1. As far as the starters go, you can't really draw it up a whole lot better. The offense scored on every drive Drew Lock played. The defense held Tennessee-Martin to one touchdown while the starters were in the game and under 300 yards on the day. You can nitpick, but overall, it's tough to do a whole lot better than that.
2. Emanuel Hall will still beat you deep. Four catches for 171 yards gives him a pretty good shot to lead the country in receiving average this week. And the good news is, he caught everything he could have caught (even if he bobbled one).
3. Apparently we got the answer to the backup QB situation. Looks like it's Taylor Powell for the time being. I'm not sure that's settled all season long, but at least for now, it's Powell. He was just 4/9 but two of them were deep balls so he threw for 105 yards.
4. The Tigers appear to have some young talent at receiver. Jalen Knox made a ridiculous catch even though he was being held for 38 yards. Kam Scott made what might have been a better catch and even more impressively stayed on his feet for a 70 yard touchdown. They're going to get a lot of run this year...and I wouldn't be shocked if one of them is a starter relatively soon.
5. The redshirt rule made this really interesting. The Tigers played more true freshman they didn't. By our unofficial count, a dozen freshmen saw the field. Some of them are going to play all season long. Others, like say Xavier Delgado and Gerald Nathan Jr., almost certainly are not.
6. If you want to nitpick, there would be one thing I wasn't blown away by on either side of the ball. Offensively, the run game wasn't anything special. The Tigers averaged less than four yards per carry. They were never all that close to breaking one. No big deal on this day, but you'd like to see some holes open up next week. On the other side, the Tigers didn't put much pressure on the Skyhawk quarterbacks. Part of that is a scheme that was moving fast and getting rid of the ball quickly, and again, they didn't really need it. But down the road, you'd like to see a defense that's a little more disruptive.
2. Emanuel Hall will still beat you deep. Four catches for 171 yards gives him a pretty good shot to lead the country in receiving average this week. And the good news is, he caught everything he could have caught (even if he bobbled one).
3. Apparently we got the answer to the backup QB situation. Looks like it's Taylor Powell for the time being. I'm not sure that's settled all season long, but at least for now, it's Powell. He was just 4/9 but two of them were deep balls so he threw for 105 yards.
4. The Tigers appear to have some young talent at receiver. Jalen Knox made a ridiculous catch even though he was being held for 38 yards. Kam Scott made what might have been a better catch and even more impressively stayed on his feet for a 70 yard touchdown. They're going to get a lot of run this year...and I wouldn't be shocked if one of them is a starter relatively soon.
5. The redshirt rule made this really interesting. The Tigers played more true freshman they didn't. By our unofficial count, a dozen freshmen saw the field. Some of them are going to play all season long. Others, like say Xavier Delgado and Gerald Nathan Jr., almost certainly are not.
6. If you want to nitpick, there would be one thing I wasn't blown away by on either side of the ball. Offensively, the run game wasn't anything special. The Tigers averaged less than four yards per carry. They were never all that close to breaking one. No big deal on this day, but you'd like to see some holes open up next week. On the other side, the Tigers didn't put much pressure on the Skyhawk quarterbacks. Part of that is a scheme that was moving fast and getting rid of the ball quickly, and again, they didn't really need it. But down the road, you'd like to see a defense that's a little more disruptive.
