The Hawks get ready for the second game of the season and a continued theme of tough non-conference opponents. This week it is Villanova, who has won a National Championship in FCS as recently as 2009 and is a perennial playoff team. Here are some the basics going into the game; Monmouth is 0-1 after a week one loss to Lehigh while Villanova is a surprising 0-2 after losses to Temple and Towson. The good thing is that maybe this Wildcats team is not as good as years past but any underestimation would be a severe mistake. Many teams start slow and get better as the year goes on and this Villanova team may be one of those teams.
Monmouth comes into this game after doing some good things in the loss to Lehigh but just not enough of or with enough consistency. The opening drive of the game was a high point as MU marched right down the field and scored to go up 7-0. I think in that drive you saw the balance and mixing around of the football that could lead to great success this season. Kyle Frazier has control of the offense and with more weapons this year than the last two years it could be a year to open things up even more. One game does not a season make but there is some reason to be concerned about the lack of a full time number one running back. I think it is great the Hawks have options at the RB position but at some point you want to know who the best back is and who can carry the ball 15-18 times per game. It was good to see three different backs get in the end zone and be able to finish off scoring drives with 6 points and not try for 3.
The Hawks are a young team, especially on the defensive side of the ball and that showed in the first game and may pop up during the course of the season but this a talented group with impact players. The idea of course is to get those players to make more impact than mistakes. Jose Gumbs is obviously the one player that all MU fans expect to make the big hit, key interception, or game changing play but he can't do it alone so names like Lawson and Sullivan (among others) will have balance out this defense.
This is a set up in competition for Monmouth for football as up until this week, Villanova was again a top 20 team and remember the Big East has shown interest in the Wildcats moving to the FBS side of college football. The Wildcats have hurt themselves in the first two week with multiple turnovers in both losses and I couldn't imagine they want to open up the year at 0-3. This is a talented team with a long time head coach in Andy Talley and a program not used to losing.
MU has had two weeks to prepare for this and maybe the week 2 bye helped as it gave the coaches almost another week of preseason and an opportunity to work on fundamentals for a week and not a game plan.
Reminder .. The Kevin Callahan Monmouth Football Show returns tonight at 7pm from Buffalo Wild Wings @ Monmouth Mall .. 1160/1310 WOBM AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment