Man, that game was way more stressful than it should've been, but for the first time all season I thought we saw progression in both our players AND our coaches.

- The energy was fantastic, the sideline was hype and you could tell that it impacted the defense. I think not having fans has had a major impact on that side of the ball for us

- Hamilton made serious adjustments to his playcalling, he brought back a lot of Bud Foster concepts and it made us look significantly better. We zone blitzed, had Ashby fill gaps and not scrape the line, and told our DTs to penetrate. No surprise those positions looked 100% better than last weekend.

- On the zone, we play it softly and poorly, but this was the first game that it's obvious why we do that, because we have a serious lack of speed at CB. I imagine if we played Bud's man free we'd give up Vick-like stat lines such as 12-15 for 280 yards and 4 touchdowns.

- Tisdale had himself a DAY, my man must've spent the entire week just doing tackle practice and it paid off.

- Crawford came back and it's clear he's our best DT when healthy, need him for Miami

- Strong is our best healthy cover corner, probably followed by Taylor and then maybe Chatman. Only Waller is really willing to tackle and Murray had a very rough game in that department.

- Deablo is clearly the piece that takes us from all-time bad defense to average. If the linebackers and line play like the did in the 2nd half vs wake and vs Louisville this defense could turn the corner.

- Conner is our best player on defense still, he cleans up ungodly amounts of trash (read: missed tackles) and is almost a sure bet to take down ballcarriers in 1 on 1 situations. His coverage leaves something to be desired, but we haven't had a whip like him since Grimm.

- The DE's had a great day setting the edge, Ashby contributed as well there and we had a really good day against a really good rushing attack (minus the 90 yarder which we'll get to).

- Dax didn't play a single snap, shows Hamilton is willing to make tough decisions to give us the best chance of winning. Love that he was hype man #1 on the sidelines with Tyrell Smith though.

- Hooker was fabulous and Turner finally showed up and did Turner-like things. A lot of people have complained about our receivers but I really think it's more the play design than their ability.

- Speaking of which, WR downfield blocking has taken a step back (where's Kaleb Smith?) which is why Herbert isn't busting out 40 yard TD runs anymore.

- Offensive line looked really good, again. I know it was the backup DEs, but still averaging 300 yards on the ground is an incredible stat for this squad.

- Our KR game looks real dangerous with Herbert and King back there, both to take it to the house and fumble the ball.

- Cornelson has been pretty good, but his 3rd down playcalling can be really headscratching. For every leaked out TE we have 4 HB dives.

- Fuente got uber conservative to end the half and it crushed us. Not going for a score, not calling timeouts, then playing prevent defense on 3rd and long with no time left on their 10 yard line. You think we would've known they'd run, given we run the ball in that situation 100 out of 100 times.