I asked this eloquent and deeply philosophical question on Twitter:

If you make progress (recruiting, size, athleticism, etc), but then take a giant dump on your progress (degenerate gambling on every 4th down, etc), did you really make progress? #GoBeavs @Coach_Smith

But seriously, despite some positives from last night, this is what stands out the most. Smith hasn’t made any progress with in-game management, risk profile, intuition or a feel for odds and probabilities, etc. He also had two incorrect players on the field: Noyer at QB was obvious for all to see, but Champ to me was another problem. I saw the defenders lift his leg and laugh at him at one point. He is just too small. Yeah, one nice catch, but where is Harrison or any of the other dynamic, large, 4-star WRs?

For me Smith’s in-game decisions were once again the glaring problem. It has been an obvious problem since early in his tenure, but there were always excuses. E.g. “no depth at D so he had to go”, but now we have depth, and the D played pretty great all night. It’s pretty obvious to me Smith just likes to gamble on the risky outcome, even if the odds of winning are better with the less risky play. The other problem is he couldn’t ID that Nolan was a much better option to win this game than was Noyer. There is no way this just showed up on game day. The coaches even commented in some Sedge videos they needed Noyer to clean some things up, and when Lingren was pressed he said something like, “just the basic plays have confidence throwing them” or something like this. So what we saw last night was happening in camp. This is some weird recency bias playing out. Because Noyer had a few good games at CU, there was bias toward him. That’s a bad sign if your coach is succumbing to bias rather than results in the present. Also they only seemed to factor in the positive bias and not negative bias (i.e. his brutal TD:INT ratio).

Positives were the players looked appropriate size, we did have some depth, we pressured the QB, played decent vs the run, and found our short-term QB (a day late, a dollar short, as if the Beav way). Bradford looked better than ever. Lindsey was a big positive. Ma boy! Lowe looked decent, though he lacked vision on a few runs and ran right into the defender.

Some negatives were mentioned above but also Fenwick not getting carries – we have an SEC RB who averaged over 5YPC in that conference. Give him touches. Baylor ran for 2.7, so there wasn’t really an excuse.

There were more both positive and negative, but you guys can fill those in. These are the obvious ones that stood out to me and remain with me this morning.

Gooooooooo Beavs!

Sticking with 36-33 good guys.

Well it’s finally here. The days are still warm, but the nights have a crispness in the air, the pumpkins have turned orange and are at size, cinnamon and nutmeg suddenly sound palatable after being ostracized to the back of the cupboard for six months…and the Beavs have our hopes up yet again, only to crush them in five days?

Soon enough we will learn these truths of the universe.

I’m trying to parse out my excitement of having the best roster in 15 years with the reality that key guys are hurt, Noyer is hit and miss and potentially an INT machine, and I’m a biased/excited fan this year. What are the discounts on those things? Coupled with it being a road game, probably 10 to 14 points. Can we realistically overcome that? I’m not sure. I like the offense so much, and I’m such an excited and delusional fan this week, that I’m tempted to say yes.

36-33 Beavs in a stunner. Hayes with a 55 yard heart attack ball that sneaks in to win it.

If Gebbia can’t go, and it’s looking that way, would you rather see Noyer or Nolan start?

From what I’ve seen of Noyer, he has better leadership skills than Nolan. Nolan has the advantage of knowing the offense better. Both seem equally good runners, but Noyer looks a bit thicker in the lower half and like he could maybe break some tackles. He also seems fearless, like a guy who would dive for first downs, etc.

Noyer seems the slightly better pick, but it’s a question of how much Nolan’s experience matters. Lindgren said that Noyer is making mistakes in practice, and he attributed those to not knowing the system yet and/or being hesitant.

This is a tough call. I’d probably give Noyer the slight lean, but I’m not confident in the pick. Hopefully Gebbia can return this weekend and make it all moot.

Saturday’s scrimmage should give insight into the depth chart and player progress. We’ll finally get to see the action rather than read about it, which will allow us to further refine our opinions. Right now we’re mostly going off last year and reporters.

As mentioned in the prior thread, feel free to email me facts, opinions, and observations if you’re going to the scrimmage. I can aggregate it all and make a post-scrimmage thread if there’s enough good stuff.

It looks like you guys are going to get some incredible quasi-Fall (75 high with mixed skies) weather. Enjoy if you’re lucky enough to go.