I slept on it before posting, but here it is:
We struggled to figure Samford out most of the entire first half. However from the last drive in Q2, we clearly had them figured out and opened up a "can-of-whoop-***" on them. Then to let those garbage drives (for TD's) just left a HUGE bad taste in my mouth & the coaches and players need to know that is all anyone was talking about after the game. Imagine winning a play-off game (in eventually a convincing fashion) and feeling like you lost the contest? We have got to have more pride in ourselves.
Sure, we did fumble and the Samford coach should have put in some back-ups when they were down 24-points with less than 3-minutes to go; but he did not, so we needed to respond in kind. We did fumble; but folks we let them score twice in 2:49 and they went the length of the field both times. The Bulldogs have some pride and I could have lived with the one TD against back-ups, giving them 17 ...but then to let them do it again, just exposed every single weakness in our defense for JSU to watch. I am ecstatic to win a play-off game again, but I feel somewhat empty & the players/coaches should have seen this. Once again this is all anyone was talking about.
People of Youngstown ...Shame on you. Your failure to support your team disgusts me. I grew up with Thanksgiving being the start of the post-season and my favorite Holiday for just this reason. Who gives a darn about the Buckeyes? You live in the Valley & that place should have been packed. This is coming from a man who lives in Columbus, Buckeye fan and a proud father of a daughter that graduated from OSU. Yet I drive to Youngstown every weekend. If you learned anything watching the OSU game, learn this ...the scarlet & gray sold 104k tickets and there were no empty seats. I know it has been a while. but YSU football needs to once again become part of our culture and I expect coach Bo, Ron Strollo and even President Tressel to be much more vocal when this hopefully becomes a habit in the Valley once again. To the fans in attendance ...congrats on being so vocal and supportive ...it was awesome and prideful to hear and see.
good luck next week ... hope see you some of you there.