But it WAS bad last night. The first McNeese possession of the game was a microcosm of how the first half went:
McNeese runs the ball right at Jacksonville State and gets 7 yards on the first run then 11 yards on the next one. On the resulting first down, they do a play action pass play. Jacksonville State is completely fooled. The receiver is wide open crossing about 15 yards downfield and he's a dangerous run after catch guy. Nobody anywhere close to him. Quarterback throws it short in front of him. Incomplete pass.
On second down there's a bad shotgun snap. 11 yard loss. At this point McNeese has already stopped what started off as a promising opening drive without Jacksonville State having done anything to stop them.
On third down the QB tries to throw it to a running back and throws it behind him. Jacksonville State guy trailing him intercepts it and goes down at the McNeese 34. McNeese gets called for unsportsmanlike conduct. Ball is moved to the McNeese 19. Jacksonville State scores.
And so it was all through the first half. If the QB didn't miss the receiver on a play that would've gotten a first down the receiver dropped the ball. There were several false start calls in key situations changing short yardage to long yardage. There was an instance in which the center did a shotgun snap when the QB wasn't ready for it for a big loss. The QB got decent protection but kept hanging on to the ball too long then getting sacked.
Someone said they thought Jacksonville State would make McNeese look better than it is. The opposite was the case. If McNeese had played like that throughout the year, there is no chance that they would have been in the playoffs. It was really, really embarassing and awful. Just before halftime my brother and I were trying to remember if there was any McNeese drive that was stopped without McNeese doing something to stop itself and we could not think of one.
But it's gotten to be like that when McNeese makes the playoffs. I wish somebody would figure out why it's like that and make it stop. Even though I must say this was the worst yet. I mean it was Keystone Cops. It's hard to believe a team could practice all year and look like that.
