@salukifan32 this is funny but no affiliation with Nic. Just tired of people hating on players and don’t know ball
I attended first football games in years, as I now live 650 miles to the south. In the fourth quarter it occurred to me that it would stupid to be upset at the outcome of the game if we lost. I took a little walk on campus with my daughter pre-game, she is expecting her seconf child, and commented to her in the midst of the walk what a pretty campus SIU has. The weather absolutely perfect, the crowd was great ( and large) and sometimes you really do have to smell the coffee. The team never quit, they played their hearts out against a bigger and stronger opponent. It’s a great day to be a Saluki. Go Dawgs.
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James Madison
I thought it was a game effort by the Dawgs. Our defense is good. I've been back & forth on Nic Baker for 3 years. I was really warming up to him this year, but this loss is on him. He totally blew our momentum with the stupid taunting penalty immediately followed by the interception.
Dawgs played a gutty game against a clearly Superior Team.
Mistakes were made but something tells me South Dakota State was glad to get out of town with a win.
Who knows if we get an invite to the post season they could be 1st up.
Coaches had the team ready to play. Go Dawgs
The Austin Peay drubbing was very impressive. Austin Peay is now ranked 24th and we were up 42-3 in the 3rd qtr when we removed our starters. NIU is now 3-1 in the MAC. Unfortunately, SEMO has some very close losses. However, they are much better than their 3-4 record and will finish with a winning record. A road win at SEMO is still a good win. Missouri State is a middle of the road MVFC team, but they are probably still better than 75% of all FCS teams. With a very close loss to consensus #1 SDSU our resume is plenty good right now. Still need to win 1 of the remaining Dakota games to take it out of the selection folks hands.The NIU win might end up getting them in at 7-4. Their other 4 wins don't look very impressive right now, nor would Indiana State or Western Illinois
I attended first football games in years, as I now live 650 miles to the south. In the fourth quarter it occurred to me that it would stupid to be upset at the outcome of the game if we lost. I took a little walk on campus with my daughter pre-game, she is expecting her seconf child, and commented to her in the midst of the walk what a pretty campus SIU has. The weather absolutely perfect, the crowd was great ( and large) and sometimes you really do have to smell the coffee. The team never quit, they played their hearts out against a bigger and stronger opponent. It’s a great day to be a Saluki. Go Dawgs.
Truly a beautiful campus. I'm lucky that I get to be over there a couple times every week.
Our D is darn good. SDSU had two long runs and one long TD pass. Otherwise they found it tough going against the Dawgs. I sat near the SDSU fans and they were into it, and they sure didn't think this was any kind of a whippin'.
One thing I do not understand about NH is why he doesn't use the hurryup offense a LOT more. When we did that late in the game, we moved the ball very effectively. Pretty sure we did the hurryup a lot with Labanowitz that playoff year. Just doesn't give the D a lot of time to get set or see the lay of the land.
We ended up with 308 yds offense, same as SDSU, but it was mostly passing.
I also didn't like his multiple attempts to jam the ball up the middle on some critical plays against a very good D, like that opening drive where we should have scored but turned it over on downs. Try something they don't expect.
Cox is a darn good WR like his brother. Sure hope his injury isn't bad, but he was seriously limping on the sideline. Looked bad. He adds a whole new dimension to our offense. We miss Ro too, but our run blocking isn't great.
One thing we don't have is that power back that just runs over people. That should be a recruiting priority.
Think we have a good shot at beating USD or NDSU, especially if the O can pick it up. We should whip WIU and InSU.
It was an admirable effort despite the loss. I walked away feeling pretty good about this team, and even better about the program and school.
Campus had the most energy I’ve seen in a long time. The alumni tailgates were packed. The stadium was packed. Campus was beautiful.
That was a great day for SIU. I have to think any recruits who attended yesterday had to come away with a pretty good impression.
Atmosphere was pretty good yesterday. Good size crowd in the first half. Students left at halftime but still had a decent crowd in the second half.
Defense played their tails off. Gave up a couple big plays, but went toe to toe with them and gave us a good shot at winning. Those two missed tackles on 3rd and long on SDSU’s last drive loomed large. Just couldn’t get a stop when they needed to on that last drive.
Offensively it was missed opportunities all game. Hard to beat a good team with critical penalties and turnovers. First drive was very promising…unfortunate they didn’t come away with points. I think if Hill trusted his kicker, he would have kicked it. I think he was also anticipating a higher scoring game…I don’t mind going for it there, but the play call I didn’t love. That int Baker threw in the first half was a game changer. Didn’t love the flag on the play before, I saw an awful lot of jawing from their guys toward our bench with no flags…still can’t leave it in the refs hands. The receiver was open btw, just really under threw that ball.
Play calling felt a bit conservative for most of the game. I know he wanted to shorten that game by running the ball, but it was and is obvious this line can’t run block with the big front 7’s in this league. Called a few bubble screens with a bit of success, not sure why he doesn’t supplement the run game with that more often when we can’t run it between the tackles…maybe doesn’t trust his WR’s to block this year. In any case, when Baker is your leading rusher you know running the ball wasn’t super effective.
Overall that was the 2nd best game SDSU got this year and I was really proud of the effort. We need to string a few wins together now and position ourselves for a playoff spot and get a rematch. Also, get this offense rolling…with Ro back hopefully.
If Cox’s injury is as bad as people are saying, I feel really bad for him. He’s worked so hard to get back from these knee injuries. We are better with him, but more importantly he deserves this last year. Hoping for the best.
https://twitter.com/SIU_Football/status/1715852108669538637
A Sunday morning aside: anyone else find these social media graphics the Athletic Dept. has been posting to be subpar? The main issue is the school names are not listed and the logos are shaded so lightly that, unless you're a dork like us who cares enough to post on message boards, there's a great chance you have no idea who the hell SIU is playing. Hopefully they adjust at some point.
