So none of the Idaho QBs made the trip but they used a guy who was 3000 yard passer in high school and was Washington State 3A player of the year. Also a star wrestler in high school, and won a bronze medal in Judo representing team USA in junior Pan Am games. Looked like Tompkins out there, tough to tackle and sense of where the open field was. 6’0” 203 lb.
They ran out of the pistol mostly. They had some direct snaps to other running backs.

we need Crawford involved in that play.

The thing about the rule is that it’s broad enough that people don’t know what the infraction was, and assume it was some dangerous or dirty play. No way the play involved possible head injury to the ball carrier, his head was not involved. No way was it intended to injure. In my opinion it was t even forceable contact beyond making a legal tackle.
The issue of the review with no flag in order to protect players is pretty questionable. If a players play is excessively dangerous or forceful, that should be apparent on the field. Looking at a tackle in slow motion to determine in a legalistic way if a rule was violated is overkill.

I guess I shouldn’t rely on my memory.
That’s really a joke this season with so few teams playing in the MEAC.
Cal Poly would be a contender in that league.

Thare are 10 automatic qualifiers and six at large teams. So in theory they pick the six best teams that don’t automatically qualify, but it’s their opinion, not any poll.

I think we need to withhold judgement on who should be our QB. We’ve seen Tompkins play maybe two drives where he’s thrown any passes..
We don’t know how the QBs compare in seeing the open guy and making the right pass. Can’t tell that from TV.
We need a QB to get the ball into the hands of Babb, Hutton, Crawford Castles etc. I think Tompkins might be very good at doing that but too soon to tell. Same with Rodrigues although there is more film on him so coaches have more to evaluate. Hopefully we can win with either guy and can have a QB controversy for the ages.

That’s really key. If you can review aspects of a play without a flag, why don’t we see that with holding and pass interference, uncalled infractions that show up often in replays?

I don’t think they passed

That’s exactly right, literally enforcing the rule makes football impossible. That’s why they say in the beginning of the rule;
Note 1: "Targeting" means that a player takes aim at an opponent for purposes of attacking with forcible contact that goes beyond making a legal tackle or a legal block or playing the ball.
Someone in the booth who called fot the review of that play ignored that,

I agree with your interpretation, I posted that section of the rule almost simultaneous as you did, but with the opinion the rule is a mess.
I think it’s slanderous to call someone for a personal foul and an ejection for this kind of play
What is particularly egregious was it didn’t seem to be called on the field. I bet you could make the case for rule being called on a large percentage of plays where the ball carrier is running toward the defensive player.

They ignore ergonomics. How do you lean forward, get low, and put your shoulder into a guy, which is what you need to do to stop a runner coming straight at you without lowering your head? If you lower your shoulder your head lowers also. if you pull your head back and lower your shoulder you’ll break your neck if your head makes contact
This part of the rule should be limited to contact with the opponents head, or to a defenseless player, in line with most of the sections of the rule.

How do teams settle on jersey colors if they don’t follow the standard visiting team wears white? Southern Utah and Weber look great in their all dark colors.

Barriere was wearing gloves.
JT has a video on YouTube where he talks about gloves Wore them only in the pros where they were freely available at no cost, he definitely likes them if it’s wet. He says you lose some of the touch passes, he throws most everything hard with the gloves. Says gloves are better now than when he played.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgXIOT7JpnM

Did you notice that the Eastern QB wore gloves?
JT O’Sullivan liked playing in gloves especially if it’s wet. He says the major drawback is cost since you go through several pair in a game.

The rule is a mess. It goes on about intent to injure head and neck etc. But then it says without reference to head or shoulders:
“Lowering the head before attacking by initiating forcible contact with the crown of the helmet“
It also says when in doubt its a foul.

it certainly is interesting to have a guy like Tompkins. He makes me think of Joe Kapp, a 6’2” QB known to run over linebackers
Good to see Tompkins finally throwing the ball a few times.

I don’t think it’s correct to say that pulling Rodrigues in prior games reflected lack of confidence in him. He was pulled to get Tompkins in for a specific situation, no reflection on the guy replaced any more than pulling a slot back for a tight end. I don’t think coaches are wedded to anyone at QB. Let them prove themselves, and play the guy in situations were they are most likely to have success. I think they took a walk before you run approach with the QBs this spring. Hopefully that doesn’t mean they can’t do more. I was somewhat disappointed that our senior wideouts Vaughn and Herrick didn’t get more balls thrown their way. Was that because of lack of ability of the QBs, conservatism of the OC or the way teams played us, I don’t know

Since you seem to be plugged in to team roster issues, do you think any players sat this season out and will play in the fall? It seems like this year would have been a good year to miss as far as college life goes.

I think it’s possible to be creative while still playing conservative. We got nearly 400 yards of offense against a pretty good defensive team and had no turnovers. We had a variety of rushing plays. We averaged nearly 14 yards per completion. We threw the ball 9 times on first down vs 20 rushes but we got over six yards a carry when we ran on 1st down,
What led to our defeat were drive killing penalties against us and drive sustaining penalties for them combined with our inability to get stops in the first part of the game. By stops I mean drives not ending in a score. Three of their first four drives, they scored. And of course our failure to get into the end zone where we turned it over on downs. Even that play where Larison didn’t get in there likely was an option for Tompkins to keep that ball and he chose not to.

Ok, so that’s the season. Very disappointing we couldn’t beet Weber or Eastern.
I don’t think we either exceeded or fell short of expectations. We finished about where projected.
Pluses are that we have found two offensive stars in CJ Hutton and Lan Larison. At QB, we now have the QB controversy. We have to remember that Rodrigues is still the guy who completed his first 16 passes, and was an effective scrambler. Tompkins is certainly a dynamic athlete. It’s a plus that we have two guys who have upsides. Run game was best of the Hawkins era, and we might have had a better performance with Gilliam in addition to Larison. Play calling was creative, we were obviously emphasizing short passes and the run game. The fly sweep plays worked better than ever, Crawford Babb and Hutton are pretty good ball carriers. We took some downfield shots but not many. I think they were trying to not put too much of a burden on the QB. Maybe this will change now they have some experience, I think they’ll be forced to.

While the defense is improved it’s not near good enough. Multiple long drives against it in this game, high percentage of third and fourth down conversions. In the first half, our offense had the ball less than 9 minutes and had 5 first downs, it wasn’t just three and outs. Meanwhile the D was giving up long time consuming drives ending in scores. While the offense bears responsibility for giving the defense a break, the defense has to get the ball back for the offense in some way other than a kickoff. Our interception bounced of their receivers hands so can’t take too much credit for that.

I can’t imagine one of the coordinators decides whether to kick a field goal or go for it. That’s on the head coach