After all the talk, it's clear the lost tune up game had an effect.

Reasons for optimising:
Consider this. We had a 90 yard TD run, a 50+ pass TD, and a few other lengthy runs called back.
So combined with our actual penalty yardage We lost about 250+ yards and 2 TDs due to penalty. just think about that. We didn't have the first game to work those kinks out and had to do it on the road in a conference game.
That defense for the first 40 mins and the last drive. Wow what a sight the middle of our defense was. They absolutely shut that running game down and when it really counted on that last drive, they held them out of FG range.
Arden Key was a beast. What he did as a true freshman last night was incredible.
The offense through the same first 40 minutes looked like it couldn't be stopped.


Reasons for pessimism:
After those first 40 dominant minutes, we decided to go into a complete shell to hold on to the victory. As soon as momentum started to shift we had absolutely no answer to take it back. I see this mentality biting us in a game if we don't get out of this constant play not to lose mentality.