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Quick retrospective

cruzer

All Conference
Jul 27, 2001
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The regular season has ended so a few thoughts on the season seem like they are in order.

First, I will be the first to admit that I'm surprised the Panthers finished as strong as they did. I think the biggest accomplishment of the year is that the team didn't just mail it in after they went to 4-4. Credit to the staff and players for not quitting, which could easily have happened.

An earlier thread asked if fans thought this was a successful season. Rather then speculating on the level of success, I'll just say that at an absolute minimum we avoided a complete disaster. If we had tanked and gone 4-8 or 5-7 it would have been a real and serious set back. Fortunately, we avoided this. I suspect that your level of satisfaction with the season is closely related to your expectations going into the season. If you were expecting 10 wins this season, you're probably looking at the season as a fail. If you were expecting 7-5 then 8-4 doesn't look too bad. I'll add one thought. Whether you thought the season was a win or a fail, there should be no debate that the ACC this year is pretty darned weak. Absolutely no dominant team and quite a few teams that were simply terrible. Quality of competition does matter.

in terms of our on field performance, it was truly a mixed bag. The offense was pretty bad through the middle of the season. The past few weeks (particularly the Miami game) the offense was a bit better. Hard to tell whether our offense yesterday was really good or if Miami simply quit. Either way, we improved slightly, but still have a long, long way to go passing the ball. The biggest concern I see is that we seem to have exactly one receiver who makes any plays. Everyone else might as well stay on the bench. If Wayne leaves this year I shudder to think of what the offense will look like next season.

Defensively, we were solid most games although we had some serious breakdowns in a couple of games. The last 4 games of the season we played extremely solid defense. I think the biggest difference is that our D Line really stopped the run and more importantly, put tons of pressure on the opposing QB.

Special team is pretty easy to summarize. FG kicking was good...punting was horrible.

8-4 may be disappointing to many fans however, we avoided a complete meltdown. I'll call it a season damned by faint praise.

Cruzer
 
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