Originally posted by Smokin'DeepBlue:
I agree with Eric Staal. Ashe could not match Maiden's team speed, but I made the comment several times during the game that they seemed to be a well-coached, disciplined team. It reminded me a lot of our 28-7 loss to South Caldwell earlier in the year - pretty much the same situation and the same result. (Butch Carter at South Caldwell also does an excellent job of getting the most out of his talent level.) Ashe played disciplined defense, and did enough to limit Maiden's running game to get the win. Their pass blocking and tackling was also exceptional. They made a few mistakes on this "North Dakota weather" night, but not as many as Maiden made. Clearly, the more disciplined and fundamentally sound team won this game.
Let's face it, it was just a bad year for the Blue Devils. It was our first losing season since 1995, and at 5-7 it was the first time we've finished more than one game below .500 since 1985. We ended the year giving up an average of almost 33 points per game. Unheard of.
I have heard the reason we were down this year was because we have a young team , and that's the reason why we had a bad record of 5-7 . I don't agree with this . Why didn't Tom have bad years like this when he had young players ? 29 years later we go below .500