium for what maybe the second best team in the Southland Conference with Southeastern Louisiana. A couple of weeks later, they marketed the “Battle for the Title” with Sam Houston State coming to town; they had a packed house. Two weeks after that, they had Clint Conque returning to the Purple Haze and that marketing brought out all the Clint Conque haters. Now they get to market the traditional team in the Southland Conference with all the trophies.

So they have Homecoming tied to this game as well as marketing “DWA” as some moniker that has to be destroyed tonight. I think I could have marketed this year’s home schedule at the Stripes.

My final thoughts are that this game will turn on every mistake. It is imperative that the Pokes protect the ball, punt the ball and cover, and protect the deep 1/3 of the field. I am just scared to death of Hildebrand and some type of option run/pass. I will not over -state the obvious and just hope for a well-played game by the guys in blue and gold. UCA players and campus are very aware of their #4 ranking and possible path to a deep playoff run. We will get their best effort.

Regardless of win, loss, or tie, next week is also very important. I will be keeping an eye on the Sam Houston vs SLU game in Hammond. I know everyone is saying win or the season is over, but I am not ready to give up on a possible 9-2 season if we lose. I just don’t believe SLU will lose to Sam Houston, McNeese, and Nicholls in the next four weeks. In other words, there still could be some separation in the standings by the end of the season. As I mentioned yesterday, score does matter when it comes to evaluating standards in a national debate. I hear it daily that Notre Dame lost in the final seconds to UGA, and UGA is #3. If Penn State loses today at Ohio State(I think they will.), UGA moves to #2.

My point is that UCA is the benchmark for the committee to compare scores. SLU is screwed either way because even if they win out, they have lost by 30 to UCA and lost to Bethune -Cookman. So I can’t draw it up any easier. The Pokes have to drive 7 hours, play in cold temps, play in front of a packed  Homecoming crowd, and play the best team in the conference. What more do you want for a challenge? It is time to hook it up!

My Vegas provider gives us a 27% chance a victory. My response is this:

“So you are saying we have a chance”

 

OCTOBER 27 FRIDAY

UPDATE 10:30AM

The McNeese cross-country team suffered an unbelievable heartbreak in Abilene at the SLC championships. McNeese tied Lamar for the championship with 42 points, but the tie breaker was the highest ranked Lamar runner(winner) nosed out the McNeese runner(2nd place). It would have never come down to a tie, but a Lamar runner nosed out a McNeese runner for 8th place by .03 seconds. Great job Pokes. The women surprised everyone by finishing 3rd, up four places from 2016. This is a partial list of the 80 runners, but it shows you the comparison of Lamar and McNeese. All the Pokes had to do was finish ahead of one Lamar runner in these tight finished. They beat us in every tight finish with the exception that Soto finished 3rd away ahead of Lamar’s second runner. I have never seen anything like this in my many years of following X-Country.

Results – Men
1 Jamie Crowe JR Lamar 24:29.1 1
2 Nathan Jones SR McNeese State 24:33.8 2
3 Enrique Soto SR McNeese State 24:42.9 3
4 Garett Cortez JR Incarnate Word 24:50.1 4
5 Deion Hardy JR Incarnate Word 24:53.7 5
6 Joshua Wilkins SR Northwestern St. 24:56.4 6
7 Cormac Kelly SR Lamar 24:56.6 7
8 Matthew Arnold JR Lamar 24:59.0 8
9 Oliver James SR McNeese State 24:59.3 9
10 Ryan Cleary SR Abilene Christian 25:05.7 10
11 Federico Gasbarri SR Lamar 25:07.1 11
12 William Hamilton SR McNeese State 25:08.3 12
13 Alex Hernandez JR Sam Houston St. 25:09.3 13
14 Julien Jeandree JR Central Arkansas 25:10.4 14
15 Kyle Garcia JR Lamar 25:13.9 15
16 Brian Flanagan FR McNeese State 25:15.6 16
17 Brant Cook JR Central Arkansas 25:15.7 17
18 Jordan Leon JR Sam Houston St. 25:16.5 18
19 Jorge Quintero JR Incarnate Word 25:17.8 19
20 Erick Rotich JR Stephen F. Austin 25:18.3 20
21 Drew Cummings SO Abilene Christian 25:19.0 21
22 Keith Fallon SR Lamar 25:21.7 22
23 Niall Holt JR McNeese State 25:22.3

 

CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS ARE THIS MORNING!

McNeese men and women’s cross country teams will attempt to bring home some hardware from Abilene, Texas this morning. The SLC meet starts at 8:30AM with the running of the 6K for women, followed by the men’s 8K race. The women will enter the meet trying to improve on last year’s seventh place finish. I do not have any doubts that SFA will repeat as champions on the women’s side of the ledger. ACU and Lamar will be the strongest contenders. I do think the Cowgirls could move up to as high as 4th or 5th if their #4 and #5 runners do not struggle.

Lamar has dominated the last four SLC men’s titles, but I have a suspicion that there might be a surprise in store. SFA is also a perennial challenge to the title as well. The Pokes finished 3rd last year and lost two of their top five runners, but I like this team. I really think they will compete today and be in the Top 2. In fact, I am wanting to order some more rings. This is the first leg of a long season competing for the SLC Commissioner’s Cup, but nothing like the first two sports to get started on the right path.

It is a good day if Enrique Soto, Nathan Jones, Oliver James, Fisher Hamilton, and Brian Flanagan can all get into the Top 16 runners. For the women, I feel good that Katja Woelfl and Gladys Jerotich can finish in the Top 10, but the rest is very questionable.

