Charleston Southern

Home games mean something unique to all of us. In our myopic collegiate universe, a home game could mean watching a tethered wild animal parading around a field, or an orange mob rubbing a rock and then stampeding downhill. You might think the height of excitement is when a fat boy strapped to a tuba separates from his mates and dots an "i", or maybe it is just the leaves dropping from the trees and your RV ripping through the country road, gently scything them away as you head the secret back way to your stadium.

Well, unfortunately for our fans and opponents, there is no change in the weather to signal the start of football season in Tallahassee. It is Mumbai hot in August, and umm, just that hot in September. So, when our esteemed Athletic Director is approached by the networks about playing an absolute throwaway game in early September at 12:30, his answer should have been a clear, emphatic "Hell No!". Those of you who think we did not have a choice, look at LSU. They play their home games at 6:30 - every time. Only the National CBS request can move that thing to 3:30, and amazingly enough, the regional networks still carry it. Our Head Coach rants the last two weeks on the short week were not limited to the subject of Monday to Saturday. He was pissed at the start time as well (did you hear him Stan?). This team came out of the locker room in the second half to a field that was recording 115 degrees and full humidity. There were less than 150 students still in their section. Having 2 of those students in our immediate family, we gave these red faced zombies our CC tickets and they stumbled toward the AC in the end zone. This was a game where every single student ticket was claimed (about 18,000), and .008% were left after the first half. If we were playing a meaningful game, there would have been about 500 heat related issues, and that is on the side of the stadium that is not 50+, plied with pregame booze and artery clogging treats. This needs to be fixed and stat.

Tough to glean too much from an opponent already a division below you and decimated by suspensions for doing what their compliance department told them was ok. But some trends can be dissected. our Qb is one tough sonuvagun. He stands in the pocket and knows he is going to be gutted and lets it rip. Not usually a freshman trait. He had a little tunnel vision for our favorite lunch table companion Travis Rudolph at times, but that is not a bad dude to focus on. I do think that he will see an almost exclusive zone approach for the rest of the season for two reasons. First, it is much easier to stop a running QB with back zone principals, as your back is never turned to him. Secondly, he is really struggling to see the intermediate LB's and safeties parked in the middle of the field. He threw 2 terrible picks this way in the Spring game, had one more this week and two additional tosses bounced off Buccaneer hands. The zone buster for Deondre is the check down to the backs and Ryan Izzo. Although Ryan dropped a gift wrapped bomb, he is quickly making us forget that golfers grandson...Nick Nicklaus or something like that. Bobo had himself a game as well. This kid must run just uncoverable routes, because with his size - he needs to be OPEN to hit, and is he ever. In a dramatic departure, we also decided to actually return a punt yesterday. I was convinced that we took our punt returners to Bon Jovi concerts to practice raising their hands and waving back and forth slowly before we ever let them get on the field. But no, CSU comes to town, and we turn the Bobo to GoGo.

I am genuinely concerned that the offseason weight gain has affected our backfield bonzai. He does not have the same step and burst as last season, and it not just an OL issue. Maybe as the season plays out, and he gets more confident in the repaired shoulder, we get to see the old Dalvin, but it is a concern. I know that as lightning fast as I normally am, when I gained 15 pounds, I did indeed lose a little of my natural burn...maybe young Cook has the same issue. After the two false starts on the opening drive, our big uglies had zero penalties. That helps. They were playing kids that could not even walk on at FSU, but at least they were communicating on blitzes and for the most part did a nice job. We got to see two of our freshman in Boselli and Dickerson and both looked pretty solid. This week, we should get both starting guards back so we get a first peak at what is in store for the guts of the season.

The 4,000 of us that were left in the middle of the 3rd quarter all collectively groaned when #3 went off the field on a cart, and have not really started breathing normally since... (might be the 15 pounds). When you have a player this off the charts special, potentially losing him before you play teams like Louisville, Miami, UNC and Clemson is just downright depressing. We will see. I do not fault the staff for playing him at that point. With the blown assignments we have had in the last two games in the secondary, we needed the work, but it feels like you peed your pants in gym class when you lose your best player in the second half of a 42-6 game.  As you would expect, some of the puppies (sorry Jameis) got to impress in this game on defense. Brian Burns is just a stud DE, and will be a 3rd down nightmare for LT's. I liked the two freshman LB's in Jackson and Rice. They both looked plenty big enough to handle more reps, and if we can get Lavonta Taylor to somehow gain about 2 inches on that frame...he must cover Bobo a lot in practice...two little blurs bouncing around the field.

One area of preseason concern is clearly not a worry any longer. Our two young kickers are stupid good. Our kickoff / punter has now sent four kickoffs through the uprights (without wind), which translates to a quad of 75 yard field goals. That would be fun to watch. His punting has also been solid, which is a marked improvement over every other freshman punter since Rohn Stark. Aguayo's apparently just don't miss any kicks their freshman seasons, which seems fine to me...

So, we head to Louisville who is scoring TD's about every 15 seconds and is a superb 1-14 against FSU all-time. Let's win by 1 and move on...