My aunt came into town tonight and took me out to dinner so I’m just now turning the BC-FSU game on. I wonder if they’re thinking of dismissing their lawsuit against the ACC. Not sure which conference wants a team that loses to Georgia Tech and Boston College and bitches about everything.
Jalen had his third career game of 3 passing TDs and 2 rushing TDs against WKU. No one else has done that once in our entire history.
What’s crazy is you can tell that Jalen, despite obviously being very good, is still nowhere near his potential. The ceiling is the roof for him. And he’s such a personable kid too.
Rank Jalen's best games to date vs P5. The most electric I've seen him look was the LSU game. SECCG against UGA was maybe #2 although it wasn't some sort of offensive explosion. Kentucky last year was pretty good. 2nd half of Tennessee. I think our offense was so vanilla and boring with Rees and Saban , and it took them over half a season to figure out designed runs for the fastest player on the team , that we haven't even seen half of what he is capable of.
There is plenty for them to improve upon offensively after Western Kentucky . Offense looked clunky and out of rhythm for most of the 1st half and relied on big plays (bombs to Hollywood and running backs housing it) instead of developing any sort of rhythm. Also lots of penalities on the OL.
Outside of the penalties , and even with the starting LT on the sideline, I thought the OL was absolutely mashing and mauling . Huge holes for the RBs on most of those big plays.
LSU game was the first time where it really occurred to me that he is the most talented player on just about every field he steps on.
It was nice to see running backs be a home run threat and us block things up front that allowed them to get to the 2nd level and turn a nice play into a big play. We hadn't seen that for a few years, even when we had Gibbs. Just never seemed to be massive holes or plays designed where if blocking was right it was a home run ball - even against lesser talent.
Haynes and Jam are tailor made for this kind of zone scheme. Both are one cut and go guys and if they have the right vision (which it looks like they do) they’re going to be able to pick up some serious chunk plays all year long.
The way everything in this offense - motions, route concepts, etc. - is specifically built to move defenders bodies or eyes and open something else up or get a one on one elsewhere........ beautiful.
Dick Young looked unbelievably slow but he lit up a pass rusher on one play, but Ty had already started to roll out so it was busted.
holding WKU to under 3 yards per pass attempt and 2 yards per rush is insane. the defense really showed up for 4 quarters
The explosive plays on offense were also almost all because of execution, not huge busts or guys just running past defenders. That was very encouraging.
Western Kentucky was down 14-10 with 8 minutes left in the 1st half at Ohio State last year (they ended up losing 63-10). Their other P5 games the last 5 seasons 2023 - L 63-10 @ Ohio State (down 14-10 with 8 mins left 1st half) 2022 - L 33-30 (OT) @ Indiana 2022 - L 41-17 @ Auburn (down 20-17 midway through 3rd qtr) 2021 - L 33-31 @ Indiana 2021 - L 48-31 @ Michigan State 2020 - L 35-21 @ Louisville 2019 - L 38-21 vs Louisville 2019 - W 45-19 @ Arkansas Against us this year - 21-0 end of 1st - 42-0 halftime - 56-0 end of 3rd They aren't great, but they are far from Austin Peay or Murray State. They don't generally get boatraced from start to finish against anybody. Shit our 2016 team might be the best we've had and that team was up 17-3 at halftime and 24-3 after 3 against WKU (that was a pretty good WKU team, in fairness, probably better than this one - Mike White, Taywan Taylor, Forrest Lamp).