Fans interested in watching the races can tune into the Southland Conference Facebook page for a live broadcast. Check the McNeese website for the calendar to see the easy method of watching the meet. Go Pokes!

Good luck to the Cowgirls soccer team as they play for a regular season soccer championship tonight in Beaumont starting at 7PM. Live stats are available at the McNeesesports.com website. 

It is pretty special to know we are going into three huge battles in cross country, football, and soccer that can determine the order of finish in all three sports. The Pokes have a chance in all three which is something to look forward to.

CRYSTAL BALL

Ohio State 31 Penn State 21

Georgia 35 Florida 20

ULM 35 Idaho 27

Memphis 38 Tulane 30

Nicholls State 37 UIW 17

SFA 24 Lamar 14

Northwestern State 31 HBU 28

Sam Houston State 41 Southeastern Louisiana 35

MCNEESE AT CENTRAL ARKANSAS (-11.5)

Believe me; this is not the prediction that I have been looking forward to. I just have to have an out-of-body experience and let the facts speak for themselves. Neither emotion nor homer call is welcome.

The good news is that I believe all of the outside factors will be reduced in this game. It would be normal to list several negative points like weather, crowd, Homecoming, Purple Curse, and the long trip, but I am looking past this. I do think each year a team develops its own personality and sometimes I question leadership, confidence, and mojo entering a game. I wrote extensively about my disdain for opening conference on a Thursday night in August.

As a coach, you never know what you have in August, so why risk it with a very important game? You have to deal with scrimmage injuries, unpredictable weather in August with no Indoor Facility, and a break in routine by traveling on a Wednesday. My preference is to play a “pay game on the road,” or a D2 home game in which everyone gets some playing time.

My point is that none of that pertains to this game.  I think this team is experienced enough to see it as a challenge. I am not worried about nerves, intimidation, or lack of confidence. The seniors on this club have one last chance to leave a legacy. I have no doubt that they will rise to the occasion in regards to being prepared and up emotionally. What we cannot predict are breaks, penalties, and turnovers. There is a difference between playing hard and playing well. I have no doubt they will play hard, but the other will be determined by execution and each part of the equation working together. In other words, if defensive line puts pressure, defensive backs play well. If the offensive line plays well, the skill players will have a chance. It is all tied together.

I think the keys to the game all are related to the trenches. I have doubts whether we can control the UCA defensive line enough to have a running game as well as time to pass. IF the offensive line is clicking and all of these question marks are answered, then it could be a good night offensively.

I do believe that the Pokes can slow down the Bears in running the ball, but my biggest fear is the long ball. When you borrow from Peter(DB) to pay Paul(DL), it makes you vulnerable. If the Pokes have the skill and confidence to slow down the running game while covering the back- end, then we have a chance. Usually big games are decided by the kicking game which includes punt and kickoff coverage. The Pokes have struggled in this area, so this must be tightened up for Saturday.

Without over analyzing all the details, let’s cut to the chase. I expect the Pokes’ defense to reduce the 35 points per game that UCA averages by about 7-10 points. Thus analytically I think the Bears will be in the 25-28 point range offensively. The Bears only give up 16 points a game compared to the Pokes averaging 33 points. I keep reminding myself that the defense has helped the offense to get over the 30 point average per game. To be truthful, our offense is only earning about 26-30 points per game. Factoring in the same formula for UCA, I expect their defense to hold the Pokes to about 7-10 points below their average. Thus we can expect about 20 points for the Pokes’ offense.

Of course, punt returns, turnovers, and other factors can greatly change these figures. When you deal with numbers in predicting all you can go on are the averages and the competition. So with UCA being a 11.5 point favorite and with that line increasing by almost four points this week, the gamblers all favor UCA and thought 7.5 was just too low. By my calculations, I see the Bears holding off the Pokes by a score of 27-20.

I will give my opinion that it does matter how the Pokes play, not just the W or the L. Every team has a “comparative score” that follows them the remainder of the season. Oklahoma found that out last year with the embarrassment at home to Ohio State. LSU has now put Auburn up as their “measuring stick” when they are considered for bowl games. Well, McNeese is facing one of those games. Win or lose, McNeese is playing the #4 ranked team on the road. If UCA wins this game, they will finish in the Top 4 and be 10-1 with a bye in the playoffs. With a little luck this weekend, a team or teams ahead of them may lose.

Whether you believe that a 9-2 record will get consideration or not, a close loss to a team like Madison, North Dakota State, Jacksonville State, or Central Arkansas does matter in the eyes of the committee and the power rankings. McNeese can do little against Lamar and Northwestern State to move up in power rankings, but a strong showing the next two weekends will move them up in computer rankings like Sagarin’s because they will help their weak strength of schedule, and playing even with a team ranked 7 points higher will push them higher.

A blowout settles a lot of questions and also bring up questions about where this program is at this point. There are some things we cannot control and that includes breaks, officiating, and luck, so all I can ask for is this team to play to their potential and show that they can compete with the best in the SLC.

OCTOBER 26 THURSDAY

WE ARE SET UP FOR A CLASSIC WORLD SERIES!

The big college football weekend kicks off tonight with South Alabama at Georgia State and Stanford at Oregon State. Friday night we get Tulane at Memphis and Tulsa at SMU along with others. I will be out supporting high school football.

Fans are always entertaining for a neutral observer to watch because they are not tied up with the emotional roller-coaster. I listened to two callers yesterday, one on Finebaum, who have a path laid out for LSU to win the national championship. Just three weeks ago, the majority of the fans were talking of 7-5 and firing Coach O. It is amazing how people  can jump on and off the bandwagon so soon. It is true that a win over Alabama will put LSU in the driver’s seat for the SEC championship game. Of course, this is assuming they will not lose to A&M , Arkansas, or Tennessee. However, prior to the season, the schedule looked very tough; but it is weakening as the season progresses.

