Huge test to see where we are at!!

I think this week was a shot in the arm for our offense. They know everyone needs to step up and play.
I expect Trae will try harder to take care of the football instead of forcing it.
Defensively we need to get off the field on third downs. ACU is not as good as us but if we let them get easy plays on late downs it will be difficult to win.

I like your take 03. Got some depth and thought to it. Bravo fellow Lumberjack

I am with you 03 except for the only one bad game part. UTEP was very winnable. The interception in the end zone was a mental mistake. Not open. Check down and pick up a few yards. Get another play. He also missed a couple of receivers that were comfortably open. One in the second quarter going down the right side line that probably would have scored. Better QB play wins that game. And/or, third and long defense, but that's a different story.

Do not take my defense of Self as saying he's the best QB SFA has had in a long time.
I do think he's the best we've had since Zach Conque but where he wins is his intangibles. He is a leader. He has a cannon. And he is athletic, albeit a little gunshy to run.
He does struggle with accuracy at times, and that appears to be a footwork issue as it was with Conque since both were laser accurate in practice. And sometimes his ego does get the best of him, as it appeared to last game where he was just trying to throw the home run ball every single time.
That being said I'm more than confident in his abilities to carry the team moving forward and think next season will be a special year from him.

Enough about the QB. What about the rest of the team.

The receiving corps isn't very deep, but it does noticeably peak with Gipson, Remmy, and Lawton. I would say Lawton is 100% a pure slot receiver and counts a top guy. Outside of them we do need to recruit some more depth there.

Running backs are good. Da'Leon is as good of a back as we've had since Gus Johnson and our backups are also very talented.

Offensive line wise we are talented, but not deep. And with the injuries, we are hurt there. Not Carthel's fault. He is in year 2 of this program and the line is much better than last year, we just need to keep building it.

Defensively we are solid everywhere but the secondary and that's what hurts us. We are just so thin there, and the inexperience shows. If we had our guys healthy it would be a little better but right now it's youth that we are dealing with and young players can only take you so far.

I think Campos will continue to grow as a kicker. Not worried about that. Give him this year to learn his range and work on his accuracy. Our kick and punt return teams are as good as I've seen since Cordell Roberson and Graylon Crawford, and needs to continue to grow and try and get us into good spots.

We are absolutely moving in the right direction and I don't think anyone should read too much into the past two games. The talent gap between D2 and FCS is much, much closer than the talent gap between FCS and FBS. Many D2 stars would be starters for power 5 schools if not for one thing or another. So I'm not too worried about it.

Abilene Christian is our test. We beat them, we are at .500 and can carry that momentum forward. I know we hate Sam Houston saying ACU is our new rival and everything but truthfully this our BOTPW this year. Let's take it to them, finish this crazy COVID filled year out over the next few weeks, and next year focus on adding a new trophy in the case and purchasing hotel tickets in Frisco.

Good discussion points by 03. For me, offensive line is the key and it's where we have had problems for awhile now. Seems like it wasn't many years back that we had a line where guys had played 30-40 games as starters and it was our strength. Now , Carthel is working on getting it back together but injuries and likely not enough depth there yet still holds us back.
I think we can all agree that a top notch O line will improve everyone's game. Self seems much more comfortable and looks very good when he has time and protection. When we have injuries and a makeshift line then he is always on the run (sometimes perhaps too soon) and accuracy goes down. Ward and McGowan and others would be more effective and the passing game improves with time to throw. If Carthel can get us to the point of having a strong 2 deep O line to help cover injuries and such , the offense will reap the benefits.
If things are somewhat back to normal next season and we can add more depth up front, we could be treated to quite the season.

Those Fr. O-line 5 look like they will be good ones.. put them with the 2 soph that played last year also and you start building some serious depth.. Coaches will have our Lumberjacks ready for the one I can promise you 100%..

SFA_03 said:

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In practice Self is miles and miles ahead of the other QBs, plus his leadership is unmatched. He's honestly the first QB SFA has had in a very long time that just does everything he can to keep the players hyped.
Foster Sawyer, Jake Blumrick, Zach Conque, Brady Attaway, and Jeremy Moses were all very stoic, so having a QB who's willing to take that leadership role is refreshing.
He also has really only had one bad game this season passing. I don't count West Texas because he had a TON of passes that were on target and just dropped, so he should have had a monster game against them. And the entire offense outside of Xavier Gipson looked bad against Angelo State, probably overlooking them.

