Post Game Thoughts

[Seattle Eagle]

Fired, no. But it looks like losing in the semis is what we have to look forward to. It's just what this coaching staff does.

I agree, when a coach willfully looks the other way for the last 5 seasons and either can't or wont fix the defense you either get used to it or make changes. We settle.

None of those words that you made are true things that have happened.

He changed d coordinators, defensive scheme and the d has improved. I don't think people appreciate how incredibly hard it is to win late in the playoffs.

We just gave up 506 yards and lost the TOP 39:20 to 20:40. Please stop with the excuses.

Fact is our defense is horrible and has been for years. I stand by my original comments Baldwin either does not know how to fix the defense or he doesn't care. If we want to take the next step and be an elite team we need to have a complete team and not just a good offense. Maybe you want to settle for getting bounced in the semis, there is too much talent to have this happen year after year.

Agreed. The defense finished 88th out of 120 in defense. Ok we improved from horrible to medicore. This defense has been the cause of the failure for this progrom., I don't get why the defense doens't get fixed. Until it does, EWU will be a good regular season team but continue to lose in the playoffs. This defense is still broken, but in the end, I believe the better complete team won. You can't win champoinships with just offense. just my two cents

You are right, but never fear Baldwin will get it fixed next year, just like:

2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017

All he does is waste amazing unprecidented talent on the offensive side of the ball doing this.

What's your suggestion?

If Baldwin cannot get it done, why would you think I could?

I think that most teams in the country are concentrating their talent on the offensive side of the ball, since we have so much firepower maybe flip a few talented players on the other side of the ball to get more speed and athleticism on defense. Quite a few of our players played multiple position in high school or were recruited as athletes. Make a fast break defense to go with the offense then maybe we would have something that get it done in big games.

This is fair. I've also thought often about why we have so much success on offense and not as much defensively, although I would submit that this year was still noticeably better. I think it might just be the difference between an offensive minded coach like Baldwin and someone with more of a defensive background like Choate at MSU. I also think that our defense is designed to stop the types of offenses that we see in the Big Sky and struggle when we play more traditional, balanced type offenses.

 

[ewueagfan]

failure for this progrom., I don't get why the defense doens't get fixed. Until it does, EWU will be a good regular season team but continue to lose in the playoffs.

"Failure for this program." I don't view this program as a failure. Quite the opposite in fact.

If you were to say "the defense is the reason we haven't made it back to the national championship game" then I might agree. But then again, there were other reasons we lost, such as not taking care of the ball on offense, and poor special teams play and questionable calls. It was a total team loss, not just on the defense. Every kid on that team played their guts out yesterday.

 

[Obzerver]

Recruiting positions especially at "D" is tough...not that many are available.
Defensive linemen
Scarcity: Edge-rushers aren't that hard to find, but strong-side defensive ends, nose tackles, or three-tech defensive tackles? The bigger a player's body needs to be to play his position at the college level, the smaller the reservoir of available talent. Consequently, defensive linemen are one of the hardest positions for recruiters to find, let alone project.

Cornerbacks
Scarcity: Every team needs more than two starter-quality cornerbacks these days, but that doesn't mean that the ideal cornerback is a common type of human. Despite his smaller size, the elite corner back often has traits that don't show up in the genetic lottery in combination very often.

The other two hardest positions are QB and Olineman which EWU excells at.

 

[LDopaPDX]

Recruiting positions especially at "D" is tough...not that many are available.
Defensive linemen
Scarcity: Edge-rushers aren't that hard to find, but strong-side defensive ends, nose tackles, or three-tech defensive tackles? The bigger a player's body needs to be to play his position at the college level, the smaller the reservoir of available talent. Consequently, defensive linemen are one of the hardest positions for recruiters to find, let alone project.

Cornerbacks
Scarcity: Every team needs more than two starter-quality cornerbacks these days, but that doesn't mean that the ideal cornerback is a common type of human. Despite his smaller size, the elite corner back often has traits that don't show up in the genetic lottery in combination very often.

The other two hardest positions are QB and Olineman which EWU excells at.

