FB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[ForeverFootball]

Well , don't be too hard on him. Adrian's defense has and hopefully will look like that every game.

[Raider 68]

Congrats to Adrian, Albion and Hope on big wins today!

[Mr. Ypsi]

Allegedly Hope won in Alma by a 38-15 margin.  Ignore that!

By the principle of comparative scores, Hope lost at IWU, 35-0; Alma lost at home to IWU by only 17-9; ergo, Hope at Alma lost by 27!

Geez, why do I try to pick winners and losers?!

[ForeverFootball]

Well, you have to be ready for every game.  That is why they play and not just go by how "they did against the other guy".  It should be an interesting MIAA season.

[Uncle Rico]

Final: Adrian 26 Trine 7.  The streak is over folks!  Congrats to Adrian first off.  Better team won today.  I should say the team with the best quarterback won.  Hargraves was...umm...pathetic.  I counted 5 turnovers, 4 picks and 1 fumble.  Kept waiting for Coach Land to make a change, never happened.  We needed a spark...nothing.  Adrian is solid.  Impressive defense, opportunistic offense.  They aren't going to "wow" you.  Trine D actually played pretty well.  Adrian's big plays were "jump balls" to a 6'4" receiver over our 5'8" D back.  All 3 of Adrian's receivers are good though.  They had short fields b/c of all our mistakes and Hargraves ineptness.

I wish Coach Land would have put Blackport in.  Give him a series or two, see if he could get the team going.  I mean last night BYU needed a spark because their starting QB just wasn't getting it done.  And it worked out as they came back to win.

Another huge crowd at Trine...had to be 5000+.  Adrian had a good contingent too.  Again, congrats to Adrian, well done!!

I don't think Blackport would have done any better, and if he were that good he would have been in.  Isn't there another QB above him on the depth chart?  The o-line was the biggest problem, I think.  That is NOT an excuse for a couple of the picks, but also remember Hargraves was running for his life most of the game.  One of Trine's best o-linemen Kill was hurt and not able to play.  No running game at all.  There was one dropped TD pass in the end zone.  Congrats to Adrian, they came to play.   

[formerd3db]

Mr. Ypsi:
I was drinking, yes, but Coca-Cola!  I should have put the phrase in brackets after the "sunny and cooler" so that sentence made more sense!  But, indeed, it was late last evening and I was getting tired when I posted!  Also, as you say, it is hard to try and figure out these teams as it depends on which team version shows up each week.

sflzman:
I believe we DID meet at the bell at halftime, if that was you I was talking to at the field team entry gate near the Victory Bell right after we came out of the locker rooms? (I had sunglasses on)  Didn't we both mention about how poorly the officiating crew was performing?  Nice to see you if that was you!   Also, I guess I did miss Hopewatcher, too.  Anyway, it was a beautiful day for a game.  I'm glad Hope won, although disappointed for you and my brother and clan.  It was nice to see some of my former Alma colleagues and we also got a nice V.I.P. tour of Alma's new athletic facilities after the game.  Anyway, had Alma scored on those two possessions down around the red zone in the first half, I believe it would have been an entirely different game.  Going into the 4th quarter leading 31-0, what we feared might happen, almost did.  Our offense began sputtering (two fumbles), but our defense held and your Alma offense could not convert.  Leister is a strong QB with a strong arm, but unfortunately for Alma, he was not quite on target for most of the day and your receiving corps did not play very well.  Mason is a huge back as you, Ypsi and others have mentioned.  I was surprised to see the "Hope College Style" huge splits on offense.  I think one of the differences today was that Hope's offensive line did some great blocking (a few minor missed assignments, but not too many) and as you mentioned, Jackson's running kept us ahead as he had good holes to hit most of the day.  Our kicking game was good, including FG and PATs.  So a disappointing loss for Alma, but a good win for Hope - a big confidence booster. It was interesting to see that Alma's linemen are of good size and as I've mentioned long ago, our Hope line is bigger this year overall than we've had in recent years I believe. 

