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Post by rc on Sept 21, 2024 23:24:45 GMT -6
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Post by johnnyutah on Sept 22, 2024 0:26:55 GMT -6
Getting on my soapbox for a minute. I haven’t been following ACU football for all that long but it seems to me that this board is crowded with a bunch of Negative Nellies. This season the Wildcats have become semi relative in D1 FCS for the 1st time in school history. That is something to be celebrated. Winning football games at ANY level is VERY hard to do. I wish some of you arm chair QBs had a clue about how much work goes into getting ready to play a game. The biggest problem I see with the program right now is the lack of home field support. I have never seen a group of 11,000 people sit on their hands and be so quiet in my life.
"Vaya con Dios"
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Post by jCat on Sept 22, 2024 7:31:57 GMT -6
By game #4, you start to have a good idea of what the season will look like, but it's hard to tell with this group. We could compete for the conference championship or finish in a distant 5th or 6th place. The Cats are that hot and cold.
The Cats have no reason to drop in the polls after losing by 3 at home to the #4 team, but there is little margin between mediocrity and winning at this level. Hopefully, we'll clean up the little things that are so costly.
As the season goes on, maybe we'll win more 50/50 balls (or at least not lose them). Our coverage on intermediate and deep routes has to improve, or we won't be able to keep up with this conference. We'll get picked apart.
The pair of Central Arkansas RBs will break off 50+ yard runs if we don't tackle better.
Offensively, I was pleased with our line. They battled pretty well and gave McIvor time to throw. There were running lanes between the tackles all night, which was encouraging.
McIvor was 11-24 early in the third quarter with a little over 100 yards and 2 ints. Then, when we were trailing big, he flipped a switch and completed 15 of his next 22 for 184 yards and 2 TDs. The Vandals seemed to fade a bit, but all of a sudden, receivers were open everywhere.
The Vandal coaches called a brilliant game. They showed the reverse early (which we played well), hit us with the pass off that action after a key penalty had deflated the D, and opened 3Q with another back-breaking reverse. On D, their coaches dialed their secondary in to blanket McIvor's crossing routes. They were never open, and we couldn't get the ball to Martinez or Taylor until our late rally. Their only mistake was being a little headstrong about running out the clock and putting away their passing game.
I don't want to be negative, as there are many positives. Hopefully, we can take these out-of-conference lessons to heart.
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Idaho
Sept 22, 2024 8:16:58 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by bogeyman on Sept 22, 2024 8:16:58 GMT -6
1st game at Wildcat stadium was a blast. The tailgating area was impressive. The crowd was impressive. The whole experience was everything I had hoped for. Why we came out flat as a team I don't know but 4 games in and it begins to be a pattern. McIvor seemed to get locked in on his primary receiver and throw to him even if covered. Our OL gave him time to throw and really gave him a good pocket to move up in. They also made some good holes for our backs. In the 2nd half when McIvor went to Graham and Cleveland suddenly Martinez and Hill were open. I also was dismayed at how many times we missed tackles or allowed Idaho to run thru or break our first tackler to the ball. We have to defend the pass better. In the 1st half their receivers were wide open on most routes. I think Tyson Williams is going to be a great DB for us and maybe Mukes but they are a little light on experience right now. "It' time for them to take the next step." The UCA game in 2 weeks could be the make or break game for us. Lots to be proud of for this game and this team. A break here and there, a breakaway, an interception and we could be on our way. I'm really pulling for us to be the surprise of FCS. Two losses, by 1 pt to Texas Tech and by 3 pts to #4 Idaho. So very close.
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Idaho
Sept 22, 2024 8:17:27 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by catsfan871 on Sept 22, 2024 8:17:27 GMT -6
Getting on my soapbox for a minute. I haven’t been following ACU football for all that long but it seems to me that this board is crowded with a bunch of Negative Nellies. This season the Wildcats have become semi relative in D1 FCS for the 1st time in school history. That is something to be celebrated. Winning football games at ANY level is VERY hard to do. I wish some of you arm chair QBs had a clue about how much work goes into getting ready to play a game. The biggest problem I see with the program right now is the lack of home field support. I have never seen a group of 11,000 people sit on their hands and be so quiet in my life. "Vaya con Dios" Yeah…the games have no atmosphere. The people don’t necessarily care about the game around here. No true tailgate atmosphere, no buzz around town, can’t watch the game at a bar unless they have ESPN+. Students get bored because there’s no atmosphere. This is horrible to say but it’s almost as if they could sell alcohol to keep people at games.
