I-AA, I agree with all your points except for 3! Garry is so far buried on the depth chart, he will never see the field this year. 3 solid QB's ahead of him. I think Moore should be the #2 back behind Ruiz, like you said he's big and powerful and can get those short yardage gains. Ruiz is the starter and will remain that way for however long he's here at YSU. The last point I disagree with, the butt punt most certainly cost us the game. That play changed momentum whole way around. Illini got swagger after the block, if you can even call it that. Went right down and scored and then Uncle Mo was fully on Illinois side, especially offensively. Cannot make those mistakes.
If they were all sophs or above, I could see what you are saying, but on QB Gary makes most sense. There would be absolutely no reason to blow a red-shirt for Wells ...so we have 3 ...and Garry makes more sense at this point. Until we find out more about Davis dropping down on the roster. Garry gives us one extra year of back-up on a DI program ...experience we cannot be without right now.
The change really started before that butt-punt. That transfer from Ok State realized he could go down-field on us the previous drive. Agreed, the first-down gives us more points ... I think we had just scored a TD.
Other things to consider:
- We were only 5 of 19 on 3rd-down. That is just terrible; especially when you consider that Illinois was barely over 50% as well.
- We only averaged 33-yards-per-punt. This is huge drop-off from last year. Joey is a diamond-in-the-rough for us ...but he is a kicker.
- We held the ball for over 40-minutes, but only managed to come up with 17-points. Does not sound that bad until you note ...
- We had 12-drives and only 19 1st-downs
- We gave up 87-yards in 2 kick returns