One final note: I see where the attendance was listed as 1275.  IMO, that seems to be a little low as while Bahlke Stadium was far from full, it certainly appeared more than 1275 to me (if you include the Kilte Marching Band) - the stadium appeared to me to be about just about 3/4 full on the home stadium side.  I could be wrong, however.  Speaking of attendance, the 5600+ at Trine for today's Trine/Adrian game must have been a very neat experience and atmosphere, except, of course, for the Trine home fans since they lost.  Clearly, this puts Adrian in the current "driver's seat" based on how they have played, but obviously, there is still a ways to go as yet.   Hope still has too tough games in the next two weeks even though they are both "home" games (Kazoo for a night game and Albion for Homecoming the following week) before facing Trine.  So as everyone would agree, we all have to take this one game at a time.

[formerd3db]

I forgot to expound on sflzman's mention about the officiating today.  Indeed, it was, unfortunately, not very good (I am saying that diplomatically ).  They missed and/or just did not make calls for either team.  Moreover, what was further disappointing is that they just seem to not be in control i.e. one example is a well-over 30 second delay in calling an intentional grounding in the first half; another in the second half was the call of roughing the kicker on a punt, which IMO, was made only after hounding by the coaching staff on several of those occasions well before then.  Make the right call, don't wait for "make ups" or try to even aspects out.  Unfortunately, this particular crew was not very attentive and did not watch things closely and reacted very slowly. Holding by linemen was simply missed or IMO, just not called all day long. Again, this was not one-sided, but rather affected both teams.  I hope we (Hope) don't get this same crew again this year - it will be very disappointing and...I think this was more than "just a bad day" for these refs.  Just MO.

[ThunderHead]

Upon the thought of a possible long term move out west, I felt I needed to see at least one last Trine game, and home coming seemed to be it. So I donated my MSU vs OSU tickets to a friend and headed to Angola.

SO - here it is.

If we give credit to Coach Land when things go well, then it's fair he shares in the blame for the absolute failure of a football performance I saw today.

Ryan Hargraves was an absolute abomination to the quarterback position, and Coach Land, Coach Simmerel, and Coach Pifer ALL deserve the blame as well.

HOW do you let a kid throw 4 interceptions (he would have thrown five but two Adrian guys literal pulled the ball away from each other with no Trine receiver around them), fumble twice (one of which was recovered by WR Nash-Kniffen), complete less then half his passes, and NEVER consider pulling him.

Ryan looked like a JV level quarterback who 1. looked pre-snap to his throwing side 2. locked in on his intended receiver throughout the route and threw to said receiver despite coverage package 3. never identified the zone under coverage developing after the snap 4. threw the ball with little to no velocity 5. had no accuracy in tight vertical space 6. threw into double and triple coverage 7. never made decisive decisions within the pocket that resulted in sacks 8. looked like he simply didn't want to be out there. He showed no interest in getting Trine to the line in the 3rd and 4th quarter, and could not have done a better job of mis-managing the clock, averaging snaps well under the 20 second mark on the play clock. They were snapping the ball like they had the lead...

AND yet Coach Land, apparently blind to it all, just let it ride, and was more interested in yelling at the officials then  addressing the fact his team was getting the screws put to them by an aggressive Adrian defense, and an impressive front four. What was just as ridiculous to watch was after Trine had lost about 25 yards on two sacks (including a 4th down sack) late in the 4th quarter with the game out of reach, Coach Land starts calling timeouts under 2 minutes, apparently not wanting Ryan's night to end on the multitude of negatives that were eye blisteringly apparent. So what happens? Trine gets the ball back after using it's timeouts and the game ends with Ryan throwing his 4th interception on a sadly under thrown ball into double coverage. Well played....

It has been more then clear all year Hargraves has severally lacked the arm strength and mobility to take Trine to the level they want to go (competing for National Championships and I'm sorry, but throwing for a billion yards against one bottom feeder for two quarters in the Heartland conference hardly qualifies one as "solid"), but again, a weak non-conference schedule completely "hid" this inept offense, though if you paid attention, it'd be hard to not realize that Trine's offense has played only about 3 good quarters of football out of a total of 12.

How ANY coach didn't see this is mind boggling to me. The "offensive issues" both on the ground and in the air, that were all to apparent against Adrian have been there all year, and Trine finally played a team that their defense couldn't bail out. (Albeit their secondary leaves much to be desired.)

For goodness sakes Coach, you have a kid Raush you highly recruited out of Wisconsin and a former D1 QB in Blackport sitting on your bench, how about giving one of those guys a chance? I HIGHLY doubt they'll do worse then what I saw today. Until I SEE Blackport do worse Uncle Rico, I couldn't disagree with your comments more.

