Dedficher will have better stuff in his Post Mortem, but I figured I’d post my take:

All right, a 62-0 thrashing would have been nice, but obviously, that’s not what happened.  I tip my hat to the Fighting Sioux for coming into Lubbock and showing a lot of poise and grit.  I won’t get my copy of the game film until Thursday or Friday, so all of these observations are strictly from watching the game live, sometimes distracted by the blond with the big nose five rows down who had the waistband of her shorts rolled a few times so you could see her panty-line when she raised up her shirt…but that’s a me problem.  My attraction to girls with big noses has nothing to do with the important stuff at hand.

Oh, and I love our student enthusiasm these days, really love it.  But after the Good Sportsmanship Handshake, when the announcer asks us to listen to the North Dakota band play their fight song, do we really need to start a RAIDER-POWER chant that drowns them out?  Is that necessary? (Necessary?  Is it necessary to drink my own…)  Not that we’ve every claimed to be classy at Tech, but why disrespect North Dakota?

At any rate, I posted a list of things I was hoping to see Saturday night, and some other things I didn’t want to see.  Here’s how it went:

Taylor Potts – You’ll see my negative thoughts below.  On the positive side, he looked like the leader out there, ran the team with good tempo, and kept pulling the trigger after some bonehead stuff happened.  He might have been finding his rhythm in the 4^th quarter.

Pressure from the D-Line – I was generally pleased with this.  ND stayed with the short quick passes, so landing two sacks was nice.  Henley and Howard were close on a lot of occasions, and Jake Landry seems to have a weird ability to throw the ball away as he’s about to get sacked.  Speaking of Jake Landry, I was really impressed with his accuracy, decision-making, and general moxy.  Whitlock, Jones, and Hunter mad a lot of good plays that put ND in 2^nd and long.  My concern here is that we didn’t dominate.  I was also surprised at how little Chris Perry played.  And I’m not sure how long we can go with three DE’s and occasionally Bront Bird.

25+ touches to the Running Backs – By my count, it was 18.  This was really depressing.  We sucked here.  A small, quick ND defensive front consistently beat lumbering Tech O-lineman, and although Leach cut into Batch for not hitting the hole, I didn’t see any holes to hit.  It’s fixable, but disconcerting.  This was supposed to be a strength that Potts could lean on until he found a steady stroke.

2+ Turnovers on Defense – None, Zero, and not even really close to one.  I’m withholding judgment until after the Rice game.

Good Kick Coverage – Yes, absolutely.  Carona was kicking deep, and when they tried to return it, we pinned them.  Very satisfied here.

One Big Special Teams Play – I guess the muff recovery counts, but the partial tip of the first punt was probably more encouraging for the players.  Ed Britton and Austin Zouzalik were very close to breaking some of those returns.

Let’s just say, I drank three Crown and Cokes after the game because I was trying to forget…

Taylor Potts – Ahem.  If you’re just reading the stat lines, three picks is alarming.  If you saw them live, you’d feel worse.  They were all on Potts – throwing off his back foot, throwing into coverage, and throwing late.  Just for kicks I re-watched last season’s opener against Eastern Washington, and Graham Harrell threw a bad pick in that one.  At this point, my take is that the game hasn’t slowed down for him yet.  He doesn’t completely trust his pocket, and he’s not progressing to his second and third reads fast enough.  I thought North Dakota crowded the short routes very well, and from my perspective, Taylor had open receivers deep on a regular basis.  He was also late on a lot of throws, so receivers had to stop or adjust to make the catch.  Will he improve?  Absolutely.  How soon?  I have no idea.  I think he’ll be better against Rice, but I’m concerned about September 19.

First Down Defense – Actually, first down defense was pretty good.  Seemed like they were in 2^nd and 8 all night, and as a result I got to see Julius Howard and Will Ford play a lot.  I also got to see Bront Bird at DE with Will Ford on the slot receiver.  The hit of the night came when Will Ford blitzed, Bird dropped into coverage from his DE spot, Ford forced a quick throw to the flat, and Bird leveled the guy.  Let’s keep rolling with this look.  That said, nickel and dime units need to improve.  Their long scoring drives included a lot of good 2^nd and 3^rd down plays against 5 and 6 DB personnel.

Going For It – We turned it over on downs inside the 5, then almost did it again but somehow converted a 4^th and goal QB sneak.  I’m fine with this.  It’s who we are.   But struggling in the red zone against North Dakota is scary.  I was missing Crabtree most of all here.

13 Points Allowed – Considering we gave up 30 yards in penalties on one drive and didn’t have turnover, I guess this is okay.  I’ll feel better if we do it again against Rice.

11 Penalties – Not really concerned here.  I didn’t see anything that pissed me off.  Special teams was penalty-free if I remember correctly.  I’ll take that anytime.

Fake FG – Trust me, Eric Russell feels worse about this than you.  It’s better for this to happen now than in a close game against OSU or Nebraska.

Again, hats off to North Dakota for playing their guts out.  After Potts’ third INT, the Fighting Sioux had the ball and were down just 28-13 in the 4^th quarter.

As for us, my major concern was a lack of explosiveness in the offense.  I mentioned earlier, I saw open receivers deep more than once, and until Potts figures out how to hit those guys, teams are going to crowd the LOS and it’s going to be tough to run the ball or throw the short passes.  This, along with problems in the red zone, can quickly turn a 40-31 loss in Austin into a 55-10 affair.

Defensively, North Dakota didn’t have the players to challenge the Tech safeties, so we still don’t know what we have there.  Rice might be more interesting.

Right.  First game.  Let’s fix stuff and get better.