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Post by catamountsfan98 on Oct 29, 2023 9:22:35 GMT -5
We need to put this one behind us and get ready for Wofford. We were in the game over the past 2 weeks without many starters including Reid. These losses are in the past and we need to go 1-0 this week. Worrying and complaining about could have, would have, should have and giving our expert analysis about what we think went wrong does not help anyone. We lost and our record is now 5-3 and that’s who we are. We are much better than we were with the last coaching regime and we will only get better year over year. You know these coaches and kids are hurting worse than we are. We need to give them all our support and continue to cheer them on to hopefully an 8-3 season. Bell has only been here for 3 years and he was hired late in the year so the future is extremely bright. Yes, the future is bright for two specific reasons in my opinion: our coaching staff who have turned this program around in a relatively short period of time and the facilities upgrades coming down the pipeline. I honestly believe having a winning program in combination with the impending facility upgrades will take WCU athletics to the next level. This is an exciting time for sure. Oh, and let’s not forget WCU’s mission to grow/increase the student population. This is what will ultimately separate us from the Furmans, Samfords, and Woffords.
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Post by catamountsfan98 on Oct 29, 2023 9:37:21 GMT -5
I also think it’s safe to say the SoCon refs and Coach Bell don’t get along all that great. Wowzers they’ve had some heated exchanges this year.
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Post by Speedwell Cat on Oct 29, 2023 10:15:32 GMT -5
I also think it’s safe to say the SoCon refs and Coach Bell don’t get along all that great. Wowzers they’ve had some heated exchanges this year. Obviously sometimes you need to work the refs, and sometimes they have it coming, but you have to figure it can become counterproductive.
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Post by The Cats on Oct 29, 2023 10:33:49 GMT -5
I also think it’s safe to say the SoCon refs and Coach Bell don’t get along all that great. Wowzers they’ve had some heated exchanges this year. Obviously sometimes you need to work the refs, and sometimes they have it coming, but you have to figure it can become counterproductive. I agree. However, the SoCon refs have not been friends of WCU football for quite a while. We usually get a raw deal in games in Cullowhee going back to Speir's time as HC. We never seem to get the home field breaks, other teams usually receive at their homes, or am I just imagining that?
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Post by catamountman231 on Oct 29, 2023 12:00:08 GMT -5
Obviously sometimes you need to work the refs, and sometimes they have it coming, but you have to figure it can become counterproductive. I agree. However, the SoCon refs have not been friends of WCU football for quite a while. We usually get a raw deal in games in Cullowhee going back to Speir's time as HC. We never seem to get the home field breaks, other teams usually receive at their homes, or am I just imagining that? There were some calls on Mercer kickoffs I interpreted as targeting that were not called. I also couldn’t believe the head referee got tongue tied on multiple occasions. With that said I was very biased and looking for someone to blame. However, in the Speir and beginning of the Bell era I lived with some of the players on campus. All of them believed they didn’t get a good whistle in Cullowhee. So it’s always in the back of my mind when I watch a home game.
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Post by wcu77 on Oct 29, 2023 12:01:22 GMT -5
I also think it’s safe to say the SoCon refs and Coach Bell don’t get along all that great. Wowzers they’ve had some heated exchanges this year. He really went at the refs a few times yesterday for sure. After all these years of really getting screwed by SoCon refs, that is good to see and hopefully does some good. It did look to me like targeting by Mercer a few times as well. I was disgusted after driving up yesterday to watch us get just walked all over due to poor play and commit so many turnovers. In perspective after a day to get over it, I agreee that we are better off than under previous coaches but I said yesterday that Bell has to do something with the defensive side of the ball. There was poor coverages and poor tackling all afternoon (with occasional bright spots). In spite of the close final score, we were never really in this game from the very start when we went down by two scores right away and then seeing the deficit keep increasing. I give the players tons of credit for not giving up ( that we saw so much of in the past) but while we are improved this year, I am not sure we can win out to make it to 8-3 and make the playoffs at all. I really hope we do win out, and I want to be wrong, but I'm not convinced we can win all three and likely will lose one or maybe two of the three.
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Post by catamountalum04 on Oct 29, 2023 12:33:31 GMT -5
The DC or at minimum the secondary coach needs to be removed from his duties as coach
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Post by wcugrad95 on Oct 29, 2023 13:00:40 GMT -5
Last week Furman had 23 points until the broken play at the end. Yesterday, if Mercer doesn't get 21 points off turnovers they again score in the mid-20s with their regular offense. When you have an offense like ours that tries to go relatively fast, but especially one that throws so many deep balls that can lead to 3-and-outs, I don't know that we will ever field a truly lock-down defense because our offense sometimes puts them in bad spots.
The point is if we want to win games the same way Mercer and Furman just did to us it means we would have to change the entire philosophy of the program - defense first, ball-control offense, etc. That would mean starting over with a new staff because I don't see Kerwin Bell changing the "Living on the Edge" or "Go Fast / Score Faster" approach. That means we need to expect scoring 28+ points per game to win against other good football teams. I actually do think we have been trying to get some defensive guys in here the last 2 recruiting classes (including portal and JuCo transfers). And I no doubt agree we need to have guys who can tackle better - the plays where the Mercer QB got out of multiple arm tackles to turn sacks into positive gains were absolute back-breakers.
But I don't necessarily think the defense lost the game yesterday - I'd mark that up much more to the mistakes and turnovers than specifically saying the defense blew it. They certainly could have played better, but they didn't fumble or throw INTs - 2 of which resulted directly in 14 points given up in a game we lost by 7.
I'd also get back on the "we need to be more balanced" horse regarding our offense. The defense needs to get the other team off the field more, but we don't need to put the defense back out there so quick with either TOs and/or 3 and outs either. So there is plenty of "blame" for the past 2 weeks, but we also need to understand we played 2 good football teams, too.
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Post by wcatradio75 on Oct 30, 2023 21:40:11 GMT -5
We should have won this game and could have beaten Furman. Name me any football team that has won with 3 lost fumbles, 3 interceptions, and 12 penalties for nearly 100 yards. This game was poorly played - yet - we had almost 500 yards of offense (50 yards more than Mercer), and almost the same number of plays and first downs. If we don't clean up our play on both sides of the ball (several have mentioned the missed tackles), we may not win out. That would be a shame for such a talented team. We are better than that and I truly hope we blow out the next three opponents! Let's get it back on track and earn a playoff berth!
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