Onward Brinkhater Nation

The nation is building, check out the response to Brinkhater in Glenn’s blog:

In terms of the rest of the “season,” can we just spare the rhetoric about becoming bowl eligible?

This team is NOT good enough to win all three remaining games. So the question that remains is “what needs to be done to make next year a return to respectability?”

Personally, I’ve just had it with Alex Brink. Sure you can rightfully blame coaching, injuries, and a horrible defense as a large part of THIS season’s woes, but the reality is that if we are gonna be good next year, our offense has better carry the load–not only in terms of points, but also in terms of ball control. That task gets harder with the loss of a couple of offensive linemen, Harrison, and probably Hill.

Watching the SC game was a painful example of Brink’s monumental limitations as a Pac-10/big game QB. On the plus side, he does seem to understand the offense, checks into run plays well, and throws the nicest deep ball that we’ve seen since Leaf.

But on the flip side, he showed this last weekend that his arm strength is simply not good enough to play in the Pac-10.

As evidence, look at his lack of ability to complete a pass (to us) over the middle. Look at the out patterns on Saturday with a DB ten yards off of the WR. Brink throws and the corner has 3 seconds to break on the receiver, turning a sure 8-15 yard “possession” gain into a 2-4 yard (no yds after the catch) reception.The other piece of evidence, the sheer number of timing patterns which are meant to compensate for Brink’s lack of arm strength. Against weaker opponents (and all Pac-10 defenses less USC are weak defensive opponents this year), the timing routes work okay. But when those routes are disrupted you have bad looking incompletions and in the case of the Beavs game, seemingly inexplicable interceptions.

Its high time that Doba bench Brink and go with either Swogger (strongly prefered) or Rogers (least prefered). Surely, making such a change will be a painful reversal and a sign of (previous) poor judgement and evaluation by the coaches. On the other hand, making that adjustment is paramount to save the program’s previous progress, and to save staff jobs down the road.

Posted by Brinhater 31 Oct 1:05 PM

This is completely intelligent commentary — in other words, right on the mark. Brink’s limitation have the offense hamstrung. Take away the fly pattern to Jason Hill, tighten up on the stuff in the flats and quick tosses (where the WR just turns and catches the ball) and we have no passing game. How many balls have we completed on passing routes over the middle? How many times has Brink picked up a third option somewhere in the middle of the field? Never happens. He’s extremely limited.
Posted by johan 31 Oct 10:55 PM

The nation is uniting, boys, time to storm the Louvre and take some fricking prisoners….