Sorry Coach, I don't for a second by the argument that either of your backup QB's are not ready to run an offense as simple as you showed today. If that's the case, it a reflection on the coaches teaching the offense, not the guys in the offense.

But I'm sure you'll play a few weak teams, get yourself "right" while sticking to your guns with Hargraves, and mentally overate yourself (again) and then get beat by Albion or Kalamazoo to end the year, and that will be that. You'll call your overall record a success because of the youth on the team and the rebuilding process, but for at least for today it has a lot to do with the way this team is being coached.

Congrats to Adrian, you used a combination of zone and man defense to completely shut down Coach Land's 3 call playbook, and on offense, you took advantage of a Trine secondary that has shown itself deficient against the air to the deep seams and deep quarters all year long.

You guys deserved the win, my hats off. Hopefully we start to play the best players.

[ForeverFootball]

It sure didn't seem like 5000+ at the Trine game today.  From what I have read, Adrian had 4300 at their homecoming last week, and it seemed like a lot more people there.  Standing room only, a few people deep.  How many does the new home side seat? It didn't seem very large, but then, I am comparing it to Adrian's home side.  And I do know that our visitor side is much smaller.  But you are right, if your qback was getting sacked and throwing interceptions, play someone else.  Anyone can do that.  But the dogs did come to win, they knew they could do it.  But I honestly thought  it was going to be a closer game. 

[Uncle Rico]

Upon the thought of a possible long term move out west, I felt I needed to see at least one last Trine game, and home coming seemed to be it. So I donated my MSU vs OSU tickets to a friend and headed to Angola.

SO - here it is.

If we give credit to Coach Land when things go well, then it's fair he shares in the blame for the absolute failure of a football performance I saw today.

Ryan Hargraves was an absolute abomination to the quarterback position, and Coach Land, Coach Simmerel, and Coach Pifer ALL deserve the blame as well.

HOW do you let a kid throw 4 interceptions (he would have thrown five but two Adrian guys literal pulled the ball away from each other with no Trine receiver around them), fumble twice (one of which was recovered by WR Nash-Kniffen), complete less then half his passes, and NEVER consider pulling him.

Ryan looked like a JV level quarterback who 1. looked pre-snap to his throwing side 2. locked in on his intended receiver throughout the route and threw to said receiver despite coverage package 3. never identified the zone under coverage developing after the snap 4. threw the ball with little to no velocity 5. had no accuracy in tight vertical space 6. threw into double and triple coverage 7. never made decisive decisions within the pocket that resulted in sacks 8. looked like he simply didn't want to be out there. He showed no interest in getting Trine to the line in the 3rd and 4th quarter, and could not not have done a better job of mis-managing the clock, averaging snaps well under the 20 second mark on the play clock. They were snapping the ball like they had the lead...

AND yet Coach Land, apparently blind to it all, just let it ride, and was more interested in yelling at the officials then then addressing the fact his team was getting the screws put to them by an aggressive Adrian defense, and an impressive front four. What was just as ridiculous to watch was after Trine had lost about 25 yards on two sacks (including a 4th down sack) late in the 4th quarter with the game out of reach, Coach Land starts calling timeouts under 2 minutes, apparently not wanting Ryan's night to end on the multitude of negatives that were eye blisteringly apparent. So what happens? Trine gets the ball back after using it's timeouts and the game ends with Ryan throwing his 4th interception on a sadly under thrown ball into double coverage. Well played....

It has been more then clear all year Hargraves has severally lacked the arm strength and mobility to take Trine to the level they want to go (competing for National Championships and I'm sorry, but throwing for a billion yards against one bottom feeder for two quarters in the Heartland conference hardly qualifies one as "solid"), but again, a weak non-conference schedule completely "hid" this inept offense, though if you paid attention, it'd be hard to not realize that Trine's offense has played only about 3 good quarters of football out of a total of 12.

How ANY coach didn't see this is mind boggling to me. The "offensive issues" both on the ground and in the air, that were all to apparent against Adrian have been there all year, and Trine finally played a team that their defense couldn't bail out. (Albeit their secondary leaves much to be desired.)

