Hornets lose
28-6 in a game that was pretty close until late.
Hornet D played a great game. Forced 3 turnovers and kept the Hornets in the game until they ran out of gas late in the 4th. They had a couple of drives in the 2nd qtr that got away from them but overall, I was impressed. Idaho has some weapons on offense and the Hornet D largely kept them in check. Lots of hits and pressure on the QB, good tackling, good coverage. Much improvement from last season.
Hornet offense was horrible (190 yds, 95 pass, 95 rush) aside from the one drive that resulted in a long FG. Dotson (5 car, 46 yds) looks impressive out of the backfield, he needs more touches instead of Gable (5 car, 6 yds). Ajeigbe was ok too (10 car, 34 yds). Thomson (10/21, 95 yds) looked like a deer in the headlights. Stared down his primary WR and then would tuck and run. Very ineffective and unimpressive, only positive was no lost turnovers and throws a decent ball. Playbook is also very limited due to his inexperience, very few shots taken down the field. WRs cut some critical routes short that resulted in 4th downs instead of 1st downs. Hennie (5 rec, 49 yds) and Lindsay (2 rec, 33 yds) were the main targets. Rucker (1 rec, 8 yds) unimpressive and had a drop that would have kept a drive alive. Just a very unimpressive game...and then the coaching staffs’ decision to waste the remaining drives late in the game on Clapper (0/4) instead of building some confidence for Thomson heading into week 2. Laughable.
Special teams was meh. Punting is going to be an issue. Cuzzupolli (11 punts, 38.5 yd avg, 1 TB, 1 I20) takes too long getting it away and one punt was tipped, and a few shanks. FG kicking was ok, Medeiros missed a makeable mid-range FG but nailed a 52 yarder and a chip shot FG. Dotson had a nice kick return late. Just a so-so performance, but this unit generated the only Hornet points.
I think this team can win a few games given the number of weak teams on the schedule. But no reason to expect anything special from this team this year. Would have been a near 500 season if this coaching staff wouldn’t have chased away its only QB with D1 experience.
