Saturday's Game vs. Liberty

[elcid83]

I am really looking forward to getting back to Boiling Springs after spending the last 4 weeks away. During that time, we lost 2 games to DI opponents and we had a really good chance against Ohio until we made a couple of mistakes near the end of the 2nd quarter. Until that time, we played very well and looked like we had a chance at a W. It's kind of been downhill for us since that moment.

Now that we get into Big South Conference play, here's hoping we get the offense and defense adjusted so our boys get a good chance to be competitive. I was surprised that Samford was able to effectively throw the ball against us last week. It does seem like the D line had a difficult time putting pressure on their QB and this has to improve for us to be successful in the conference. There is a ? at QB for Saturday as Chandler Browning had a hip pointer and backup Exavier Johnson suffered a separated shoulder against Samford. Both are questionable for Saturday.

I look forward to seeing everyone under the oaks on Saturday morning.

Go Runnin' Bulldogs!

[SlyFox]

I'm anxious to see what happens Saturday as well. Mike Brown is banged up as welll on our side.

PS - Looking forward to your pics from the game.

[gwalphachiba]

Stay focused on the job of winning the football game, pick each other up, play like your hair is on fire, don't get too high or too low, and dedicate the game to #32 RB Juanne Blount.

Go Runnin' Bulldogs!

[bigtime]

[garddawg]

Oct 8, 2011 19:33:27 GMT -5 bigtime said:

Bigtime: That sums it up for me. I would simply add: :

[SlyFox]

It simply wasn't your night. The good news is that you won't ever have to face Mike Brown again.

Wishing you guys the best the restbof the way. We'd love to see you guys knock off CCU or Stony Brook for us.

[elcid83]

There is no question that Liberty was the better football team yesterday and it would have been very difficult for GW to beat them. We are not good enough to give the ball away easily and/or make silly mistakes. We do not have the horsepower to make the necessary comeback. Also, I was disappointed that we didn't even consider going for the first down in the 3rd quarter when we had 4th and 1 to go.

I am truly concerned about 2 things:

1. For some reason which I am unable to explain, we are having a very difficult time getting the football in the end zone. We can move the ball around the field fairly easily until we get to the red zone - then, we seem to lose all momentum. Perhaps it is time to evaluate our offensive tendencies and see if there is room to modify our approach once we reach the red zone.

2. We seem to be having great difficulty getting our defense in position to provide a proper challenge to opposing offenses. Liberty's use of the tight end post pattern pass is my best example of this. Tommy Shaver posted 1/2 of his 2011 receiving yards against our D [110 yds yesterday]. If he had posted 10 more yards, he would have accounted for almost 1/3 of Liberty's passing yards against GW. The reason he stood out to me [and I'm no trained analyst] is that he caught 4 passes about 15-20 yds from the line of scrimmage and he was wide open on all 4 passes. Obviously, Liberty saw this weakness in our defensive scheme and was able to easily take advantage of it. It was difficult to watch as the TE had no one within 10 yds of him and he had many yds of running room after the catch [one of which resulted in a LU TD].

Hope this doesn't come across as overly critical. I'm merely offering my honest [and admittedly non-professional] assessment. One of my favorite quotes of all time came from Theodore Roosevelt ["It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."] I realize that I am violating this quote.

My hope is that we will find a way to open up our offense and our defense before we play PC so that our boys have a chance to really show what they can do.

Go Runnin' Bulldogs!

[gwebb1994]

Let's hope the Calvinists down in Clinton are predestined to lose next Saturday.

[unk96]

Here is the bottom line. We had better get a passing game and better learn to defend against the pass. On defense, guys are just open by three or four yards and then we tacklle them, and thats not counting the tight end(By the way, after the first or at least the second catch someone should have let someone else know that that was his man to watch. And on offense we get no seperation at all from defenders. Either the routes are being run bad or we are too slow or its just too predictable. The only thing we can do is run the ball and stop the run. But that can only last for so long. Thats why we slow down in the red zone. No ability to throw the ball. The QB has time most of the time but no one is open or it takes forever for them to get a little step open now its too late. This has been an ongoing problem and is not getting better. Defenses are loading the box because we do not scare them at all with the pass. I thought the QB did a good job with his first start. Again we had too many drops also. Also, special teams gave up points again basically with the fumbled kick return. Same things keep killing us!! Gotta do something.

[gwalphachiba]

Hopefully the GWU coaching staff, GWU admin & admissions, students, alums, and fans can analyze the #35 FCS Liberty, #17 FCS Samford, #44 FBS Wake Forest, #67 FBS Ohio teams and plays - then quickly work toward building a solid Top 50 FCS Football team at GWU.

Liberty lost to #73 FBS NC State 21-43, lost to #10 FCS James Madision 24-27, and loss to #9 FCS Lehigh 24-27.

Mars Hill beat Brevard 28-14 two weeks after GWU beat Brevard 34-17.