Many good points made in here. Just to add a few thoughts from what I saw..
We look night and day better than what we've witnessed/endured the past 5 seasons. Forget the score, and the big plays which are obviously skewed by the opponent we're facing. The fact is we are a functioning unit that entered the game with a clearly defined vision. The kids have bought in, and they're being taught and are playing with focus and confidence. Senseless penalties, not lining up right, forced timeouts, have nothing to do with opponent. That starts at the top, and is one of the reasons why some of us have been a little more confident coming into the year. We have a real coach again, not a lunatic playing one on tv.
As has been repeated, Grier is special. I was a huge Treon fan last year, and still am. But I still think there is a bit of a ceiling with him and some of what he did Saturday won't work once we get into conference play. Hopefully we learn a little more against ECU. The good news is I think Mac's approach will keep a fire under both of them.
I'm not great at assessing the OL, but I thought they were about as expected, and we'd pegged this as a trouble area for some time. The good thing is there is some youth that should improve, and as evidenced by the lack of procedure penalties, we seem to be well coached there. It will be ugly at times, but hopefully we'll improve throughout the course of the year.
Hardin was great. No idea how he can suddenly boom every kick through the uprights, yet we've struggled for years with that. Another area that has to be mental or S&C. In any event, that's a huge plus for us and may be critical for us in some of our toss-up games.
The only things I didn't' like were not taking the 15 yards on the PF, which would've made it 3rd and 21. They were clearly going for it, so I thought that was a mistake. Secondly, not sure if it's been mentioned, but I wouldn't be surprised if Poole is replaced by Wilson at some point this season. He's still a liability in coverage, imo.
