Tuesday, November 09, 2004
SC 28 OSU 20
OK, Reggie bush is a freak. Every time he touched the ball I would cringe and hold my breath. We just gave him one too many chances on punt returns and he hurt us. Like LSU, I would have been fine with a butt kickin', hey they are frankly a better team than we are. But to see them on that night, SC was beatable. Missed opportunities in the first quarter lead to only a 6-0 lead, but through 3 we still only trailed by one. The Bush return and no life from our offense (more on this to come) lead to the final result. A good effort, especially from the D, but once again falling short.
Let's talk about Mike Riley. A friend of mine made a comment and it seems to ring more true the more I watch the Beavs play. To quote him "Under Riley the Beavs will never win a game they aren't supposed to." Now, LSU aside, I mean how many times do you miss 3 extra points in one game (Serna nominated for national kicker of the year), this just keeps happening. See ASU, USC, Cal, etc. I mean when you are playing the #1 team in the country you are going to have to do something special to win. You are not going to do it on skill alone. Where is some miss-direction, fake FG, on-side kick (See Belotti's consecutive on-side kicks vs. Cal)??? Hey, look is that Dwight Wright running outside the tackles??? Hey that worked nice, too bad it took us 8+ games to give that a shot. Show me some creativity and fire. And how about those pre and post-game talks. Come on Mike, just once show me that losing hurts and that you will do whatever it takes to avoid that feeling in the future. Looks like there is a bigger club already established that is a little more extreme on this stance.
Well, the path forward is clear. Win two games and go to a bowl, possible even the Sun bowl. End with a 6-5 record, with all 5 loses being to top 20 teams, and lots of what ifs. At this point I think the season is a failure regardless of what happens from here out. Riley is wearing on my patience. We took a chance at LSU and lost, we had #1 on the ropes and didn't take advantage and lost to mediocre ASU. I don't think anything of significance happened this year that could springboard the program going forward. A win over the quacks never hurts, but we had better opportunities that again passed bye.
Let's talk about Mike Riley. A friend of mine made a comment and it seems to ring more true the more I watch the Beavs play. To quote him "Under Riley the Beavs will never win a game they aren't supposed to." Now, LSU aside, I mean how many times do you miss 3 extra points in one game (Serna nominated for national kicker of the year), this just keeps happening. See ASU, USC, Cal, etc. I mean when you are playing the #1 team in the country you are going to have to do something special to win. You are not going to do it on skill alone. Where is some miss-direction, fake FG, on-side kick (See Belotti's consecutive on-side kicks vs. Cal)??? Hey, look is that Dwight Wright running outside the tackles??? Hey that worked nice, too bad it took us 8+ games to give that a shot. Show me some creativity and fire. And how about those pre and post-game talks. Come on Mike, just once show me that losing hurts and that you will do whatever it takes to avoid that feeling in the future. Looks like there is a bigger club already established that is a little more extreme on this stance.
Well, the path forward is clear. Win two games and go to a bowl, possible even the Sun bowl. End with a 6-5 record, with all 5 loses being to top 20 teams, and lots of what ifs. At this point I think the season is a failure regardless of what happens from here out. Riley is wearing on my patience. We took a chance at LSU and lost, we had #1 on the ropes and didn't take advantage and lost to mediocre ASU. I don't think anything of significance happened this year that could springboard the program going forward. A win over the quacks never hurts, but we had better opportunities that again passed bye.
