One onside kick gaffe is no reason to kill the special teams. They have otherwise been great all year; blocking kicks, scoring TD's, consistently kicking the ball into the endzone, and hitting FG's that should be made.
No question the Castleberry's are playmakers. Joel in particular has been all over the place this year. I think some nice offers should be coming his way heading into next year. And hopefully that family keeps sending boys our way.
Bixby is injured. Will he play this year in a shortened season and risk re-aggravating it as opposed to healing completely? I don't know. But the kid is only a junior. He's not sitting out two years before going to Minnesota.
As for last nights game, defense, special teams, and the run game once again paved the way. The Eagles had a significant advantage against the Benny d-line and were opening holes bigger than we've seen all year. As much as I was hoping to see a more balanced approach, I can't fault the staff for keeping the ball on the ground. It was nice to see Jackson Miller emerging in the slot. He may have hauled in all of the whopping 5 pass completions last night. He had some drops early in the year and they seemed to go away from him. The hands look improved and he's got the running back skills in the open field. The question of whether we will be able to go to the pass if the run game gets shut down or if we are playing from behind remains unanswered heading into the playoffs. Just have to hope the defense keeps playing at this high level and we never find out.
Speaking of the defense, they continue to generate multiple turnovers and it's almost becoming expected at this point. I thought Calhoun had his best game all year, and he was being held pretty regularly without any calls. Benny has some nice athletes at the skill positions, and I thought their young QB looked pretty good in what I believe may have been his first start. Looked comfortable throwing from in the pocket and out, and threw a pretty accurate ball for the most part. Had a couple picks where he was throwing into tight coverage, but the ball was there for his receivers to have a chance at it. We caught a break on a busted coverage late in the game where the receiver dropped a sure TD. Not sure if it was a cover two look again or what, but Jaylen let his receiver go after ten yards and the safety did not pick him up. If it was cover two, these corners have to be told to funnel the receiver inside to the help. Can't let them get outside down the sidelines. And if there is no threat in the flat, then get more depth to prevent those intermediate throws in front of the safety. Coachable mistakes that we need to get shored up if we continue to give those defensive looks.