Tennessee has had six players arrested this year, and two others were arrested on Monday night. They had players shooting the bird as they left the field last weekend. Butch Jones is all but gone. Florida fans are up in smoke because they are having a terrible year on and off the field. Remember, they still have 11 players indefinitely suspended for theft. Rumors persist that there are locker room problems at Tennessee and Florida. The bottom line is LSU can win the SEC title if they can beat Alabama. My personal opinion is that it really won’t be that close, but stranger things have happened. Right now, if Alabama played Georgia in the SEC title game, Bama would be favored by 14 points. If UGA had to play Auburn on the road, they would be a 3 point dog.

Point is that UGA is not unbeatable and probably not one of the best four teams in the country. I like what they are doing, but other than the big win at Notre Dame, they have beaten Appy State, Samford, Miss.State, Tennessee, Vandy, and Missouri. They will beat UF this weekend and then get South Carolina and Kentucky. So it will be three more weeks before that match-up with Auburn on the road. However, we should also point out that all of these teams, especially LSU,  can be beaten on any given Saturday. But the pathway to the SEC championship is still there. IF Bama does not make the SEC title game, all bets are off on a 10-2 not getting in.

CENTRAL ARKANSAS VS MCNEESE MATCHUP

DEFENSE

We have looked at the lineups and “Tale of the Tape” over the past two days. I have looked at some video of UCA and come to a couple of conclusions. The first three tapes of McNeese for 2017 hints at what UCA may attack. I realize that the Pokes have gotten healthy in the secondary and are committing fewer mistakes since the Alcorn State game, but there is cause for concern. UCA appears to be a singles and doubles type of offense, but there is nothing further from the truth. When you look at “play by play” during their games, you notice that defenses can slow them down with  their running game and nibbling of hitch passes and quick slants. But in every game they have killed defenses with long bombs and chunk plays.

Murray State- 74 and 58 yard bombs.

Southeastern Louisiana- 52, 49, 46, and 21

Sam Houston -74, 46, 45, 35, and 24

HBU- 58, 39, 24, and 22

SFA- 60 and 40 yards

Northwestern State-81, 37,32, and 32.

I think SLU , HBU, and SFA probably played more zone than the aggressive Sam Houston Bearkat blitzing and press coverage. I suspect the Demons played a lot of man as well.

I can almost promise you that UCA will go deep on the Cowboys. McNeese cheats their safeties up towards the line of scrimmage and the only way to get them off is to stretch the field. Hayden Hildebrand is no Daniel Sam, but I also can assure you of at least five keepers on the zone read or QB draw.  In most games they have played he lulls you to sleep by giving it to the dive man, and then he keeps it for 10-15 yards. Their other strategy to keep DBs honest is to have the QB fake a throw to the WR after many of his hand-offs. I wrote about this last Saturday after observing Denton Guyer doing the same-thing.

So Hildebrand will give it to the zone read dive man; he will pull it out and throw a quick hitch to the WR. Then he will run a go-route off this by faking the quick hitch. UCA scored on the first play against NSU by connecting on a 81 yard flea flicker pass.

I also believe that the Pokes have to find a way to pressure the quarterback from a source other than DBs. We had ZERO sacks last weekend and our DL is near last in sacks in the SLC when you take out the LB/DB sacks. The Pokes have 19 total sacks and only 9 are from the front four. On the other hand, UCA has 25 sacks and many are from up front. To complicate matters, UCA has the best offensive line in the SLC, or at least second to Southeastern Louisiana. UCA has given up only 5 sacks for a total of 35 yards. This is why they are winning the movement of the chains. I looked at Murray St. and HBU’s play by play and every-time these two teams got in position to do something, they were dumped for a minus 10.

So the conclusion is that the Pokes are going to have to stop the run while limiting the “chunk ” plays over 20 yards. If the Pokes get burned 3 or 4 times and allow UCA to get their average four big plays a game, we lose.

If you want to compare what Las Vegas thinks about the two big games in the Southland, check out the Over and Under for the two games. Sam Houston and SLU is listed at 84 points. This is a huge number. A score of 42-41 for the over and you lose. McNeese vs UCA is only 49.5 so the bookies see some defense in this game.

OFFENSE

My best guess is that the Pokes are not going to control the clock and move the chains on long drives. UCA is good on defense and they just can do some things that will break up the drives. I do think the secondary is vulnerable IF Tabary has time to throw the ball. That is a big “IF” but our strength is our skill people and even without Orgeron, there is enough fire power to make big plays. There is no doubt that the Pokes will need to establish some kind of running game just to keep them from penning their ears. I think if we can just get close to our average of 187 yards per game, it will be an accomplishment. UCA gives up an average of 125 yards per game on the ground. I think it is going to take a 55-60% completion rate for Tabary and at least four “chunk” plays over 20 yards in the passing game.

The big question for me is how many plays will be negative and how many offensive penalties will hinder movement of the chains. I would think our goal has to be 3 or less sacks from our OL, and no 10 or 15 yard penalties for the offense.

INTANGIBLES

Last week Northwestern State had a terrible time trying to punt into the wind. They had three kicks that basically went less than 25-30 yards . It could be windy, so field position will be important. It will be our coldest night of the year and that means an adjustment for Tabary and the wide outs. We don’t need to come out all jacked up and throw high for the first 5-10 throws. UCA is 32-6 on the Purple People Eater, but McNeese has won on this carpet. Confidence will not be short for either team. It is HOMECOMING so there will be a little extra juice flowing in the stands for this one, but that should not be a factor. In today’s society, win the first half and you might not have a crowd in the second half to worry about.

