Three Up, Three Down: Towson

The Ups

Greg Dortch. I mean really, what else? 7 receptions, 94 yards, 1 touchdown, a long of 23. 85 kick return yards with a 28.3 average and, here we go. 131 punt return yards on 3 attempts with TWO TOUCHDOWNS, one of 70 yards, one of 65. Good gravy, that just isn’t fair. I take back what I said about not putting Greg on returns. Do it. Always.

582 Yards of Offense. That’s a great day, competition be damned. 242 passing, 340 rushing. Absolutely beautiful. Also Sam Hartman was never sacked. That’s pretty impressive as well. Usually a sack happens somewhere even on the best day against the worst competition, even in garbage time. Sure, it was significantly easier this week, but Beef Boys held up and came through on this one. Good stuff fellas.

No Towson Points In The Second Half. There were issues on defense (I’ll get to that), but to go from a 38-20 lead at the half to a 51-20 final is more than acceptable with regards to the back end. Also we probably pretty easily could have scored more at the end but chose not to, so there’s that.

The Downs

First Half Defense. Okay, so one of the drives was only 23 yards to the end zone for Towson, but really? Three touchdowns? One of them (right before the half) took less than a minute. I largely don’t care that we were in control already. Tighten up, guys.

Turnovers. I love Sam Hartman, but we dealt with turnovers again. Neither of them were egregiously bad; the first was a pass that was a little high and bounced straight up into the air off of Sage Surratt’s hands (leading to the 23 yard touchdown drive previously mentioned) and the other was on a strong run right near the goal line wherein Sam stretched out and tried to get too much, fumbling the ball. Much like last week, I’d prefer what we’ve got rather than, say, an atrocious read to an easy pick, but still, we’ve got to clean up those freshman mistakes.

Is Tom Flacco Elite? You’d Think So. The Towson QB tallied a stat line of 35/51. 345 yards, three touchdowns, and a single pick. I’m generally okay with yardage, as in a vacuum that’s often a bit of an empty stat. But not only were there three touchdowns, the Demon Deacon defense only tallied 5 sacks. By itself, 5 team sacks isn’t too bad, but there were opportunities for so many more and, much like against Tulane, the defensive front got pressure, but then couldn’t really seal off the scrambling lanes, leading to a lot of yardage on busted plays.

The Bottom Line

I’ll take it, and after what many of our future opponents did and/or had happen with injuries and the like, a path to at least 6 wins and yet another bowl seems beyond plausible. That said, though, I’m extremely stressed about the huge game Thursday against Boston College. I think whoever wins that one could very easily be ranked, and IF we can get to 3-0, this season could truly end up something special. I’m also nervous about the weather, though. Please change course, Florence. Thanks in advance.

On to the next. Go Deacs.

—SF