First off, to put things into perspective, my friend and I were travelling back from the game late last night and were hit head on by a DWI driver in Groesbuck,TX. He and I are both alright, but as you can imagine it was fun trying to find a wrecker in smalltown Texas at midnight. Kind of puts a college football game loss in perspective (with respect to the fans who want to be boat people). So make sure you hug your loved ones today because you never know if it is going to be your last.

I saw a lot of things to be encouraged by in this game.

Coaching: Creativity in play calling. We really mixed it up. Had misdirection, screens, Cyrus Gray at QB, a reverse, and QB draws from spread formations. This was a big change from the first two weeks. Also saw some good defensive adjustments after halftime.

QB: Jerrod Johnson made two huge mistakes which resulted in TDs for Miami. These were the two types of mistakes that he avoided against UNM. You have to expect these kinds of mistakes from young QBs. He will learn from them and be a better QB next week and next year because of them. That said, Johnson also made some great plays and passed for more yardage against Miami than Tim Tebow did last week. After making those two costly turnovers, he kept in the game and kept fighting and helped us score two more TDs.

LB: Garrick Williams is slowly but surely learning how to play the position. I thought he really stood out in the second half. 

DL: Tony Jerod-Eddie collected his first career sack. It is fairly obvious to me that the best players on our team are freshmen and sophomores (aside from Goodson) and Jerod-Eddie leads a group of talented underclassmen on defense. This bodes very well for the future but means that we are going to take some lumps while we learn on the job. Michael Bennett had another sack despite being double and triple teamed for much of the day.

Attitude: The team kept fighting even while down 31 in the second half. I saw too many teams under Fran simply give up. Jonathan Batson's interception on the 1 yd line late in the game exemplified this attitude. This tells me that the team is buying into what Sherman and staff are preaching.

For the first time I can remember after a loss, I left the stadium feeling better about the team than when I walked into it. We have a good future on the horizon. We just have to be patient and keep supporting the team while they mature and we get the right talent in place.