It will be a test for this coaching staff. They do not have a “signature” win since taking over the program. They will get two chances over the next two weekends. The Pokes are 11.5 point underdogs at UCA. It is possible that if SLU upsets Sam Houston, they too will be a small favorite over the Pokes(unless the Pokes beat UCA).

Steve Campbell has too many signature wins to count. He has won a National JC championship as a coach, and he has won a D2 national title at Delta State. Since entering the SLC he has beaten every team at least once. He has already won a FCS playoff game at UCA and is currently #4 in the country. The Pokes have a large opportunity staring at them this weekend.

THE BEARS SAY “BRING IT ON”

FRIDAY –  WE HAVE THE PREDICTIONS.

OCTOBER 25 WEDNESDAY

The regular season continues this weekend with the 9th weekend of games. There are at least two ballgames, maybe three that have playoff implications in FBS. The biggest game is in Columbus, Ohio with Ohio State hosting Penn State. If OSU loses, their chances are pretty much over. A Penn State loss will throw the Big 10 into the same situation as last year when the conference champion was not selected. Georgia will have to avoid an upset at Florida to continue their march to the SEC title game. TCU will need to avoid an upset at Iowa State as well.

I did not complain about last week’s game with UIW, but the long delays to review plays is getting ridiculous. It is my belief that every call does not have to be perfect. Officials are relying too much on replay to correct their mistakes. The break in momentum for football can be very detrimental to a team. It is a game based on emotion and momentum, but we are losing it with the long delays and the reversal of calls.

I think the World Series’ umpires set an example of calling the strike zone and forcing hitters to stay in the box and swing. The result was a fast game at less than two hours and half. I have seen several TV games in the Pac 12 and Big 12 that last three and a half hours. Nine inning baseball lasting an hour less than four quarters of football; are you kidding me?

I have always said the recruits in every sport should look past the shiny accessories and evaluate the curriculum, the facilities, the stability of the coaching staff, and most importantly, how do they fit into the system? I think Trey Quinn has hit “pay dirt” at SMU in that he has found the right offense suited for him. SMU is a fine school; the facilities are top notch, just not large like the SEC, and the coach is building a solid program. If you have not heard, Trey has been added to the Biletnikoff list for top wide out in the country. Quinn has caught 75 passes so far this year for 750 yards and five touchdowns. He caught 5 passes for zero touchdowns at LSU in 2015.

MCNEESE OFFENSE VS CENTRAL ARKANSAS OFFENSE

On Tuesday we took a look at the matchup of the defenses for UCA and McNeese. We concluded that Central Arkansas probably has a slight edge due to strength of schedule and are certainly larger in the trenches and linebacker. Today I would like to compare the offensive numbers. Once again the schedule will play a part in making distinctions because your opponent does have something to do with your success or lack of success.

The interesting thing about the offensive comparison is that the SLC has two offensive juggernauts that are head and shoulders about the remainder of the conference when comparing numbers. Sam Houston is averaging 45.4 points per game in conference while Southeastern Louisiana has jumped up to 42.0 points per game. Central Arkansas ranks third in offense with a 35.0 average per game while McNeese comes in at fourth with a 33.0 scoring average.

So in order to get a good read on whose offense has been the most consistent, we need to see what kind of defenses has both McNeese and UCA played.

CENTRAL ARKANSAS BEARS’ OPPONENTS DEFENSIVE STATISTICS

*Since both McNeese and UCA rank 1 and 2 in defense, neither offense has faced the top rated defenses.

(3) SFA                                       22.8 points per game : 443 yards per game

(4) SLU                                       23.3                                  392

(6)Sam Houston                       27.4                                  448

(8) HBU                                      32.2                                  388

(9) Northwestern State           35.2                                 480

MCNEESE OPPONENTS’ DEFENSIVE STATISTICS

(3) SFA                                         22.8                                  443

(5)ACU                                         23.5                                  391

(7)Nicholls St.                             29.0                                 374

(8)HBU                                         32.2                                 388

(11) UIW                                      42.0                                 482

There is not much to be concluded by looking at these numbers. The yards allowed are more reliable because so many scores given up can come by turnovers and returns. I see no advantage to either offense as neither team has faced the two top defenses in the league. That will end on Saturday night.

I do think it is always interesting to see what effect a team’s defense has on the opponents’ offensive averages. For example, UCA has allowed an average of 16 points per game to their opponents, but their opponents have averaged 28.3 points per game. Therefore, UCA has reduced their scoring by an average of 12 points below their average.

McNeese opponents have averaged nearly 30 points a game, but scored only an average of 12.6 against McNeese. This is a reduction of nearly 17 points.

TALE OF THE TAPE ON OFFENSE

UCA OFFENSE             MCNEESE OFFENSE

OL- 6’3 308                       6’4 312 ( Aye starting in place of Johnson)

RB- 6’1 201                       5’10 205

WR- 6’2  185                     6′ 192

TE-  6’6 256                       6’1 240

In looking at the size differences on offense, it is not as pronounced as the UCA advantage on defense. The offensive lines are almost identical if Tyre Johnson starts with McNeese, slightly larger if Chris Aye starts. The running back’s size is deceiving because the Bears have one power back that is 6’1 221 and one scat back that is 5’8 185. Very similar to McNeese’s Pruitt and Hamm.

The Bears’ biggest advantage is in the receiver department. Their two tight ends are 6’6 and 6’5 while they can line up with Jakari Dillard (6’5) and Norman Gordon (6’2) wide and be huge at split end. Both are local kids from my area as Dillard is from Fort Worth and Gordon is from just outside McKinney in a small town called Princeton. Cowgirl third baseman Alexandria Saldivar is also from Princeton.

