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It seems what surprised us is that UCSB used an extra person in the midfield to successfully mark Bruno out of the game. Once we lost our defensive midfielder Ben Shuleva to injury , we completely loss control of the midfield. With an ineffective offensive attack, the pressure fell on our defense that did the best it could under the circumstances. Bottom line is that we were outplayed. We needed someone to step up and take control but no one did.

Seems like when this team gets beat, we always hear " the other team was more physical and bigger" SMU has one of the top programs in the country, why don't we get a few more physical players? I guess that new field designed to help our smaller and faster players, didn't help much.

We do have physical players. Ben Shuleva could play middle linebacker, and Jay Needham could play strong safety. Adrian Chevannes is the strongest shoulder checker I've ever seen (basically, you're allowed to drill someone with your shoulder if he has the ball, as long as you keep your elbow down -- Chevannes can do this so hard that he sometimes gets whistled for fouls, even when they weren't technically fouls, because the guy he hits gets sent staggering across the field). Jeff Harwell is scrappy as hell. Chase Wileman is about the toughest "little" guy you'll see.

The problem is that UCSB had a guy who was built something like Devon Pearson in the back and several other guys who have pretty good size, too. Doesn't matter how much of a badass you are -- if you collide with someone who looks like that, who's going to win? Right: the big guy wins out. They had bigger guys, and more of them. Plus, we had no Geppert, half a DaSilva and lost Shuleva -- those injuries were enormous in the grand scheme of things.

As for recruiting: given a choice between a great player who's not that big, and a good player who's bigger, every coach alive will take the great player, whether he looks like Shaquille O'Neal or Mini-Me.

ALEX LIFESON wrote:Seems like when this team gets beat, we always hear " the other team was more physical and bigger" SMU has one of the top programs in the country, why don't we get a few more physical players? I guess that new field designed to help our smaller and faster players, didn't help much.

Actually, didn't he recruit smaller, quicker, and technical players to deal with the smaller field? With the bigger field it shouldn't matter...

Actually we have lost some big recruits to other schools. Last year, Omar Gonzales. a youth national team player from Dallas, signed with Maryland. He is listed as 6-5, 200 lbs. I recall there were some other top big players as well that we could not get to SMU.

Kenny Cooper

So much for polls -

That shows you how much value they actually offer.

bcs-BS (duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhh)