Well that wasn't the best result for what was really the first home game of the year was it?

Being at the game here are my brief impressions, and I'm sure BtD will discuss this game in more detail later this week,

First, I thought the crowd was there for the team and was pretty loud when Cincy had the ball.  A good number of false starts can be attributed to the crowd noise.  And for the safety I really felt the crowd and defense fed off of each other.

Defense, I felt the D actually played well, especially considering the team they were playing.  The defense held Cincinnati to 28 points total and only a TD in the second half, setting up the offense to win it (but alas, see below).  I think the main problem was defensive penetration for the QB had a lot of time to throw and this put a ton of pressure on the corners who had to deal with some excellent throws.  It is tough though and seeing the spread offense in person you can see how it poses such an issue for our up-front defensive line and linebackers.

Offense, hmm they sure looked ready to take control of this game and then went flat with those stupid penalties, and Cincinnati figured something out and put a lot of pressure on Canfield.  Have to admit Canfield has underwhelmed me so far this year, sure he looked fine against PSU but that was PSU.  He needs to release the ball quicker and with more confidence, needs to get the balls down so the receivers don't have to leave their feet so much, and needs to stop looking so much for the Rodgers brothers.  The Rodgers brothers are great, no mistaking, but the team does need to look beyond them if this team is going to do anything this year.  I think I argued a little in a previous thread about we need them as the to go to guys, but this game it seemed overkill and looked to me that Cincy had them keyed in on and didn't have to worry about anyone else (Cincinnati is not bad on defense by-the-way).  We need to expand the field and get Canfield to throw quicker, give him a bit more time (if he gets sacked once he gets jumpy), and start throwing beyond 10 yards.  I again think this offense has a lot of talent (unlike what some of the fans I sat around seem to think) but we need to start getting them involved.

Special teams, well besides Cincinnati never kicking the ball to James it was a solid special teams afternoon.  Hekker has improved over last year a lot.  And the FGs were true all the way from the contact, and Kahut had no problem with the PAT.

Overall, it was not a season ending game by any means but it was disappointing, and there are still a good number of issues to get worked out going into the Pac-10 season. Arizona is a good first conference game, I think, for we have them at home and they are struggling, but once that game happens (a must win conference game IMO) it gets very hard.  The conference could well be up for grabs but that also means going to be a lot of tough games this year, maybe no gimmes (except for WSU, but how about them Cougs!  I take pride in calling that one!).

Go Beavs!