It is remarkable how well UCA recruits the state of Texas and other states outside Arkansas. I recognized that Cade Camp (6’4 308) of our local Allen team was starting for a 16-0 state championship team and felt he was good enough to play in the SLC. We had three other linemen going to the Big 12, but Cade was being overlooked. Yet, the Bear’s staff came in and got him with no problem. Cade will be the Bear’s starting right tackle for the second year in a row. Another local from nearby McKinney North which was in our district was discovered by UCA. Austin Horton (6’3 290) will start at offensive guard for the Bears. Austin was 1st team All-District, All-Regional, team captain, and National Honor Society guy, yet few wanted him.

The Bears’ best running back is going to be 5’8 speedster Kierre Crossley of Everman which is just outside Fort Worth. Cardell Best (6’3 250) is first team All-SLC defensive end and was a 6’3 220 pass rusher out of Little Elm which is next door to Frisco. (Cardell was injured in August).  Former McNeese offensive lineman Clint Miller is principal at the middle school in Little Elm and his wife, also a Barbe/McNeese alumni is principal at an elementary there. The Bears have a 6’8 OL from San Antonio and a 6’7 OL from Florida. Their best player over-all is Rover back George Odum(6’2 200) who is from Tennessee. UCA has several players from the Houston area as well. Their big back Kehawn Ledet is from Missouri City.

In all, UCA has 72 players from outside the state of Arkansas. Most are from Texas, but they have five from Louisiana including star quarterback Hayden Hildebrand. Players range from New Jersey to Arizona to Florida as well. It is pretty amazing when you consider Conway being a small town in Arkansas attracting so many guys from San Antonio to Houston which is probably 500 miles away.

THURSDAY WE WILL LOOK AT THE GAME-PLANS FOR BOTH TEAMS.

 

 

 

 

OCTOBER 24 TUESDAY

Tickets are on sale at the field-house for Saturday’s Central Arkansas game in Conway, Arkansas. Game time is 6:05 PM on the “Stripes” and tickets maybe purchased for $15. It is Homecoming in Conway and that always promises to be a fun day for those that like to tailgate and mingle around the stadium. Plenty of free food, entertainment, and the UCA folks are quite good hosts.

The following week will be a big game in Cowboy Stadium with Southeastern Louisiana coming to town, but CBS once again delivered a big blow by announcing they were moving the LSU vs Alabama game to 7PM and broadcasting it.

I forgot to mention last Friday that I watched some of the ESPNU “High School Game of the Week” between two Georgia powerhouses. I took one look at quarterback Justin Fields and declared him the best in the country. The guy is 6’3 221 and runs a 4.51. His ability to throw on the run with long distance accuracy reminded me so much of Kerry Joseph. Fields was committed to Penn State, but has switched to the Georgia Bulldogs. Whoever ends up with Mr. Fields will be a national contender for his three years of college ball. He is the “real deal.”

I have not forgotten about the World Series for you,Astro fans; but it does start tonight in Los Angeles. Clayton Kershaw vs Dallas Keuchel should be a good one. The Dodgers are odds on favorites to win both on Tuesday and for the series. However, as we know, nothing is a given. Those that actually read my blog with interest may remember me telling the story of my trek out to Camelback Ranch to see the Dodgers play the Rangers. It is the closest stadium to our house, so I love going to this beautiful stadium other than I hate the Dodgers. I describe the event as the worst I have ever experienced in my 12 years of attending Spring Training games.

The game was sold out in a 14,000 seat stadium and they allowed another 2,000 to just stand and hassle the crowd sitting on the “berm.”  So I was miserable for many reasons of which some would not be politically correct, but I will just say that I stood and sat at least 20 times in the first two innings as rude fans arrived late, stopped to get a $10 beer and a $9 tray of nachos. I wrote a long piece on this whole experience and said that we left in the 5th inning because it was just too much to take. The restroom lines were 30 minute waits because of all of the beer drinking and over-selling of tickets.

However, I did mention how impressed I was with the Dodgers. They hit about 6 home runs and were ahead 17-1 when we left. For those that don’t get late night baseball, check out Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger, Chris Taylor, and Justin Turner to just name a few of their younger players. They may not have the Big Four like the Astros have, but they are deeper in their entire 25 man roster. It should be a good matchup.

I am mentioning the FCS Bracketology site only because in the final month of the season, they start to narrow down the possibilities. McNeese has a long way to go to even think about playoffs, but as FCS followers, I will post the information from Monday’s latest prediction. I find it significant because it points out how high they think Sam Houston and UCA will be seeded if they run the table. For McNeese and Southeastern Louisiana, it is all about opportunity. The top eight seeds are as follows.

1. James Madison
2. North Dakota State
3. Jacksonville State
4. Central Arkansas
5. South Dakota
6. Sam Houston State
7. Wofford
8. Elon

As I mentioned in Monday’s column, the chips are going to fall this weekend as this is the best weekend for FCS Top 25 matchups.

NOTE: THE MCNEESE VS UCA GAME OPENED AT UCA FAVORED BY 8, BUT IN A VERY UNUSUAL MOVE, THE LINE MOVED 3.5 POINTS OVERNIGHT AND UCA IS NOW A 11.5 POINT FAVORITE.  I DO EXPECT IT TO DROP BELOW 10 BY MIDWEEK.

I am going to use Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to analyze the McNeese vs Central Arkansas matchup. Instead of trying to fit it all in on one day, we will look at a different angle each day. Please do not get your drawers in a wad over how I read the stat sheet or break down a matchup. I fully realize that numbers can lie, and that some teams are better match-ups than others due to scheme, size, speed, and emotion.