Yup, you've nailed it. There just aren't a lot of great DTs and strongsider DEs in the Northwest. I couldn't tell you why that is, but it is.

Frankly, I thought our D coaching was just fine yesterday. How many times were we in the right position to make a play and just not get the RB or QB down? All you can do is get the kids to the right place, the coaches can't make the tackle for them.

Even with that said, let's not pretend that we have marginal D talent. That's simply not true. We are pretty good, but not great, on D. We knew that all year long. A team with the versatility to both throw and run well-- like Youngstown State- was a big problem for us. Richmond and Central Arkansas didn't present that kind of challenge and we shut them down.

 

[SwoopedN]

I disagree.

 

[kalm]

I disagree.

Of course you do. You disagree with no rebuttal because you are emotional and in love with your own (flawed) ideas.

No one associated with EWU football is more aware of the defensive shortcomings, wants to see the defense improve, and has spent more time towards that end than Beau.

I think it was Dopa in another thread that pointed out how many times we had players in the right position and they simply didn't make the plays. The same was true in the loss to Towson. Message board warriors ranted about prevent defense when during that last drive we actually played our secondary up and had All Big Sky linebackers and corners miss tackles and fail to prevent ball carriers from getting out of bounds.

Every team you meet in the semis is great and/or hot. Very few lack great offenses and they are going to put up points. The margin for error is literally a couple of plays here and there. We've been snake bit to a certain extent coming out on the wrong side more often than not but it isn't because we have a coach that ignores our deficiencies or doesn't care.

Question, critique, scratch your head, but try showing some goddamm respect for the best coach in FCS for fuck's sake.

:kisswink:

 

[clawman1]

We got dominated at the point of attack and turned the ball over twice in the red zone. That was the difference.

:thumb:

Playing the BSC does not prepare for success in the playoffs. Most of the teams are soft. Fact of the matter is when you look at the playoff losses, Sam Hou, Towson, Ill St and YSU. All ran the ball at win on EWU. For the most part the Eags did a fairly good job of playing the run this year but against average teams. Keep in mind, this was a young group. Only losing 3-4 seniors on D. Expect EWU to be back in playoffs next year.

I don't think you can blame semi finals losses on the conference. We CAN have a good defense, we CAN have a balanced run/pass attack. Craig Bohls @ Wyoming is a great example of how a team can be structured when the commitment to do so exists. He went from the dynasty he created @ NDSU to a hapless Wyoming team and put in place his vision of what it takes to be competitive and almost won the Mtn West in his second year.

 

[clawman1]

We got dominated at the point of attack and turned the ball over twice in the red zone. That was the difference.

Jumping off side by a D-lineman that brought back an interception, and they untimately scored a FG on was the difference.
In the stats it is just 1 of our 5 penalties and only 5 yards but that undisciplined action was HUGE! Doesn't go down as a turnover but really it was.

 

[sammamisheag]

We got dominated at the point of attack and turned the ball over twice in the red zone. That was the difference.

:thumb:

Playing the BSC does not prepare for success in the playoffs. Most of the teams are soft. Fact of the matter is when you look at the playoff losses, Sam Hou, Towson, Ill St and YSU. All ran the ball at win on EWU. For the most part the Eags did a fairly good job of playing the run this year but against average teams. Keep in mind, this was a young group. Only losing 3-4 seniors on D. Expect EWU to be back in playoffs next year.

I don't think you can blame semi finals losses on the conference. We CAN have a good defense, we CAN have a balanced run/pass attack. Craig Bohls @ Wyoming is a great example of how a team can be structured when the commitment to do so exists. He went from the dynasty he created @ NDSU to a hapless Wyoming team and put in place his vision of what it takes to be competitive and almost won the Mtn West in his second year.

Another factor may be recruiting base. Finding tough off and def linemen in the Midwest IMHO seems to be more prevalent than out west. Both the PAC12 and Big12 don't have the reputation of having a physical style other than Stanford who recruits nationally.

Having said that, getting this close again and not closing the deal is frustrating.

