Opening Games Heads Up

GoSooners · Jun 10, 2009

TOOTIGHT said:
GS,

You may also want to throw in the fact that Mike Locksley is facing sexual harassment accusations to boot. Not exactly a good start.

http://www.illinoisloyalty.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=9027

Locksley was an ample OC for Illinois but wasn't exaclty a show stopper. Most Illini fans weren't heartbroken when he got the promotion and left. His offense isn't too hard to learn but if you don't have an option capable QB, there could be plenty of 1st year hard knocks. We have all seen his spread offense at Florida and Illinois. He had great athletes on offense at both schools (Good O-lines, Chris Leak, Deshawn Winn, Juice Williams, Reshard Mendenhall) but now he isn't working with anywhere near the talent. He got the job because he is a great recruiter but he was out matched more than once vs. average coaches and isn't known for having the best games plans. I will add that he was absolutely horrible at finding ways to get Regis Benn the ball on bubbles screens and running plays at Illinois. Needless to say, him and Zook were a great recruiting tandem, however, when it came to making good coaching decisions, they either got lucky or looked down right incompentent.

I will check into the QB situation and skill positions at New Mexico and get back to you guys....

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Right now I'm looking at this game from a NM standpoint, with brand new players having to learn new schemes altogether. They are moving from a 3-3-5 defense that they've used for many years to a 4-3 this year. I can see a lot of confusion when they hit the road for the first time. I also think Texas A&M's O-Line will be a mismatch for the NM D-Line. Now the bad news: NM was a good running team last season. If you want to know how they beat Zona and some of their other wins look no further than their running game. The Texas A&M defensive front will need improvement over last season's unit, or they'll get outyardaged like they did against NM last season (370-236 yds). Also, even though NM went 4-8 last season, they were in pretty much all of their games except the Tulsa game. And they lost 3 games by 5 points or less. Now the bad news for NM. Non-BCS teams with new coaches with less than 10 starters returning have a terrible ATS record. Now I'm starting to sound like Marc Lawrence. But these are just the facts. As far as the Aggies go, my biggest concern is their defense. This is what I'll be monitoring this summer. To see how much progress they've made.

TOOTIGHT · Jun 10, 2009

Some more bad news for New Mexico is the QB they want starting was injurred early last year and has still not recovered. He may not be ready for the first few games. Throw in the new system he has to learn and it makes it even harder to get back on the field. The freshman QB that played the rest of last season didn't do very well dispite a good O-line and strong rushing attack. They loose their 1100 yard, 13 TD, feature back to graduation as well most of a bad defense.

On a positve note they have a solid O-line coming back and a solid RB waiting to step in.

Still with the problems they have on defense and a 1st year coach they should not be in the drivers seat to cover a lot of games.