The annual Beating of the Bulldogs™ is in the books and it was a doozy. If your ticker survived the Friday night thrillride, we salute you. A lot of thoughts on the game are cluttering up my head right now, so I'll go ahead and upload them to free up space for Bowling Green. Glad to have this one in the rearview, that's for sure.
- 35,000 fans at the game. Really, Fresno State? You have a top ten team and a hated conference rival come into town and you can't even sell the place out?
- The defense. While it's hard for them to inspire as much awe as they did previously after the off-night in the Valley, I still think this unit is fine. They're kind of like the Deathstar...ominous and imposing...deadly even, but with a small design flaw that makes them explode. Luckily, this Deathstar survived the onslaught and Wilcox can patch up that hole with a little Deathstar spackle.
- Winston Venable turning himself into a human missile might have been the coolest thing I've seen in a while. That's the kind of reckless abandon that we need on this defense. (at the 3:10 mark in the video below)
- Ryan Colburn may have had a Brandstater-esque outing against the Broncos, but the kid is tough. I'll give him that. Tevis and his stinger-inducing hit on Colburn made my teeth hurt.
- Austin Pettis has sticky hands. The kid just does not drop passes and I'll say it again: the corner fade route to Austin Pettis is undefendable. THE CORNER FADE ROUTE TO AUSTIN PETTIS IS UNDEFENDABLE!!
- It's very nice to have Titus Young back. Young is just giving a supreme effort this year, his kick return abilities and yards after the catch are really making a difference. Him jumping on Jeremy Avery's endzone fumble was a key play in the game and a real teaching moment for the coaches: never give up on a play.
- We need to play every game in southern California. Something about that environment flips a switch inside Jeremy Avery and DJ Harper. Those were some sick moves.
- Kirby Moore is now two games in after the ceremonial burning of the redshirt and he hasn't caught a pass. I'm getting more than a little impatient. Or as the Statesman would put it: Moore than a little impatient.
- 7 INTs in 3 games and only one player (Tevis) has more than one
- If I see one more drive-killing fumble, I'm going to write a strongly worded letter to the Statesman (that's the most passive-aggressive reaction I could think of).
- Kellsy has 8 TDs and just 1 INT in three games this year. Those stats are well ahead of last year's pace, but Moore just doesn't seem as dominating, yet. I really think the pass protection wasn't there in the Fresno game and our receivers aren't consistently getting open or making the difficult grabs (exception: Pettis). The loss of Jeremy Childs is glaring at times. I'm certainly not complaining...just sayin'.
- Billy Winn will play on Sundays.
- Kinda seemed like the entire secondary held a meeting and all decided to have an off-night on the same night, didn't it? Winston Venable did not get the memo.
- Ryan Matthews ate our lunch. Jeremy Avery drank their milkshake.
- Fresno is a good squad that I really think will win 8 to 10 games this year. Their defense is a tad porous, but heck, so was ours on Friday. Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part because we really need to throw some glitter on some of our wins, but Fresno seems to have some of their swagger back.