Does this one show up? I have trouble with these danged interwebs sometimes

Thanks, SawmillGuy. I love your positive attitude. Fingers crossed that much of what you foresee comes true. I, too, have confidence in Carthel.

BTW, I hope Rutherford gets some meaningful snaps in the Spring and next Fall. He's a good one. (Assuming he doesn't transfer first.)

SFA Jack Fanatic said:

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Thanks, SawmillGuy. I love your positive attitude. Fingers crossed that much of what you foresee comes true. I, too, have confidence in Carthel.

BTW, I hope Rutherford gets some meaningful snaps in the Spring and next Fall. He's a good one. (Assuming he doesn't transfer first.)

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I've worked closely with SFA Athletics for some time and have a little insight onto what's going on. Just a little. This season had a ton of struggles a lot of people didn't know and probably won't know, but the team is good and the talent is good enough to rebound from this.

As far as Rutherford I'm sure Maurer will be the for sure starter. He's not a leader on the team, the team sees him as THE leader, which is invaluable. He had a lot more struggles this year than he or anyone wanted, but the talent is there. I hope a full spring will really help him get his accuracy consistency down, especially under pressure. Kind of has a Rick Vaughn from Major League arm. Sometimes it's a wild throw, but he probably had the strongest arm in the FCS. Just needs to work on setting his feet and stepping into his throws more. When he does he's as accurate as anyone.

I have no doubt the plan for Rutherford is to be the QB of the future for SFA and with Maurer being such a high motor scrambler who takes a lot of big hits, it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibilities to see him get a lot of looks with the 1s not as a starter, but in case he's needed next season.

Wanted to pull these stats before they added the playoff games. Will try to grab defensive stats in the morning.

SFA Offense

Total Offense Rank: 23rd 405 Yards Per Game
Scoring Offense Rank: 37th 29.3 Points Per Game
Yards per play rank: 47th 5.41 Yards per play
RZ Offense Rank: 68th .795 Red Zone Percentage
3rd Down Rank: 74th .363 Conversion Percentage
4th Down Rank: 33rd .581 Conversion Percentage, Tied for most attempts with 43
Completion % Rank: 83rd .564 Completion Percentage, 2nd most pass attempts
Passing Offense: 17th 264 Yards Per Game
Rushing Offense: 67th 141.8 Yards Per Game
Passing Efficiency: 88th 120 Passing Efficiency
Turnovers Lost: 103rd 22 Turnovers Lost

Just at a cursory glance, this offense puts up a lot of yards, but it struggles to finish once we get to the red zone. Also struggle mightily on 3rd down. And those turnovers are a killer.

We also run a lot of plays, we were top 5 on the year for number of plays ran.

Our offense wasn't bad, just couldn't finish, meaning we could never maintain momentum. Part of that was the offensive playcalling. Part of that was going for it on 4th in a lot of field goal situations.

I stand by my statement that our defense was actually pretty good, but if you can't maintain momentum or keep scoring the defense will inevitably break out of fatigue. Remember the JC Harper defenses that were the worst in the FCS, then suddenly a top 25 defense in the first year with Clint Conque? That wasn't Conque's recruiting. It was a consistent offense. Harper's defenses could usually keep the game close in the first half but by the second half teams had run so many plays on us or had so many turnovers our defense would be absolutely gassed by the third quarter and we would allow a ton of yards and points.

At this point our best defense will be a good offense, and a good offense is more than yards. I think Maurer has the potential to be great, and he has a TON of offensive weapons with great receivers and great RBs. But we just need a game plan to put it together and consistently put together good drives.

Again, I love Carthel as our coach and want him to be our guy. Storm has not done a great job leading the offense though. He has a great playbook actually. Lots of creative plays and a really good downfield passing scheme, but he has a hard time of knowing when to use his schemes in a game it seems.

For the example, Maurer was noticeably better as a passer in straight drop back plays instead of RPOs, but we really didn't use them that often. Our rushing attack was usually telegraphed based on the down too and we rarely used counters or trap plays, which worked when we used them.

I would like to see either Storm sit down and really analyze the strengths of our offense or find an OC who will. But a draw on 1st down and a dive out of the shotgun on 3rd and long when we're driving is not it. Especially when it looks like Maurer was in a rhythm.

Not to read too much into this, but was reading through SFA coaching staff backgrounds and while Storm is presently on the website, his bio page is empty.

At first I thought they might have been doing post season updates, but everyone else's bio is available.

Could just be an update in progress though.

Don't see Lusby. Just not ready. Utpb head man calls the offense just like he did at East central Oklahoma. My opinion only

Really good class. Some players who will make an immediate impact on both sides of the ball.