For goodness sakes Coach, you have a kid Raush you highly recruited out of Wisconsin and a former D1 QB in Blackport sitting on your bench, how about giving one of those guys a chance? I HIGHLY doubt they'll do worse then what I saw today. Until I SEE Blackport do worse Uncle Rico, I couldn't disagree with your comments more.

Sorry Coach, I don't for a second by the argument that either of your backup QB's are not ready to run an offense as simple as you showed today. If that's the case, it a reflection on the coaches teaching the offense, not the guys in the offense.

But I'm sure you'll play a few weak teams, get yourself "right" while sticking to your guns with Hargraves, and mentally overate yourself (again) and then get beat by Albion or Kalamazoo to end the year, and that will be that. You'll call your overall record a success because of the youth on the team and the rebuilding process, but for at least for today it has a lot to do with the way this team is being coached.

Congrats to Adrian, you used a combination of zone and man defense to completely shut down Coach Land's 3 call playbook, and on offense, you took advantage of a Trine secondary that has shown itself deficient against the air to the deep seams and deep quarters all year long.

You guys deserved the win, my hats off. Hopefully we start to play the best players.

I still contend the bigger issue is the o-line and lack of a run game.  Should have taken the msu vs OSU tickets.   

[ThunderHead]

Upon the thought of a possible long term move out west, I felt I needed to see at least one last Trine game, and home coming seemed to be it. So I donated my MSU vs OSU tickets to a friend and headed to Angola.

SO - here it is.

If we give credit to Coach Land when things go well, then it's fair he shares in the blame for the absolute failure of a football performance I saw today.

Ryan Hargraves was an absolute abomination to the quarterback position, and Coach Land, Coach Simmerel, and Coach Pifer ALL deserve the blame as well.

HOW do you let a kid throw 4 interceptions (he would have thrown five but two Adrian guys literal pulled the ball away from each other with no Trine receiver around them), fumble twice (one of which was recovered by WR Nash-Kniffen), complete less then half his passes, and NEVER consider pulling him.

Ryan looked like a JV level quarterback who 1. looked pre-snap to his throwing side 2. locked in on his intended receiver throughout the route and threw to said receiver despite coverage package 3. never identified the zone under coverage developing after the snap 4. threw the ball with little to no velocity 5. had no accuracy in tight vertical space 6. threw into double and triple coverage 7. never made decisive decisions within the pocket that resulted in sacks 8. looked like he simply didn't want to be out there. He showed no interest in getting Trine to the line in the 3rd and 4th quarter, and could not not have done a better job of mis-managing the clock, averaging snaps well under the 20 second mark on the play clock. They were snapping the ball like they had the lead...

AND yet Coach Land, apparently blind to it all, just let it ride, and was more interested in yelling at the officials then then addressing the fact his team was getting the screws put to them by an aggressive Adrian defense, and an impressive front four. What was just as ridiculous to watch was after Trine had lost about 25 yards on two sacks (including a 4th down sack) late in the 4th quarter with the game out of reach, Coach Land starts calling timeouts under 2 minutes, apparently not wanting Ryan's night to end on the multitude of negatives that were eye blisteringly apparent. So what happens? Trine gets the ball back after using it's timeouts and the game ends with Ryan throwing his 4th interception on a sadly under thrown ball into double coverage. Well played....

It has been more then clear all year Hargraves has severally lacked the arm strength and mobility to take Trine to the level they want to go (competing for National Championships and I'm sorry, but throwing for a billion yards against one bottom feeder for two quarters in the Heartland conference hardly qualifies one as "solid"), but again, a weak non-conference schedule completely "hid" this inept offense, though if you paid attention, it'd be hard to not realize that Trine's offense has played only about 3 good quarters of football out of a total of 12.

How ANY coach didn't see this is mind boggling to me. The "offensive issues" both on the ground and in the air, that were all to apparent against Adrian have been there all year, and Trine finally played a team that their defense couldn't bail out. (Albeit their secondary leaves much to be desired.)

For goodness sakes Coach, you have a kid Raush you highly recruited out of Wisconsin and a former D1 QB in Blackport sitting on your bench, how about giving one of those guys a chance? I HIGHLY doubt they'll do worse then what I saw today. Until I SEE Blackport do worse Uncle Rico, I couldn't disagree with your comments more.