I get the frustrations with the QB when the offense isn't flowing. No one was a bitter critic of Jake Blumrick than I was despite him being in a no win situation.

But I don't think it's quite time to throw away all confidence in Self. If the team still sees him as QB1 then they should back him as QB1 until it's clear that we need to look elsewhere. This year doesn't count but if you decide you're done with your starting QB, go to someone else, and then decide to go back to the old QB when it doesn't work out, you may very well have already wrecked the QBs confidence.

ACU will be the test. If he plays back against the Wildcats then the conversation can start about his ability to lead this offense.

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Nice post 03 appreciate it...

I don't know about needing to recruit more at receiver, especially if everyone gets another year.

We already have 20 receivers on the roster.

Pace
Gibson
Simmons
Miller
Jones
Rikel
Borders
Love
Allison
Wedman
Sowers
Thompson
Banks
and walk ons

With Aune, Arcles, Spence, and Lindo

Ward, maybe the best RB since Loren Easly.

But again it comes down to the OL creating opportunities for the RBs.

I peeped over to ACU's message board just to see what they were talking about in regards to this game and they literally copied and pasted 93's write up. No joke...CTRL C and CTRL V. Needless to say, I didn't learn anything from their perspective other than their confidence in winning. Lol

Pilotgirl said:

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I peeped over to ACU's message board just to see what they were talking about in regards to this game and they literally copied and pasted 93's write up. No joke...CTRL C and CTRL V. Needless to say, I didn't learn anything from their perspective other than their confidence in winning. Lol

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They're just trying to keep Coach Carthel from getting any good information from their boards.

This would be good.

SFA_03 said:

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In practice Self is miles and miles ahead of the other QBs, plus his leadership is unmatched. He's honestly the first QB SFA has had in a very long time that just does everything he can to keep the players hyped.
Foster Sawyer, Jake Blumrick, Zach Conque, Brady Attaway, and Jeremy Moses were all very stoic, so having a QB who's willing to take that leadership role is refreshing.
He also has really only had one bad game this season passing. I don't count West Texas because he had a TON of passes that were on target and just dropped, so he should have had a monster game against them. And the entire offense outside of Xavier Gipson looked bad against Angelo State, probably overlooking them.

I get the frustrations with the QB when the offense isn't flowing. No one was a bitter critic of Jake Blumrick than I was despite him being in a no win situation.

But I don't think it's quite time to throw away all confidence in Self. If the team still sees him as QB1 then they should back him as QB1 until it's clear that we need to look elsewhere. This year doesn't count but if you decide you're done with your starting QB, go to someone else, and then decide to go back to the old QB when it doesn't work out, you may very well have already wrecked the QBs confidence.

ACU will be the test. If he plays back against the Wildcats then the conversation can start about his ability to lead this offense.

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I think you make a valid argument on most points, arguments you might can convince me of. Lots to be desired by lots of players on the team, not just QB1.

However, a QB1 who can keep a team "hyped" and "willing to take the leadership role" is great...if he produces. You're almost insinuating that the "stoic" guys were somehow worse.

To me, all of the guys you claimed were "stoic" are better than Trae Self (except Sawyer)

So...yeah, being the "hype" guy and the "leadership role" guy is great.

I'd rather him be able to hit the 15 yard dig. Or hit a check down. Or throw the out route. Or not force it in to double/triple coverage.

But, that's just me.

I feel Trey is better than Sawyer, Blumrick, Conque, and Attaway... I am sure Tre will have some competition for next year...I bet we go get another QB from somewhere to come in and compete for the job... I wonder what happend to Cam Arnold?

Jacks4460 said:

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I feel Trey is better than Sawyer, Blumrick, Conque, and Attaway... I am sure Tre will have some competition for next year...I bet we go get another QB from somewhere to come in and compete for the job... I wonder what happend to Cam Arnold?

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Cam chose to focus on academics.

MasterAxe said:

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SFA_03 said:

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In practice Self is miles and miles ahead of the other QBs, plus his leadership is unmatched. He's honestly the first QB SFA has had in a very long time that just does everything he can to keep the players hyped.
Foster Sawyer, Jake Blumrick, Zach Conque, Brady Attaway, and Jeremy Moses were all very stoic, so having a QB who's willing to take that leadership role is refreshing.
He also has really only had one bad game this season passing. I don't count West Texas because he had a TON of passes that were on target and just dropped, so he should have had a monster game against them. And the entire offense outside of Xavier Gipson looked bad against Angelo State, probably overlooking them.