 

[Vic E. Wallace]

To all,
These young Men played their Asses off. We had some bad Plays, which will happen with any team. I froze my Ass off sitting out there watching the Players play, along with about 6,000- Butts in the Stands.
The Coaches did and outstanding job Coaching. I have no problem they way they played, we got beat, two points short. I must say one thing, the 1st day I saw Zamora on the Grass Field, he had 3 picks, and I knew we had a hell of a LB coming in to play for us. Now it seems as if I am losing 12 sons. It hit me very hard, I get so close to the team, I must say the same for my daughter. Well I and my Family wish all our Bloggers a Very Blessed Merry Christmas, and a Very Blessed New Year. All return safe from you Vacations. Now must wait for BB, my trips to EWU will be reduced. We were at every Practice, and walk through, was very much worth it. Vic Wallace

 

[EWURanger]

I disagree.

Of course you do. You disagree with no rebuttal because you are emotional and in love with your own (flawed) ideas.

No one associated with EWU football is more aware of the defensive shortcomings, wants to see the defense improve, and has spent more time towards that end than Beau.

I think it was Dopa in another thread that pointed out how many times we had players in the right position and they simply didn't make the plays. The same was true in the loss to Towson. Message board warriors ranted about prevent defense when during that last drive we actually played our secondary up and had All Big Sky linebackers and corners miss tackles and fail to prevent ball carriers from getting out of bounds.

Every team you meet in the semis is great and/or hot. Very few lack great offenses and they are going to put up points. The margin for error is literally a couple of plays here and there. We've been snake bit to a certain extent coming out on the wrong side more often than not but it isn't because we have a coach that ignores our deficiencies or doesn't care.

Question, critique, scratch your head, but try showing some goddamm respect for the best coach in FCS for fuck's sake.

:kisswink:

This. Years back, I remember reading an interview with Mike Kramer where he expressed the difficulties out west in recruiting really good defensive linemen. For whatever reason, it's more difficult to find a lot of them and especially true at the FCS level - although this is a challenge for the Pac 12 as well.

Does anyone know what happened with Sarte? I thought he was going to be a promising D-Linemen for us, but noticed he wasn't on the roster this year.

 

[air045]

failure for this progrom., I don't get why the defense doens't get fixed. Until it does, EWU will be a good regular season team but continue to lose in the playoffs.

"Failure for this program." I don't view this program as a failure. Quite the opposite in fact.

If you were to say "the defense is the reason we haven't made it back to the national championship game" then I might agree. But then again, there were other reasons we lost, such as not taking care of the ball on offense, and poor special teams play and questionable calls. It was a total team loss, not just on the defense. Every kid on that team played their guts out yesterday.

Failure is a strong term. The kids play hard and I'm not sure why there's such a gap between offensive and defensive success and it's a fair question to ask why. Our defense , in the semi's, have been liability and not an asset. I don't buy into the "west cost recruiting defensive players" stuff as I believe we have good players on this roster. The defensive has gotten better from last year and I just hope the coaches think outside of the BSC when they make defensive adjustments over the winter.

I also don't think we have to to start from scratch, I think we're close just need minor adjustments. I thought we were a year a way, so I was surprised at our success this year. I still believe next year is the year our defense will make a statement, and once that happens, we will be a true national champion candidate- on both sides of the ball.

 

[LDopaPDX]

failure for this progrom., I don't get why the defense doens't get fixed. Until it does, EWU will be a good regular season team but continue to lose in the playoffs.

"Failure for this program." I don't view this program as a failure. Quite the opposite in fact.

If you were to say "the defense is the reason we haven't made it back to the national championship game" then I might agree. But then again, there were other reasons we lost, such as not taking care of the ball on offense, and poor special teams play and questionable calls. It was a total team loss, not just on the defense. Every kid on that team played their guts out yesterday.

Failure is a strong term. The kids play hard and I'm not sure why there's such a gap between offensive and defensive success an it's a fair question to ask why. Our defense , in the semi's, have been liability and not an asset. I still believe we will not make it to national championship until we solve our defensive and special team challenges. Not pointing fingers, but it has to be solved.