Sorry Coach, I don't for a second by the argument that either of your backup QB's are not ready to run an offense as simple as you showed today. If that's the case, it a reflection on the coaches teaching the offense, not the guys in the offense.

But I'm sure you'll play a few weak teams, get yourself "right" while sticking to your guns with Hargraves, and mentally overate yourself (again) and then get beat by Albion or Kalamazoo to end the year, and that will be that. You'll call your overall record a success because of the youth on the team and the rebuilding process, but for at least for today it has a lot to do with the way this team is being coached.

Congrats to Adrian, you used a combination of zone and man defense to completely shut down Coach Land's 3 call playbook, and on offense, you took advantage of a Trine secondary that has shown itself deficient against the air to the deep seams and deep quarters all year long.

You guys deserved the win, my hats off. Hopefully we start to play the best players.

I still contend the bigger issue is the o-line and lack of a run game.  Should have taken the msu vs OSU tickets.   

On the tickets your might be right , however the O-Line or lack of running game didn't force Hargraves into throwing the ridiculous interceptions he did, and they were ridiculous. It also doesn't negate Coach Land's poor decision not to pull him in favor of guys who couldn't have done any worse.  And I have no problem agreeing with TUA, I want to see Blackport.

[Uncle Rico]

Upon the thought of a possible long term move out west, I felt I needed to see at least one last Trine game, and home coming seemed to be it. So I donated my MSU vs OSU tickets to a friend and headed to Angola.

SO - here it is.

If we give credit to Coach Land when things go well, then it's fair he shares in the blame for the absolute failure of a football performance I saw today.

Ryan Hargraves was an absolute abomination to the quarterback position, and Coach Land, Coach Simmerel, and Coach Pifer ALL deserve the blame as well.

HOW do you let a kid throw 4 interceptions (he would have thrown five but two Adrian guys literal pulled the ball away from each other with no Trine receiver around them), fumble twice (one of which was recovered by WR Nash-Kniffen), complete less then half his passes, and NEVER consider pulling him.

Ryan looked like a JV level quarterback who 1. looked pre-snap to his throwing side 2. locked in on his intended receiver throughout the route and threw to said receiver despite coverage package 3. never identified the zone under coverage developing after the snap 4. threw the ball with little to no velocity 5. had no accuracy in tight vertical space 6. threw into double and triple coverage 7. never made decisive decisions within the pocket that resulted in sacks 8. looked like he simply didn't want to be out there. He showed no interest in getting Trine to the line in the 3rd and 4th quarter, and could not not have done a better job of mis-managing the clock, averaging snaps well under the 20 second mark on the play clock. They were snapping the ball like they had the lead...

AND yet Coach Land, apparently blind to it all, just let it ride, and was more interested in yelling at the officials then then addressing the fact his team was getting the screws put to them by an aggressive Adrian defense, and an impressive front four. What was just as ridiculous to watch was after Trine had lost about 25 yards on two sacks (including a 4th down sack) late in the 4th quarter with the game out of reach, Coach Land starts calling timeouts under 2 minutes, apparently not wanting Ryan's night to end on the multitude of negatives that were eye blisteringly apparent. So what happens? Trine gets the ball back after using it's timeouts and the game ends with Ryan throwing his 4th interception on a sadly under thrown ball into double coverage. Well played....

It has been more then clear all year Hargraves has severally lacked the arm strength and mobility to take Trine to the level they want to go (competing for National Championships and I'm sorry, but throwing for a billion yards against one bottom feeder for two quarters in the Heartland conference hardly qualifies one as "solid"), but again, a weak non-conference schedule completely "hid" this inept offense, though if you paid attention, it'd be hard to not realize that Trine's offense has played only about 3 good quarters of football out of a total of 12.

How ANY coach didn't see this is mind boggling to me. The "offensive issues" both on the ground and in the air, that were all to apparent against Adrian have been there all year, and Trine finally played a team that their defense couldn't bail out. (Albeit their secondary leaves much to be desired.)

For goodness sakes Coach, you have a kid Raush you highly recruited out of Wisconsin and a former D1 QB in Blackport sitting on your bench, how about giving one of those guys a chance? I HIGHLY doubt they'll do worse then what I saw today. Until I SEE Blackport do worse Uncle Rico, I couldn't disagree with your comments more.