I am using only Southland Conference stats because it would not be fair to use numbers for Central Arkansas against Kansas State while I use McNeese stats for Florida Tech. The Southland Stats are still very uneven due to who has played whom. I will attempt to explain each segment over the next three days.

WHO HAS THE BEST DEFENSE?

Obviously, if you look at the defensive stats in the SLC, you would see that McNeese is #1 in just about all categories. However, I am going beyond the obvious and desiring to get to a real neutral conclusion to who enters the game with the better defense. Coach Guidry was asked that question on his pregame show prior to the UIW game, and he conceded that UCA may have as good , if not better personnel on defense. I am not going to come to any conclusions daily, but I will put together the entire package on Friday and give an honest opinion on how these teams stack up.

I know there will be a lot of lip smacking this week to the media by players, coaches, etc. but it is all along the lines of a championship fight. I know smart coaches are going to build up the opponent in the media, but I also know they generally have their confidence up by Saturday morning.  I am not going to try to interpret coaches’ press releases. I think Coach Darnell of ACU is a breathe of fresh air for the conference. He is not used to trying to manipulate the media or blow smoke coming from a D2 program in Missouri. Of course, nothing compares to the BS that is spread in the SEC.

My point is Darnell was asked about the SLU team vs other teams he has seen for the first time in the Southland Conference. Remember, he was being interviewed after being destroyed on Homecoming in Abilene by SLU. In fairness, he did say his team played much better against McNeese than SLU. He said he thought McNeese was sleek, fast, and athletic. He thought Southeastern LA was more physical and is a very impressive looking group of athletes. Then he paused and said something along the line of ” Gracious, and we have not even played the best two teams.” So he has great respect for UCA, is my point.

Central Arkansas appears to have the advantage in playing tougher opponents, so I will point out the discrepancy in how I think the stats are misleading.

McNeese Defense Allows 12.6 points per game :  Central Arkansas allows 16.0 points per game.

CENTRAL ARKANSAS OPPONENTS OFFENSIVE RANKINGS ARE AS FOLLOWS: 

1. Sam Houston (45.2), 2. SLU (44.2), 7. Northwestern State (23.6),  10. SFA (20.0), 11. (HBU) 8.4

MCNEESE OPPONENTS OFFENSIVE RANKINGS ARE AS FOLLOWS :

5. Nicholls (27.6), 6. UIW (24.2), 9. ACU (21.2), 10. SFA (20.0), 11. HBU (8.4)

My conclusion to this comparison is that UCA has already played the two most dominate offensive teams in the league. They held Sam Houston to 30 points and SLU to 6 points.

As well as McNeese is playing this month on defense, I have to give credit to the fact that everyone agreed that last year UCA had the best defense in the league. They did shut out McNeese 35-0 and returned 7 defensive starters. On the pre-season All -SLC team, they had 4 first team selections out of 12 players selected. The Pokes got only Andre Fuller selected. UCA and McNeese both have one 2nd team selection since Chris Livings is not playing.

There are many other factors that come into debate as I mentioned earlier.

                                                           DEFENSE TALE OF THE TAPE

UCA                                    MSU

DEFENSIVE LINE                                                       6’2 277                                        6’2 244

LINEBACKERS                                                            6’2 232                                       5’11 206

DEFENSIVE BACKS                                                    6’1 194                                       5’11 182

 

 

OCTOBER 23 OVER-REACTION MONDAY

It is time to take a look back at the weekend and see who is left standing after a pretty non-competitive weekend. It was not a great weekend in the state of Louisiana other than LSU, McNeese, Southeastern LA and Grambling. A 3-4 record seems to be the trend as ULM, ULL, Tulane, and Louisiana Tech all have reached that level. Grambling took advantage of seven turnovers in their win over Alcorn State to run their record to 6-1. McNeese is also 6-1 and LSU is 6-2. SLU is 5-3,  but on a five game winning streak.

What we did learn this weekend is that Notre Dame is a player for the Final Four. The Irish’s win over USC pretty much ruined any chance of the Pac 12 getting a berth in the playoffs. Washington is the highest rated Pac 12 team at #12, but trail the Big 12’s TCU(4), OSU(10), and Oklahoma(11). Penn State at Ohio State is playing this week so that is  going to separate two of the three Big 10 teams, although Wisconsin sits at #5 and plays neither.

The first true hatchet fell on Sunday when the AD at Georgia Southern fired head football coach Tyson Summers after GSU got embarrassed 55-20 by win-less UMass. Summers is 0-6 this year and 5-13 in a year and a half. Summers ditched the triple option after Willie Fritz left. I hate to say it, but I think the same will happen to Coach Thomas at Northwestern State if he does not beat HBU and ACU the next two weeks.

The rankings for FCS will be coming out this morning, but we are pretty much assured that both UCA and Sam Houston should move up to #5 and #6. This weekend promises to see the most Top 25 defeats in 2017. We have these battles that will produce losers in the Top 25. These games look like a first round playoff bracket. I think we can count on at least seven teams going down in the Top 25 this week.

New Hampshire(18) at Madison (1)

Stony Brook (22) at Richmond (11)

Elon (14) at Villanova(15)

Montana (21) at Weber State (23)

Illinois State (24) at Youngstown (8)

South Dakota State (13) at Western Illinois (9)

McNeese (20) at UCA(5)

Sam Houston (6) at Southeastern LA

UNI at North Dakota State (2)

I got a few emails on Sunday asking a couple of good questions about McNeese football . I do not have all the answers, but I think I can answer the most common question asked.

1. Why did McNeese lift the redshirt off freshman cornerback Hanif Mohammad?

My answer to that is I am 100% sure that Hanif did not play in this game due to having knee surgery this past summer. This question comes from a fan seeing a photo in the LCAP that says Hanif was making the tackle on a UIW player. Someone did not do their homework and should know that McNeese has a #18 named B.J. Blunt who plays linebacker.

2. Why did McNeese play freshman Enos Lewis in this game after not playing him all year?

Great observation by a fan noticing that the LCAP also listed Lewis in a photo of intercepting a pass and returning it for a touchdown. First of all, my eyes tell me that the player returning the interception was #21 Calum Foster. However, if the LCAP saw a #27 in the game, it was probably Blake Yorloff who wore #27 on this night. I do think Lewis is still being red-shirted. The roster listed on the McNeese website is as about as reliable as you are going to find this time of the year, but Coach Guidry does swap out players at home that normally may not dress out. Wes Watkins (46) got the opportunity to run the football on Saturday night as well.

3. Why did McNeese elect to kickoff into the wind on Saturday Night?

Good question! I asked the same question as well. The wind was obviously out of the south, but MSU elected to kick from north to south. The 95 yard run on the opening kickoff may have been avoided if the Pokes had kicked South to North.

4. When can we expect guys like Ed Duplessis, Sage Seay, Deondre Skinner, and Brandon Blackwell back on the playing field?

I have asked the same question, but have received few answers. I was told not to expect Seay or Duplessis on the field this year due to leg injuries. Everyone is mum on Brandon Blackwell and Skinner. Blackwell may not be on the team anymore I have been told, while Skinner actually got on the field Saturday night.

5. Another observant fan has noticed that Kent Shelby has fielded several punts inside the 10 yard line and asked if Lance Guidry has the same rule of thumb that NFL coaches use that you do not catch a ball from the 10 on in.

Another excellent question! I did notice that a couple of balls were caught around the 5 or 7 yard line in previous games, but the two against UIW were pretty close to the 10 yard line. I would assume it was Kent’s judgment that UIW had coverage guys in the area that might be able to kill the ball inside the five if allowed to roll.

6. What do you think the line will be for this week’s game at UCA? 

Monday is not a great time to make a prediction, but I have a formula that I have used for many years in setting what I think the line will be for all interested games. For FCS games, you can get some kind of indication by the difference in power ratings as well as factoring in a 2-3 point advantage for playing at home. Strength of schedule plays a part as well. Sagarin’s ratings have UCA #112 in the country with a PR of 58. Sam Houston is #120 at 57 PR, and McNeese comes in at #142 with a PR of 52. So my guess is that UCA will be about a 8-9 point favorite. However, it is Monday and I like to look at factors like injury report, weather, and past performance. The Pokes lost by 35 last year which will show up in a column of data that may push the number even higher.

7. I noticed the offensive line was different several times on Saturday night, why is that so?

For the astute eye, Coach Norton did start a new combination in the offensive line and rotated players in at different positions. It appears that #66 Tyre Johnson did not play on Saturday. Norton moved #78 Jimmy Converse down to his spot at guard and replaced Converse at tackle with #68 Chris Aye. Kyle Zenon #77 and Grant Burguillos #70 were handling the left side of the offensive line while Andy Dodd #75 was the center. However, things got scrambled at times as Coach Norton got Joe Jenkins #53 back and gave him some snaps at left tackle. Joe Latronico #62 is back and replaced Dodd at center in the second half. Much of the second half Collin Fountain #61 played right guard and #79 Donovan Carter played right tackle.

I hope that confused you even more. Not to make matters worst, but in the fourth quarter #74 Blaise Scriber was in at guard, and #68 Caleb Gary was playing as well. I may have missed the movement of positions at times because I was not concentrating on offensive line members. However, I do pay attention to who is lining up and to the best of my memory, these are the guys who played on Saturday night.

CONWAY, ARKANSAS WEATHER FOR SATURDAY ?

If you like cold, crisp football weather, you are going to love Saturday in Conway. It appears it will be in the 50’s during the day and dropping off into the upper 40’s and low 50’s for kickoff. If you are spending the night, it will be your first taste of near freezing temps as Sunday morning is expected to be near 33 degrees. This forecast is certain to change as we found out last week in Lake Charles.

 

 

OCTOBER 22 SUNDAY

I don’t know where to begin because there is just so much to cover. Let me start by telling you a sad story.  I went down to the Credit Union and borrowed money against my wife and kids because I stumbled upon the Lock of the Century . In betting vernacular, this means this horse is going to win by ten strides and the jockey will be laughing all the way to the bank. My lock actually included McNeese vs Incarnate Word. Las Vegas put out a ridiculous Over and Under that I just could not believe. The MSU vs UIW O and U was 61.5 points. Never have I seen such easy money since the “GameHunter” put out LSU as a lock to beat Troy by 30 plus points.

Are you kidding me? UIW may not score against the Poke’s defense, but you can never say never, so I was allowing 7-10 points on turnovers, returns, etc. So I put 7-10 in my formula. Then I looked at the UIW defense and wondered if the McNeese offense could score 40 points? Well, I thought, the way we have been struggling on offense, six touchdowns would be the most I could expect. Okay, 42 plus 7 is 49 points. Even if they scored 10 and McNeese scored 50, I would still win.

Well, let’s just say I am angry, speechless, and leave it at that. The odds of four “pick six’s” in a game is the same as the Pokes rushing for 800 yards in a game. Even with 10 minutes left, I was not worried because UIW was not going to score, and I had called the press box and told the guys to tell Guidry if he threw one more pass I was going to write some stories about his playing days. That did not even work because the UIW quarterback had the vision of Mr. Magoo (only you old farts will get that allusion). I guarantee you he had some money riding on the over to throw that ball five feet over the head of the WR right into the arms of Marcus Foster. Did I mention, I am still angry?

