Welcome to November ...
The Bruins entered October undefeated and fans here and elsewhere were lamenting why we weren't ranked while poring over the schedule, trying to decide if a trip to San Diego for a bowl game was possible or would we have to settle for El Paso, Texas.
October was an 0-5 disaster, capped by an Orange and Black beating in Corvallis on Halloween night. But Bruins fans are nothing if not resilient -- if you weren't resilient you'd be in an institution by now -- and the second half of the Oregon State game gave the half full segment of the Blue and Gold club something to build on as Kevin Prince discovered Nelson Rosario and Rosario discovered those things on the end of his arms called hands.
The questions I have is:
Has it come to this?
Are we reduced to clinging to "great fourth quarters against Oregon State" as a sign the the team has turned another corner?
Or is the corner we turned just another sign that we're going around in circles?
Seriously, is there any indication that November will be better than October? Will we have something to be thankful for come Thanksgiving or will the Halloween fright last the rest of the season?Most importantly, will I ever stop asking these lame rhetorical questions?
I'm going to be right up; front with my answer to most of these:
I really don't see anything that tells me we're going to start playing better. We might, sure. But I've yet to see anything resembling consistency on both sides of the ball and without that, it's tough to have confidence.
This lack of consistency is perhaps the thing that's bothering me the most. Early in the season, the defense played well and saved the offense. It's easy to just chalk it up to Crompton but the defense did have a couple of great series to preserve the Tennessee win. (It's weird to actually type the word "win.") Somewhere along the line, the defense regressed and, yes, it might have something to do with the fact that the competition just got better. On the other side of the ball, we've yet to see anything resembling a 60 minute performance all year long.
Do I sound a little frustrated? You bet, I'm frustrated.
Writing these posts are supposed to be fun, there supposed to be a cool little warm up to another exciting Saturday. But a five game losing streak turns even a goofy little blog post into a chore. It would be a lot more fun to wax semi-poetic about another win or at least another exciting game. Instead, we're left to make lemonade out of another performance marred by inopportune penalties, delays getting the play in from the sideline, conservative coaching decisions and a scoreboard deficit.
But I'm not giving up. I knew -- like many of you knew -- that this was going to be rebuilding season. I didn't realize that progress would be so incremental that we'd be looking for sliver linings in fourth quarter comebacks that fall short, but that's the hand we've been dealt -- and the metaphor I badly mixed.
Here's to November ... and the Washington Pregame Guesses:
- Who will rush for more yards on Saturday, Jake Locker or Derrick Coleman?
- Name a Bruin who will score a touchdown.
- Which team will kick off to start the second half?
Bonus Question:
We're thinking about doing the guesses for the basketball season. Do you guys (and gals) want to keep playing? I'm not exactly sure I'll have time to write a guesses post for every game and more importantly I don't know if hicaliber wants to total the scores, but if we can get it together on our end, do you want to keep playing? Just write Yes or No as the fourth answer in your subject line.