I expect young guys to have young guy mistakes.
I expect players to lose reps.
More than anything I expect coaches to adhere to the core principles of football strategy.
We got too cute on both sides of the ball and it put us in position to lose games we could have won by 2-3 scores even with some of the player mistakes and limitations.
You have seen in both games why people thought we would lose no more than one game. You also saw why others had tempered expectations.
I thought we would go 11-1 while foreseeing many of the mistakes we have made.
The one thing I didn’t anticipate was the JT4 fumble. Until then, the game went almost exactly as I expected and we were primed to pull away late.
I didn’t expect Baker to leave the secondary so little margin for error with his playcalling at unc.
The thing that bothers me bad are the penalties and special teams. These coaches are new and yeah the game plans could have been better, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
There is no excuse for the penalties and poor special teams. These things have always been red flags to spot bad coaching.
Still, I am optimistically in wait and see mode. Manny has always proven to be self aware and flexible. I won’t give up on him prematurely.