I get the frustrations with the QB when the offense isn't flowing. No one was a bitter critic of Jake Blumrick than I was despite him being in a no win situation.

But I don't think it's quite time to throw away all confidence in Self. If the team still sees him as QB1 then they should back him as QB1 until it's clear that we need to look elsewhere. This year doesn't count but if you decide you're done with your starting QB, go to someone else, and then decide to go back to the old QB when it doesn't work out, you may very well have already wrecked the QBs confidence.

ACU will be the test. If he plays back against the Wildcats then the conversation can start about his ability to lead this offense.

---

I think you make a valid argument on most points, arguments you might can convince me of. Lots to be desired by lots of players on the team, not just QB1.

However, a QB1 who can keep a team "hyped" and "willing to take the leadership role" is great...if he produces. You're almost insinuating that the "stoic" guys were somehow worse.

To me, all of the guys you claimed were "stoic" are better than Trae Self (except Sawyer)

So...yeah, being the "hype" guy and the "leadership role" guy is great.

I'd rather him be able to hit the 15 yard dig. Or hit a check down. Or throw the out route. Or not force it in to double/triple coverage.

But, that's just me.

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I certainly didn't mean to make it sound that he's better than Moses or Conque, because he wasn't. Those were rare players you don't get very often. He does still have a lot to grow on, which makes it better that he gets another two years with us to grow. He's shown a ton of growth this year from last year. Last year I would've agreed. But with his development it's clear he's willing to work and improve. So I still see a very high ceiling for him and have a ton of confidence that he will continue to grow.

SFAJack_76 said:

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Jacks4460 said:

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I feel Trey is better than Sawyer, Blumrick, Conque, and Attaway... I am sure Tre will have some competition for next year...I bet we go get another QB from somewhere to come in and compete for the job... I wonder what happend to Cam Arnold?

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Cam chose to focus on academics.

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I was wondering about this too. I hate to say that's a shame but honestly I felt Cam had the potential to be a very good QB.

ACUtrackfan said:

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I am one ACU fan who thinks this game is virtually a toss-up and on Catchat I have picked the 'Jacks to win it. ACU still has a lot of questions to answer about this year's team and 2 games against FBS schools has not given me enough to know if this ACU team is that good or not. The fact that ACU has not played in 3 weeks is also a detriment to any kind of continuity.

I enjoy the job you guys do with The Sawmill -- there is lots of spirited conversation and a great knowledge about SFA athletics. As you can tell from my handle, my #1 sport is T&F and I come on here occasionally to pick up a tidbit or two about Coach Olson's program as well.

Best wishes to SFA this weekend and I hope that both teams come out of the weekend COVID and injury free.

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Thanks for coming by ACUtrackfan.. its always good to hear what the opponents think and such about the games. You guys got some pretty good pole vaulters yourself I believe..

4460, ACU did have some great vaulters in the 80's and 90's -- in the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials, of the 18 vaulters in the competition, 6 were current or former ACU vaulters. Billy Olson would make that team, which boycotted as the Games were held in Moscow. In 1988, Billy made the team (placed 12th) and Brad Pursley was the alternate on that team. However, ACU has definitely handed off the mantle to SFA as "Vaulter U" in the past 20 years. There are no more ACU teams that have 5-6 18 foot vaulters at one time and have not had that kind of depth in the vault in 30 years.

Actually, it has also been a few years since ACU had anyone in the NFL. The last wave of football pros were in the final years of ACU in D-II and a little bit into the transition years. Taylor Gabriel, Charcandrick "Moosey" West, Bernard Scott, Clyde Gates, Johnny Knox, Daryl Richardson, and Danieal Manning were in that last wave and they are all out of the league - Taylor Gabriel retired after the 2019 season.

This game will have a bowl like feel to it (The Purple Bowl), with many FCS football fans tuning in on ESPN3, hungry to watch an actual FCS matchup, not to mention these are fellow conference teams with a good series against each other.

I noticed in the game program, no Myles Heard in the line up.

Gavin Roland listed to start.

SFAXE93 said:

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I noticed in the game program, no Myles Heard in the line up.

Gavin Roland listed to start.

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Roland getting the start maybe.. i know of a few not on that game program that are 100% playing... Coach C is smart he isnt tipping who is available to ACU... We will work every angle we can. All of it adds up...

Putting this here. Fun interview.

SFA +2.5. I honestly thought we would be more of an underdog.

Well, looks like this is gonna be a great broadcast. Impressive!