Sorry Coach, I don't for a second by the argument that either of your backup QB's are not ready to run an offense as simple as you showed today. If that's the case, it a reflection on the coaches teaching the offense, not the guys in the offense.

But I'm sure you'll play a few weak teams, get yourself "right" while sticking to your guns with Hargraves, and mentally overate yourself (again) and then get beat by Albion or Kalamazoo to end the year, and that will be that. You'll call your overall record a success because of the youth on the team and the rebuilding process, but for at least for today it has a lot to do with the way this team is being coached.

Congrats to Adrian, you used a combination of zone and man defense to completely shut down Coach Land's 3 call playbook, and on offense, you took advantage of a Trine secondary that has shown itself deficient against the air to the deep seams and deep quarters all year long.

You guys deserved the win, my hats off. Hopefully we start to play the best players.

I still contend the bigger issue is the o-line and lack of a run game.  Should have taken the msu vs OSU tickets.   

On the tickets your might be right , however the O-Line or lack of running game didn't force Hargraves into throwing the ridiculous interceptions he did, and they were ridiculous. It also doesn't negate Coach Land's poor decision not to pull him in favor of guys who couldn't have done any worse.  And I have no problem agreeing with TUA, I want to see Blackport.

At least you are consistant...you have wanted Blackport since before the season started.    I believe games are won and lost in the trenches, and Trine is not winning it there.  Failure at that level snowballs into everything else.  A qb constantly worried about the pressure is going to make mental mistakes.  And Trine cannot fall back to the run to help stabilize and control the flow of the game. 

[sflzman]

Former: I DID talk to you LOL I know that, I had said to hopewatcher that formerd3db and I missed you (as in hopewatcher) bc we didn't see him, tho I did talk to you. Sorry about the confusion there.

And also it was very nice to meet you, too bar the game couldn'tve been a little better.... 

[ThunderHead]

Upon the thought of a possible long term move out west, I felt I needed to see at least one last Trine game, and home coming seemed to be it. So I donated my MSU vs OSU tickets to a friend and headed to Angola.

SO - here it is.

If we give credit to Coach Land when things go well, then it's fair he shares in the blame for the absolute failure of a football performance I saw today.

Ryan Hargraves was an absolute abomination to the quarterback position, and Coach Land, Coach Simmerel, and Coach Pifer ALL deserve the blame as well.

HOW do you let a kid throw 4 interceptions (he would have thrown five but two Adrian guys literal pulled the ball away from each other with no Trine receiver around them), fumble twice (one of which was recovered by WR Nash-Kniffen), complete less then half his passes, and NEVER consider pulling him.

Ryan looked like a JV level quarterback who 1. looked pre-snap to his throwing side 2. locked in on his intended receiver throughout the route and threw to said receiver despite coverage package 3. never identified the zone under coverage developing after the snap 4. threw the ball with little to no velocity 5. had no accuracy in tight vertical space 6. threw into double and triple coverage 7. never made decisive decisions within the pocket that resulted in sacks 8. looked like he simply didn't want to be out there. He showed no interest in getting Trine to the line in the 3rd and 4th quarter, and could not not have done a better job of mis-managing the clock, averaging snaps well under the 20 second mark on the play clock. They were snapping the ball like they had the lead...

AND yet Coach Land, apparently blind to it all, just let it ride, and was more interested in yelling at the officials then then addressing the fact his team was getting the screws put to them by an aggressive Adrian defense, and an impressive front four. What was just as ridiculous to watch was after Trine had lost about 25 yards on two sacks (including a 4th down sack) late in the 4th quarter with the game out of reach, Coach Land starts calling timeouts under 2 minutes, apparently not wanting Ryan's night to end on the multitude of negatives that were eye blisteringly apparent. So what happens? Trine gets the ball back after using it's timeouts and the game ends with Ryan throwing his 4th interception on a sadly under thrown ball into double coverage. Well played....

It has been more then clear all year Hargraves has severally lacked the arm strength and mobility to take Trine to the level they want to go (competing for National Championships and I'm sorry, but throwing for a billion yards against one bottom feeder for two quarters in the Heartland conference hardly qualifies one as "solid"), but again, a weak non-conference schedule completely "hid" this inept offense, though if you paid attention, it'd be hard to not realize that Trine's offense has played only about 3 good quarters of football out of a total of 12.

