What a frustrating loss, there’s no other way to put it, at least not without a bunch of expletives. A day later and I’m still ticked off. I join @AFRich in the emotional rollercoaster that comes with rooting for the Nittany Lions, having unrealistic expectations for a Franklin coached team (regardless of who he hires as assistants) and another Fall down the tubes. No, venting isn’t making me feel any better this morning. We should never lose to a 2-5 Illinois team at home on homecoming weekend, never.
No one predicted we’d lose… but maybe one of us should have. What’s Franklin’s record following a loss? After a bye week? Yeah, no need to respond, we all know the answers.
Here’s my best effort to be objective, and trust me, it is extremely difficult this morning. We knew coming into this season that if Clifford went down, we’d be in trouble. We found out just how true that was against Iowa. If we needed more convincing, just look at yesterday. The fact that an injured Clifford was a better option than a healthy Roberson or Veilleux speaks volumes. Then there’s the lack of a running game, how many of you pointed out throughout this season that our inability to run would bite us in the ass at some point? Guess I grossly overestimated how good an OL coach Trautwein is. I also think I underestimated how important Mustopher was to that defense. None of us expected Illinois to be able to run the ball with such ease. I have to wonder if Mustopher would have made a difference? I dunno, the whole team seemed out of sorts from the beginning of the game until the end and that is a trend that has followed Franklin coached teams his entire career after losses and/or bye weeks. I’m definitely worn out supporting Franklin at this point and I’m beginning to buy into the “Franklin can’t get us to elite” view held by some on this Board. We’ve looked bad too many times and I don’t see that changing. I truly hope I’m wrong but the facts suggest otherwise.
Look for the O$U predictions thread on Tuesday. Once again, we have to hope this team shows some heart but going up against O$U is not ideal, I’m already certain I’ll be calling for a Buckeye victory, the only question is by how much will O$U beat us? I hate feeling this way, I hate not being able to be optimistic, but reality is, I don’t see how in the world we’ll be able to compete next Saturday night, or in any of our other remaining games, either… hope the team feels differently and steps up, maybe we can pull an upset or two, but right now I'm not feeling it, not at all.
*footnote- no excuses here but I am even more tired of the bush-league B1G officials and how poorly they call Penn State games. Both Jones and Ham were reacting to it on air, too. Some of the calls, or missed calls, were absolutely atrocious yesterday. I hate this f’n conference.
No one predicted we’d lose… but maybe one of us should have. What’s Franklin’s record following a loss? After a bye week? Yeah, no need to respond, we all know the answers.
Here’s my best effort to be objective, and trust me, it is extremely difficult this morning. We knew coming into this season that if Clifford went down, we’d be in trouble. We found out just how true that was against Iowa. If we needed more convincing, just look at yesterday. The fact that an injured Clifford was a better option than a healthy Roberson or Veilleux speaks volumes. Then there’s the lack of a running game, how many of you pointed out throughout this season that our inability to run would bite us in the ass at some point? Guess I grossly overestimated how good an OL coach Trautwein is. I also think I underestimated how important Mustopher was to that defense. None of us expected Illinois to be able to run the ball with such ease. I have to wonder if Mustopher would have made a difference? I dunno, the whole team seemed out of sorts from the beginning of the game until the end and that is a trend that has followed Franklin coached teams his entire career after losses and/or bye weeks. I’m definitely worn out supporting Franklin at this point and I’m beginning to buy into the “Franklin can’t get us to elite” view held by some on this Board. We’ve looked bad too many times and I don’t see that changing. I truly hope I’m wrong but the facts suggest otherwise.
Look for the O$U predictions thread on Tuesday. Once again, we have to hope this team shows some heart but going up against O$U is not ideal, I’m already certain I’ll be calling for a Buckeye victory, the only question is by how much will O$U beat us? I hate feeling this way, I hate not being able to be optimistic, but reality is, I don’t see how in the world we’ll be able to compete next Saturday night, or in any of our other remaining games, either… hope the team feels differently and steps up, maybe we can pull an upset or two, but right now I'm not feeling it, not at all.
*footnote- no excuses here but I am even more tired of the bush-league B1G officials and how poorly they call Penn State games. Both Jones and Ham were reacting to it on air, too. Some of the calls, or missed calls, were absolutely atrocious yesterday. I hate this f’n conference.
