Week 10 thoughts..
Just a really satisfying team-win. We clicked in pretty much every department.
We made some offensive game plan changes going into this one. One of which was to vary the types of running plays we attacked with. We got Reggie Pollard more designed runs and it worked well. He ran for 50 yards. Obviously, Mike Hicks had a really nice game. Dixon Horner got fewer carries than he's now used to.
The other game plan change we made was to try and make our passing game less big-play oriented. We felt like it was important to get Pollard into a rhythm in the short passing game and it worked. The small plays turned into big plays and Pollard to Cash was a really nice combo.
Although Nolan Ramsey won POW, Howard Scott actually led the way on the offensive line. Randy Bartee and Kerry Bradley surprisingly weren't on their A game but Scott dominated, going 5 for 8 in KRO's. Les Dicaprio struggled again, allowing 2 sacks. Claude Flynn is going to get the start next week. We just felt like Lawrence Cooper wasn't quite ready.
The pass rush was on for us again defensively. All four of our sacks came from the defensive line, with Troy Manning adding 2 more and Andrew White getting his first career QB takedown. Vinny Houck continued his recent strong play with a sack himself.
Wade Lake has had a tough freshman season as he's been thrown right into the fire. He showed up in this one though. He only had 7 passing snaps but really defended the run well with 7 tackles, including one TFL. He also recovered a key fumble in the redzone to help flip momentum.
One continually weak spot this year has been at punter. Mickey Hoffman's takeover at the position has yielded very little change. He punted 4 times in this game and averaged just 29.5 yards per kick. It's a position we'll continue to evaluate our options at.
After two consecutive wins, we head on the road to take on 2-6 Vanderbilt.