Let that be a lesson to all you young guys who feel you can beat the system. Yeah, Saturday was going to be a great day of college football. We have LSU vs Ole Miss is a barn burner. The media reminded us that Penn State vs Michigan would be the game of the year. Did I mention that NBC said that USC vs Notre Dame would remind us of the classics in the 1970’s and it was a “must see” TV. Yes, and Tennessee was going to scare Alabama. I had at least two geniuses that told me that Alabama can no way cover 37 points against a team as talented as Tennessee. I agreed! I forgot how to add and subtract; can anyone subtract 7 from 45 and tell me if Tennessee covered?

The only thing that I got right on Saturday was betting the Houston Astros. I don’t listen to all of those baseball fans who claim momentum coming out of New York was just too much to overcome. I am sure some are the same people who wrote the 25,000 tweets after the LSU -Troy game claiming Orgeron had to be fired and the LSU season was over .

For us who like to play the lines, we depend on great information from our loyal media folks who certainly would not publish any “fake news.” I am sure that if we publish that Altuve, Correa, and Springer were not making the road trip to Los Angeles, it would not affect anyone’s betting on the game. So why should I expect to get accurate starting lineups for a McNeese football game? I was quite shocked when the McNeese’s first unit took the field and did not look anything like what the LCAP posted in Saturday’s Starting Lineup page.

Let’s see; we have Tyrae Johnson starting at guard, Jimmy Converse at tackle,  Parker Orgeron at WR, T. Battiste at WR, and Trent Manuel at place kicker. I did not know that change had been made.  Nor did I know that Livings and Antoine had made remarkable progress and were starting against UIW.  B. J. Blunt had beaten out Trey Porter at linebacker as well. As to the offensive line, it was nothing like the advertisements. Chris Aye was at tackle, Johnson nowhere to be found, and Converse was at guard. Oh well, I wonder if Altuve will make it to Los Angeles? I need to know.

Ok, enough of the Lewis Grizzard satire.

We have a big week facing us this week, and it will be fun to analyze the two teams and see how they stack up for Saturday. I think the fans are tired of these blowouts and games without great challenge. I am not saying that some of the games have not been close, but just saying that we have not faced a team like UCA this year. UIW was so bad on offense that they did not expose some chances we gave them. Let a WR get five to eight feet behind our secondary, and Hildebrand will not over-throw him by 10 yards.

I thought the Pokes regressed on offense in the first half. The execution was terrible, and offensive line blocking was very sub-par when you consider that this defense gives up 45 points per game. It is good to know that we have some athletes who in space out-maneuvered some of their defenders just on pure moves and running through tackles. You have to look beyond this and see a DE coming unblocked across the line of scrimmage and hitting our back five yards deep as a troubling issue. Twice this occurred and our athlete just bounced off and reversed territory and made yardage. Their DB’s actually diagnosed quick screens and had us for minus 5, but instead they did not tackle and we got positive yards. I saw a lot of this going on in the first half, so it was a failing grade for me on offense.

James Tabary struggled in the first half and was missing his targets at a clip of greater than 50%. In this offense, you must be at 66% or higher. The second half was an improvement as the blocking was more physical and the execution was better. This game almost reminded me of a basketball exhibition that McNeese used to have with some Traveling AAU Band of Merry-men that had played for great college teams in their prime. It would be impressive to beat them, but you never knew whether it was us, or just their game being out of shape, etc.

I applaud the Pokes for taking care of business and continuing to play inspiring defense. I don’t care if you are playing your #2 unit in an August Scrimmage, when you dominate teams and force the punter to ice his leg, you have something positive going. The two young corner-backs who are starting these days have really been fun to watch and are improving by leaps and bounds. In fact, they both returned interceptions for touchdowns.

I am not going to nick- pick all of the mistakes the team made last night on the way to a 55-7 victory. You and I have to get out more if we are going to waste too much time criticizing this game. The one area that has been very poor is the kickoff coverage. I will promise you that the next two opponents will take advantage of great field position by having to drive only 60-65 yards at best, some much less.

There is no doubt that some rust had to be knocked off last night. However, that is done now, and it is time to see what kind of team we have. There were a few penalties in the first quarter that cannot be repeated this Saturday, but I thought with as much substituting that was occurring in the second half, the players focused pretty well.

We have a lot to be thankful for in regards to the weather. Northwestern State’s homecoming was ruined by two interruptions due to storms and both teams had to take a mental beating sitting in the dressing rooms on two separate occasions. UCA ended up winning 45-17. Louisiana Tech had a big conference game with Southern Miss that was ruined by storms and to make matters worst, Tech lost it in the fourth quarter.

If you look at the Southland Conference games from yesterday, you will see the obvious. We have four good teams in the Southland Conference and five below average teams although we know anyone can beat you if you don’t show up to play. I am not disparaging Nicholls State; they just happened to be off and it really demonstrates that the Colonels are certainly better than the other five teams. Now we are about to sort out the Top Four or Five. We will get started in six days when Sam Houston travels to Southeastern Louisiana and McNeese heads to Conway.  The Pokes then host SLU and Nicholls will finish the season in Hammond. As much as it seems that several ties may happen, I think it will all shake out when it is said and done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coach Orgeron’s favorite meal while in Oxford. This is the world famous “chicken on a stick” sold at the 4 Corner’s Chevron in Oxford. This made the rounds this week on the newsfeed among Sports Talk.