I agree with you, but it must be acknowledged that we improved a LOT on defense this year. It wasn't realistic to think we'd move from a 2015 defense that couldn't stop anyone to being a brick wall in 2016. I looked at our roster at the beginning of the year and would've never projected that we could have improved this much on D in a single year. It sucks that we lost and the D had a bad game, but overall the defense held their own every week except a couple. We just need to keep the upward trajectory on defense moving in the right direction.

 

[air045]

failure for this progrom., I don't get why the defense doens't get fixed. Until it does, EWU will be a good regular season team but continue to lose in the playoffs.

"Failure for this program." I don't view this program as a failure. Quite the opposite in fact.

If you were to say "the defense is the reason we haven't made it back to the national championship game" then I might agree. But then again, there were other reasons we lost, such as not taking care of the ball on offense, and poor special teams play and questionable calls. It was a total team loss, not just on the defense. Every kid on that team played their guts out yesterday.

Failure is a strong term. The kids play hard and I'm not sure why there's such a gap between offensive and defensive success an it's a fair question to ask why. Our defense , in the semi's, have been liability and not an asset. I still believe we will not make it to national championship until we solve our defensive and special team challenges. Not pointing fingers, but it has to be solved.

I agree with you, but it must be acknowledged that we improved a LOT on defense this year. It wasn't realistic to think we'd move from a 2015 defense that couldn't stop anyone to being a brick wall in 2016. I looked at our roster at the beginning of the year and would've never projected that we could have improved this much on D in a single year. It sucks that we lost and the D had a bad game, but overall the defense held their own every week except a couple. We just need to keep the upward trajectory on defense moving in the right direction.

you responded my same thoughts before edite my comments. I agree. We're not far away defensively. We're close just need a hair more time. I saw push from our defensive line most of the time and their sack totals improved drastically. Overall, I think once our LB get seasoned and bigger , we're going to make that next step. We're close and I think next year we'll see even more improvement.

 

[ewueagle2010]

I'm still sick to my stomach about the game. Mostly because I wanted to see our seniors have a chance at a National Championship and probably win one. Looking back at this season in a big picture format, it was wildly successful! Nobody would have predicted that we'd be a 1 in 100 catch away from a Natty appearance coming into this season.

Despite losing Coop, Shaq, Bourne and others, this team is stacked for a run next season. A guy like Coop can never be replaced, but EWU has proven they will reload at WR as a whole and outside of that, what other question marks remain? There is no reason to believe the D will be worse, and our RB core were both true freshman, which should help relieve some pressure on the passing game.

Anyone who has ANYTHING negative to say about Beau Baldwin and staff needs the STFU, plain and simple, because you're only proving that you're a buffoon! It's very disappointing to lose our last 3 semi final appearances at home, but it's a position that already proves we're an elite program. All this talk about how we're never going to be an elite program with our D is already debunked. Being in the semi's 4 of the last 7 years IS elite. Only one other program can claim more success than that in the same time period, and our "elite" status would've have still been second to theirs even with a Championship this season.

I'm damn proud of my almamater, even if Saturday was as painful as they come!

 

[Thatsrightitsred]

I'm still sick to my stomach about the game. Mostly because I wanted to see our seniors have a chance at a National Championship and probably win one. Looking back at this season in a big picture format, it was wildly successful! Nobody would have predicted that we'd be a 1 in 100 catch away from a Natty appearance coming into this season.

Despite losing Coop, Shaq, Bourne and others, this team is stacked for a run next season. A guy like Coop can never be replaced, but EWU has proven they will reload at WR as a whole and outside of that, what other question marks remain? There is no reason to believe the D will be worse, and our RB core were both true freshman, which should help relieve some pressure on the passing game.

Anyone who has ANYTHING negative to say about Beau Baldwin and staff needs the STFU, plain and simple, because you're only proving that you're a buffoon! It's very disappointing to lose our last 3 semi final appearances at home, but it's a position that already proves we're an elite program. All this talk about how we're never going to be an elite program with our D is already debunked. Being in the semi's 4 of the last 7 years IS elite. Only one other program can claim more success than that in the same time period, and our "elite" status would've have still been second to theirs even with a Championship this season.

