Louisville

First, let me put the rumors to rest. No, that was not my wife engaged in a post game debate with the Head Coach this week. Now, on with the blog…

We have more losses at home this year that we had in the decade of the 90's. Let that misery / amazingness sink in for a second and you can appreciate why things are unhappy in Mudville. For all my readers, Seminole Football is far and away our favorite reality program in our week and indeed our year. Somehow, Jimbo seeing the script formula that Game of Thrones used to drive incredible ratings -where they kill a favorite character every episode - thought "Hey, let's lose home games in dramatic heart palpitating fashion every week and see if the fans like us even more!". Spoiler alert - we don't. We like garnet dragons annihilating the enemy and then drinking ale for days kind of episodes.

Here is the ultimate problem that this team and coaching staff needs to deal with. Last year, after our home devastating loss to Clemson at Doak, a young collegiate at our tailgate was inconsolably sobbing. After the game this week, she was happily visiting with all her cohorts under our tent postgame. She told us "I'm used to losing now…it's ok!". No, no, no it is not ok. But, that in a nutshell is the issue going forward. The culture that Jimbo worked so hard to rebuild when he took over in 2010 is in danger. Recruits want to play for teams that win and believe there is no other option. This team has lost four close games, three of which were in front of our hopeful new freshman class. The kids not only don't know they will win, they are starting to believe the worst. You can see it in their body language. Name me a fan that felt like we were going to win when the pigskin fell out of Blackman's hands. This is some tough sledding folks, and I sure hope we can mush our dogs out of it.

All of us are frustrated with the "Inches and we are close" platitudes that the Head Coach utters in his post game wake every week. From his offensive tunnel, I actually get it. You can see both James Blackman and the entire offense getting better every week. Again, the kid can sling it. The touchdown throw to Noonie with a bad guy in his face was an absolute dime. He obviously has some incredible chemistry with Auden, although anything thrown in his zip code is going to be caught. The one bummer with these two was the miss in the first half on the crackback screen right before the Ricky miss. That was a brilliant call and was truly "inches" from a walk-in TD. The second pick was "inches" from a brilliant game tying toss, and clearly the badly conceived last offensive call was "inches" from not costing us the game. If you saw Jimbo fall to his knees on the sideline when James fumbled, you knew that his passion to win has not waned.

I know this Cardinal defense is only slightly more effective that the 1941 French Guard, but the offensive line and Izzo controlled the line for most of the game. Our QB is not ready to call blitzes and he needs Eberle to help him more here, because that is clearly our achilles heel. Cam and Jacques had clear running lanes again, and if the 40 yard line monster had not tripped up Cam on one run by inches, another quick TD would have been on the board. I did see that we have eschewed the extended Lawrence Dawsey dance, dance, revolution play signals in favor of obnoxious signs hoisted by young pups. It did not however appear to accelerate the play calling. Even down 14, we were moving like a snail on sedatives. The good news with this glacial execution is that the defense had time to go back in the field house - break down film - change cleats and come back into the game fresh as Summers Eve. It worked twice, but at the end when the offense failed for the last time - there was no doubt how this prom was going to end…with our hero chasing the acne-infused girl who is going to reject him and then come out of the closet at the end of the night.

I have obviously beat the Kelly drum to death, but I again have to wonder what in the world we look at all week leading up to the game. Hint, the first reigning Heisman winner to ever come to Doak can really run. Maybe, unless we have escaped to Crazytown, we should have focused on stopping this blur from…ummm…running. My theory, and I certainly could be mistaken, would be to have AT LEAST the same amount of defenders at the line of scrimmage as they did. But, after weeks of exhaustive film study, our staff felt that our 4 lineman and 1 or (bonus) 2 linebackers could take on their 8 guys in the box. The plan was clear. We need three of our four lineman to beat double teams, have one of our linebackers somehow get outside both the TE and FB smashing them inside and then hope that our safeties who started the play 20 yards back can tackle the lightning fast greased leopard that is Lamar Jackson. I have absolutely no idea why this ingenious scheme struggled to execute (or for that matter why Jackson ever chose to throw the ball).  But alas, struggle it did. Wasting Josh Sweat, Matthew Thomas and Derwin James this season is just killing me.

Please know that I am a huge fan of Jimbo Fisher. He falls on every sword, never calls out a player or an assistant coach, and generally handles himself in a manner that makes all of us Bowden disciples proud. But, clearly he cracked this week. You simply can not negatively engage a fan. Ever. I would also love for him to dump some or all of the rhetoric that has grown more than tiresome. The truth is that we may indeed be close (inches) from winning, and in fact with Deondre would probably be 5-1. But, we are not Florida State right now. Beating Wake and Duke with seconds to spare and then losing the other four in the same fashion is not what we should be. New QB or not, when you have way better players than ten out of twelve teams you play, you need to be blowing folks out. Not having every game come down to one play, and certainly not ruining an entire season of tailgates for your most valued constituents. I know he does not want to lose his team or be so realistic that the season falls apart. But, how about a little open and honest pissed off Jimbo in the postgame presser? Then, those of us in the parking lot moping about like drunk rats in a maze feel like our leader is with us and not inches away from Fantasy land...

My aforementioned masochist (and wonderful) wife and I are heading to Boston on Friday. We will be the only non football parents in the stands, so pray for your idiots from Tampa.