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Post by Outsider on Sept 22, 2024 9:47:05 GMT -6
Getting on my soapbox for a minute. I haven’t been following ACU football for all that long but it seems to me that this board is crowded with a bunch of Negative Nellies. This season the Wildcats have become semi relative in D1 FCS for the 1st time in school history. That is something to be celebrated. Winning football games at ANY level is VERY hard to do. I wish some of you arm chair QBs had a clue about how much work goes into getting ready to play a game. The biggest problem I see with the program right now is the lack of home field support. I have never seen a group of 11,000 people sit on their hands and be so quiet in my life. "Vaya con Dios" We are not negative nellies. We are very realistic and honest (actually get complimented by other fan forums often). There is a huge difference. The quietness of the ACU crowd has ALWAYS been a reality. **I suggest you go read the Vandals fans comments, and they won...** "Vaya con Dios"
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Idaho
Sept 22, 2024 10:40:58 GMT -6
Post by rc on Sept 22, 2024 10:40:58 GMT -6
I can't find the Vandals current board, only the old ones. Any link to the current forum they use?
I did read a news story where their coach called us formidable opponent.
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Idaho
Sept 22, 2024 11:01:47 GMT -6
via mobile
bucfan and rc like this
Post by acumedic on Sept 22, 2024 11:01:47 GMT -6
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Post by bucfan on Sept 22, 2024 13:23:32 GMT -6
Lots of talk on there about the brutal Texas heat.
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Post by bogeyman on Sept 22, 2024 13:31:49 GMT -6
Had a hankering for BBQ and found a local place in Marlin. Lo and behold Trent Pullen's dad came in and we had a great conversation. Super guy. Also said Trent has 2 more years of eligibility and will enter Masters program at ACU. He loves it at ACU.
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Post by rc on Sept 22, 2024 14:23:29 GMT -6
In the club eating area I got to meet Maverick's Dad, Rick, who was a tall strong guy for sure -- the ex-QB for the UT Austin Longhorns. Anyway a couple of far West Texas fellows now from Fort Davis) both knew my wife's family very well. I told Rick I had seen his TD pass to win the Arkansas game so we had a nice conversation. The retired coach Dewitt Jones showed up and talked about years ago when he tried to recruit Mav's father to ACU. Well, now the son is here. They reminded me that Rik has yet another year of eligibility, or so they thought. I did not know that. Anyway Mav is working on a graduate degree.
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Post by houstoncat on Sept 22, 2024 16:36:23 GMT -6
Getting on my soapbox for a minute. I haven’t been following ACU football for all that long but it seems to me that this board is crowded with a bunch of Negative Nellies. This season the Wildcats have become semi relative in D1 FCS for the 1st time in school history. That is something to be celebrated. Winning football games at ANY level is VERY hard to do. I wish some of you arm chair QBs had a clue about how much work goes into getting ready to play a game. The biggest problem I see with the program right now is the lack of home field support. I have never seen a group of 11,000 people sit on their hands and be so quiet in my life. "Vaya con Dios" We are not negative nellies. We are very realistic and honest (actually get complimented by other fan forums often). There is a huge difference. The quietness of the ACU crowd has ALWAYS been a reality. **I suggest you go read the Vandals fans comments, and they won...** "Vaya con Dios" From my experience johnnyutah, this forum is extremely negative. You'll learn to skim some poster's comments who are particularly negative.