How ANY coach didn't see this is mind boggling to me. The "offensive issues" both on the ground and in the air, that were all to apparent against Adrian have been there all year, and Trine finally played a team that their defense couldn't bail out. (Albeit their secondary leaves much to be desired.)

For goodness sakes Coach, you have a kid Raush you highly recruited out of Wisconsin and a former D1 QB in Blackport sitting on your bench, how about giving one of those guys a chance? I HIGHLY doubt they'll do worse then what I saw today. Until I SEE Blackport do worse Uncle Rico, I couldn't disagree with your comments more.

Sorry Coach, I don't for a second by the argument that either of your backup QB's are not ready to run an offense as simple as you showed today. If that's the case, it a reflection on the coaches teaching the offense, not the guys in the offense.

But I'm sure you'll play a few weak teams, get yourself "right" while sticking to your guns with Hargraves, and mentally overate yourself (again) and then get beat by Albion or Kalamazoo to end the year, and that will be that. You'll call your overall record a success because of the youth on the team and the rebuilding process, but for at least for today it has a lot to do with the way this team is being coached.

Congrats to Adrian, you used a combination of zone and man defense to completely shut down Coach Land's 3 call playbook, and on offense, you took advantage of a Trine secondary that has shown itself deficient against the air to the deep seams and deep quarters all year long.

You guys deserved the win, my hats off. Hopefully we start to play the best players.

I still contend the bigger issue is the o-line and lack of a run game.  Should have taken the msu vs OSU tickets.   

On the tickets your might be right , however the O-Line or lack of running game didn't force Hargraves into throwing the ridiculous interceptions he did, and they were ridiculous. It also doesn't negate Coach Land's poor decision not to pull him in favor of guys who couldn't have done any worse.  And I have no problem agreeing with TUA, I want to see Blackport.

At least you are consistant...you have wanted Blackport since before the season started.    I believe games are won and lost in the trenches, and Trine is not winning it there.  Failure at that level snowballs into everything else.  A qb constantly worried about the pressure in going to make mental mistakes.  And Trine cannot fall back to the run to help stabilize and control the flow of the game. 

You're right, and you're right.  I have wanted Blackport since day one, and I still want to see him, as do several others. Especially when the starter throws 4 picks.

I also agree with you about protection, but when a defense doesn't respect a kid's arm they bring 7 to the box while fronting coverage and defending the air using shallow, man and under concepts, thus all the picks. If you have a guy who can extend the play, with an arm that can stretch the field both horizontally and vertically, they can't commit more then 6 to the box, and that can set up the run, and obviously aid yourself in protection.

This pressure is partly brought on by Ryan's own deficiency. It's been happening throughout the year and I'd go so far as to say it's now a common theme. Expect to see more of it. 

[formerd3db]

sflzman:
Oops, my bad!  What an idiot I am! It must have been the residual effects of that "stuff" that Mr. Ypsi said I was drinking last night when I was posting!  While initially reading your post, I was thinking to myself (second guessing myself? ) in that I couldn't have been that mistaken in my own mind that that wasn't you I was talking with!!   .  Bottom line is...I mis-read your post - I see that now i.e. see the comma placement in your sentence. Anyway, without question, it was nice to meet you as well and I enjoyed our discussion.  BTW, do you have any additional ideas/insight with regards to my thoughts about today's attendance?  I still believe there were more than 2,000 at today's game, at least from my past experience of being at games at Bahlke Stadium. Just curious. 

Also, on the topic of attendance, I also noted ForeverFootball's comment about the attendance at the Trine/Adrian game today.  Adrian's stadium capacity is listed at 3,000, so a listing of 4,300 if there was standing room only would not be unrealistic.  (In comparison, Alma's Bahlke Stadium has a capacity of 4,500, not the 4,700 figure listed on d3.com's summary page for them, unless you guys added additional seating with the turf and scoreboard renovations this summer, of which I don't think that happened, nor did the seating capacity or stadium itself look any different to me than it has been for many years).  As far as Trine, they had attendance last year consistently over the 4,000 mark and their stadium capacity is listed at 5,000. So if those stands were full and they had people standing around also, as well as the fact that it was a game the calibur of an MIAA championship game today there among the two previously undefeated teams, the 5,600 figure doesn't sound unrealistic to me.