I'm damn proud of my almamater, even if Saturday was as painful as they come!

Well said. Since 2010, there's only one other school in the FCS that has had more success in the playoffs than EWU. That school is NDSU. No other school in the BSC has won as many games, conference championships, or playoffs games as EWU. I'd say we're firmly planted in the "elite" status so far this decade.

 

[air045]

I'm still sick to my stomach about the game. Mostly because I wanted to see our seniors have a chance at a National Championship and probably win one. Looking back at this season in a big picture format, it was wildly successful! Nobody would have predicted that we'd be a 1 in 100 catch away from a Natty appearance coming into this season.

Despite losing Coop, Shaq, Bourne and others, this team is stacked for a run next season. A guy like Coop can never be replaced, but EWU has proven they will reload at WR as a whole and outside of that, what other question marks remain? There is no reason to believe the D will be worse, and our RB core were both true freshman, which should help relieve some pressure on the passing game.

Anyone who has ANYTHING negative to say about Beau Baldwin and staff needs the STFU, plain and simple, because you're only proving that you're a buffoon! It's very disappointing to lose our last 3 semi final appearances at home, but it's a position that already proves we're an elite program. All this talk about how we're never going to be an elite program with our D is already debunked. Being in the semi's 4 of the last 7 years IS elite. Only one other program can claim more success than that in the same time period, and our "elite" status would've have still been second to theirs even with a Championship this season.

I'm damn proud of my almamater, even if Saturday was as painful as they come!

Well said. Since 2010, there's only one other school in the FCS that has had more success in the playoffs than EWU. That school is NDSU. No other school in the BSC has won as many games, conference championships, or playoffs games as EWU. I'd say we're firmly planted in the "elite" status so far this decade.

At the same time, to suggest others with a different opinion to "STFU" is an embarrassment. That why they call this a forum and I'm sure all opinions are welcomed, last time i checked. Besides, it's football and everybody has an opinion, valid or not.

 

[ewueagfan]

It's an emotional loss and one that should not have happened so I can understand why people are pointing fingers. The truth is that there are several reasons for why we lost, but no looking back. Sometimes your opponent just plays so well that you're not going to beat them on that particular day and I believe that's what happened. It was a fantastic season regardless of the outcome of one play.

 

[air045]

:thumb:

It's an emotional loss and one that should not have happened so I can understand why people are pointing fingers. The truth is that there are several reasons for why we lost, but no looking back. Sometimes your opponent just plays so well that you're not going to beat them on that particular day and I believe that's what happened. It was a fantastic season regardless of the outcome of one play.

 

[Hambone]

failure for this progrom., I don't get why the defense doens't get fixed. Until it does, EWU will be a good regular season team but continue to lose in the playoffs.

"Failure for this program." I don't view this program as a failure. Quite the opposite in fact.

If you were to say "the defense is the reason we haven't made it back to the national championship game" then I might agree. But then again, there were other reasons we lost, such as not taking care of the ball on offense, and poor special teams play and questionable calls. It was a total team loss, not just on the defense. Every kid on that team played their guts out yesterday.

Failure is a strong term. The kids play hard and I'm not sure why there's such a gap between offensive and defensive success and it's a fair question to ask why. Our defense , in the semi's, have been liability and not an asset. I don't buy into the "west cost recruiting defensive players" stuff as I believe we have good players on this roster. The defensive has gotten better from last year and I just hope the coaches think outside of the BSC when they make defensive adjustments over the winter.

I also don't think we have to to start from scratch, I think we're close just need minor adjustments. I thought we were a year a way, so I was surprised at our success this year. I still believe next year is the year our defense will make a statement, and once that happens, we will be a true national champion candidate- on both sides of the ball.

I am thinking that next year we might have a great defense with a closer to average offense. I guess time will tell but that's certainly what it looks like on paper.