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Idaho
Sept 22, 2024 17:01:02 GMT -6
Post by Outsider on Sept 22, 2024 17:01:02 GMT -6
We are not negative nellies. We are very realistic and honest (actually get complimented by other fan forums often). There is a huge difference. The quietness of the ACU crowd has ALWAYS been a reality. **I suggest you go read the Vandals fans comments, and they won...** "Vaya con Dios" From my experience johnnyutah, this forum is extremely negative. You'll learn to skim some poster's comments who are particularly negative. You want Kool-Aid. Remember how Tech fans melted when they beat us? The same thing happens with multiple other forums. Here you get positive, negative and everything in -between. The truth is, we made another great comeback last night, but at the cost of another extremely slow start with lack of adjustments. Idaho is one of the toughest defenses in FCS and they began to wear down as we adjusted. We also got outcoached again for a large part of the game. Too many pass plays took too long to develop and McIvor, as usual took too long to decide. Now, how much of that is execution and how much was play calling? The result was that the passing game was out of rhythm a lot, again. When we did more quick passes to the flats and over the middle, we got a rhythm going again. Also, even with the multiple bad calls, we continued to make too many fundamental mistakes that should not be made by game 4. Many of those hurt drives, again. This time the team was too good for us to overcome our mistakes and slow start. The reality is that we are good enough to beat Idaho. We showed it last night. We are a good team that is garnering respect. The other part of that reality is that we should be further ahead than we are. Teams have made our potent offense inept for large parts of games when they game plan and execute well. That's true for not just Idaho, but also a decent UNC that got crushed by SFA last night 48-7. Fix our mistakes and improve our discipline and we can hope for a playoff spot, as well as compete in the play-offs. Otherwise, as well as we are playing, the FCS field is full of teams like us where the margin of winning and losing seasons is so very narrow it's not funny. We saw that last year. We are on the verge of that this year, and we still don't know if that corner has been turned. I am glad we showed we can come back and compete against higher nationally ranked teams, but we were dominated for most of the game before we made a game of it. We look forward to turning that corner and winning against higher nationally ranked opponents. That's not being negative, that's being fair. "Vaya con Dios" and "Dios los bendiga"
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Idaho
Sept 22, 2024 17:19:36 GMT -6
Post by Outsider on Sept 22, 2024 17:19:36 GMT -6
I know it's a long way, but would love it if some Vandals faithful made it out. Oh, and Kudos to Idaho fans. They actually had a very large turnout considering the distance they had to travel. I hope they enjoyed the game and the atmosphere.
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Idaho
Sept 22, 2024 18:20:48 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by acumedic on Sept 22, 2024 18:20:48 GMT -6
From my experience johnnyutah, this forum is extremely negative. You'll learn to skim some poster's comments who are particularly negative. You want Kool-Aid. Remember how Tech fans melted when they beat us? The same thing happens with multiple other forums. Here you get positive, negative and everything in -between. The truth is, we made another great comeback last night, but at the cost of another extremely slow start with lack of adjustments. Idaho is one of the toughest defenses in FCS and they began to wear down as we adjusted. We also got outcoached again for a large part of the game. Too many pass plays took too long to develop and McIvor, as usual took too long to decide. Now, how much of that is execution and how much was play calling? The result was that the passing game was out of rhythm a lot, again. When we did more quick passes to the flats and over the middle, we got a rhythm going again. Also, even with the multiple bad calls, we continued to make too many fundamental mistakes that should not be made by game 4. Many of those hurt drives, again. This time the team was too good for us to overcome our mistakes and slow start. The reality is that we are good enough to beat Idaho. We showed it last night. We are a good team that is garnering respect. The other part of that reality is that we should be further ahead than we are. Teams have made our potent offense inept for large parts of games when they game plan and execute well. That's true for not just Idaho, but also a decent UNC that got crushed by SFA last night 48-7. Fix our mistakes and improve our discipline and we can hope for a playoff spot, as well as compete in the play-offs. Otherwise, as well as we are playing, the FCS field is full of teams like us where the margin of winning and losing seasons is so very narrow it's not funny. We saw that last year. We are on the verge of that this year, and we still don't know if that corner has been turned. I am glad we showed we can come back and compete against higher nationally ranked teams, but we were dominated for most of the game before we made a game of it. We look forward to turning that corner and winning against higher nationally ranked opponents. That's not being negative, that's being fair. "Vaya con Dios" and "Dios los bendiga" What tells you that we should be “farther along than we are”? Losing to a p4 team in OT? Or losing to a former FBS team and now #4 FCs team by 4? Farther along than what? A small Christian school trying to win?
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