Friday, July 14, 2017
Hattiesburg, MS -- The Golden Eagles had no answer for Texas State's new and improved offensive attack. Bobcats quarterback Jordan Moore put on an aerial assault from the beginning, which eventually broke the school's record for passing yards per game. The final tally in the air was 33/49, 497 yards, 3 touchdowns. Texas State receiver Isaiah Battle reached over 200 yards receiving, tight end Bradley Miller hit the 100 yard mark, and receivers Brandon Smith and Andy Erickson both were close to 100 yards as well. Moore also threw two interceptions, indicating that the kinks weren't completely worked out. Still, before Southern Miss knew it, they were down 21-3 at the half. And they could never recover.
You never know if Southern Miss took this game lightly or what, but one thing is for sure. This is a much improved offensive attack coming from the Bobcats. There is something to be excited about going forward.
What looks to be TX State's toughest challenge is Texas Tech in week four. Then you have teams who are always extremely tough like Louisiana-Lafayette, Arkansas State, and Western Kentucky, so it's just not going to be easy. There's no other way to put it. But hey, that's why they play the games. Anything can happen and the fan base is looking forward to some football in San Marcos.
Prediction: 5-7 and just missing bowl eligibility.
8/31 - at Southern Miss
9/7 - Prairie View A&M
9/14 - BYE
9/21 - at Texas Tech
9/28 - Wyoming
10/5 - at Louisiana-Lafayette
10/12 - Louisiana-Monroe
10/19 - Georgia State
10/26 - South Alabama
11/2 - at Idaho
11/9 - BYE
11/16 - at Arkansas State
11/23 - Western Kentucky
11/29 - at Troy
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Both Jordan Moore and Tyler Arndt looked very capable in this system. There were your typical drops that you saw last season, but each receiver had a good grasp of where to be at the right time. So things can only improve from here.
There were a lot of "trio" sets displayed, meaning three receivers to one side of the field with the middle receiver on the line. The defense couldn't find an answer for it, and when they stacked heavily to the Trips side, the read option would gouge them on the ground. There was also a lot of Spread football being played. We saw some air raid, and it seemed to open lanes up for running backs Terrance Franks and Tim Gay to go off. Finally, we saw some I-formation and a very competent zone running scheme. They even seemed to be able to audible out to the pass with great success when the defense stacked the box.
Although this may seem like an indication to start worrying about the defense, there were some interceptions that gave us hope. Safeties Justin Iwuji and Brandon Jones each had an interception, and cornerback Xavier Daniels had two. Let's just hope that this is due to a good defensive performance and not because of quarterbacks still learning the system.
Taking the snaps this year, in a surprising change, is redshirt freshman Jordan Moore, a 6'2" 203 pounder from Katy Texas. We talked with coach Dennis Franchione and he said Jordan is picking up the new system faster than everyone else, and also has the arm to make the throws needed in this new scheme. Senior Tyler Arndt was expected to start in his final year of eligibility, and and we're hoping this doesn't cause any friction in the locker room. But the coaches are quite confident that this is the right decision going forward.
The running back position will be primarily manned by Terrance Franks, a 5'10" 210 lb Junior from Angleton, TX. He looks to be slotted to carry the workload, but we will probably see him spelled by Tim Gay, a 5'11" 231 lb sophomore from Houston, TX from time to time.
Moore will be throwing to receivers Isaiah Battle (5'11" 195 lbs senior), Brandon Smith (6'2" 170 lbs sophomore), and Andy Erickson (5'10" 175 lbs senior) who seems poised to play the slot receiver. At tight end we will have Bradley Miller (6'5" 229 lbs junior), and we are told to expect a lot of 11 Personnel sets. So these are the guys you'll see catching most of Moore's throws.
As far as defense, they're playing a 4-2-5 and I look for safeties Justin Iwuji (5'11"/204 senior) and Aaron Matthews (6'3"/193 senior) to make an impact, as well as JUCO transfer at linebacker David Mayo (6'2"/228 junior). To be quite honest, we're not expecting much different from the defense this year and maybe that's a good thing, as it may be much more stable than the experiment taking place on the other side of the ball. Time will tell.
At the very least (and most realistically as expectations go) we hope to see a competitive product on the field this year. With Franchione getting his guys in this third year of his tenure, things could improve. But they're going to need a lot of things to go their way.
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
O'Bradovich comes from Missouri State University where he was the offensive coordinator, leading his offenses to multiple school and conference records as well as the FCS national title in 2012. But Sean's body of work is probably what made Franchione believe he could be the next big thing in football. Although O'Bradovich was a former marine and didn't attend a division 1 college, let alone play since high school, he started his coaching career in 2003 as an assistant in a Kansas City area high school. He quickly displayed his prowess for developing talent and creating schemes that left defenses baffled. By 2006 he had been promoted to head coach, and in 2007 he won his first of two straight 5A State championships. In 2009, he took a job as an offensive assistant with Missouri State and became coordinator by 2011. As mentioned before, Missouri State broke passing records on their way to an eventual 2012 FCS championship.
O'Bradovich's offensive system is reminiscent of the way the Run and Shoot offense tore up defenses in the 80s and early 90s. It seems to take a tone of keeping the pressure off of his defense as much as possible by inversely keeping pressure on the opponent's offense to keep up. It'll be interesting to see if that style of "score quickly and often" can still work at the FBS level.
To put it simply, I don't have it in me. Of course, I went too fast with it and jumped teams twice to ultimately become an unstoppable Texas A&M team within four years of my coaching career. But the biggest reason I walked away from competing with the big dogs in the forum is because the time it took to make it look legit just burned me out. The constant photo editing, formatting, and keeping up with stats actually took the fun out of the game for me. But there is an element in reporting which makes the game more fun, so I do want to document my progress as I start over while learning from my past mistakes.
So my plan is to start with Texas State again, this time in 2013 in the Dennis Franchione era. This will not have the bells and whistles that keep our interest like in the dynasty forums. This will be strictly in journalistic and story telling form, but if I feel an itch to add a pic here and there, I will.
And so begins my new (and hopefully improved) Texas State dynasty.
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