I was at the Game

[I am I]

Nice weather.

 

Saw a thread on here last night about the crowd being pretty bad. I thought it could have been crazy...Given the atmosphere beforehand. But simply put, we cheered hard and got noisy when our boys were on D, but were quickly quieted when Tech would make tipped passes for completions on 3 and long or a 6 minute TV timeout would put everyone on their butts again. If the O would have any spark at all, it could have really ignited the place...The only thing that frustrates me about the crowd is how everyone collectively sits right down after our offense gets the ball, i mean, we can stand up and be quiet for them. But overall it was pretty loud where I was.

 

Alright let's get to it: We do not have a very 'threatening' offense. We didn't throw the ball downfield or run any draws and we certainly didn't fool anyone with trickery or fake trickery. It seems like we run a variation of 4 simple plays about 6 different ways and that's it. When the ball is snapped, plays unfold very similarly. We do not run the ball up the middle very well, which is hard to do when the RB doesn't really get a running start since the QB hands it off to him sideways (because they are standing next to each other in shotgun). We never take the ball from the Center and toss sweep it quickly and violently to the edge to stretch the Defense. We have similar personnel in the game seemingly every play so it's easy to judge when a TE or extra blocker is on the field that we are getting ready to do something different. To me all of this is on Watson. It just doesn't seem creative or threatening. I know the play on the field dictates what coaches can call (ie, blocking, stacking the box, blitzes, etc...) but sometimes it seemed like yesterday we didn't even try to impose our will. I guess this is the lack of identity that we speak of. Next, and I will now admit it, I think Zac Lee may not be that great. I was REALLY high on him coming into this season and after being at the FAU game I thought he was the answer and the gun we needed to be a high powered machine. I don't think the VT or TT game was anything other than crappy play, no excuses now. He doesn't move away from trouble very well and when he sees an opening to run he hesitates and often doesn't convert the pass or on the run. But the most frustrating part perhaps is that he holds the ball too long on timing type routes and is then off the mark when coverage closes on the WR. I am not a coach and I'm not there in practice so what the hell do I know anyway, but i've been to 3 games this year and watched the rest on TV, and these things I see are all becoming patterns rather than exception. When Green got into the game he had a delay of game, 2 passes that should have been picked and ran right into trouble from the pocket. However, he also led a scoring drive, threw the ball down field a few times and at least looked like he could have made a play with his feet. He took chances and looked fast. I was pissed when they didn't redshirt him this year but now I think he should be starting. (I won't talk about the WR or TE or RB because they are all good enough to make plays, but if the QB cannot distribute, it doesn't matter if we have Irving Fryar and Roger Craig)

 

The defense played well and would have been even better if they had any momentum from the offense and wouldn't have been out there so much. they are good and will get even better as the year goes forward. The only thing that it seems they need to improve on is making solo tackles in space. Their gang tackling is great around the line of scrimmage but out in space we get our hands on someone and then leave our feet trying just to hold on to them til they come down. Dillard looked great and had passion. Crick played awesome and uses his hands VERY well. Dennard, Gomes, and Prince are pretty good as well. O'Hanlon seems to be around plays quite often that don't go our way, don't know exactly what that means....Suh was Suh and everything opens up because of him. We HAVE to find ways to get off the field and get turnovers, period. That's what GREAT defenses do, right now ours is good.

 

Special teams and penalties were pretty atrocious and untimely. The officiating was f'ing awful and normally, personally speaking I do NOT complain about the refs. But we got screwed on a non-call facemask, a roughing the QB, 2 intentional grounding on them, a terribly uncatchable pass interference call, and one false start where their guy was clearly in the neutral zone..But still, our redzone penalties and O-line penalties have got to get cleaned up, because those are mental pentalties.

 

We can still win the North very handily if we take care of Biz...but damnit, we better get a mean nasty attitude on offense and start imposing our will from whatever identity we find. We need to find some plays that work and some players that can work them and start sending the ball downfield or every game will be like MU and TT. ISU is a good place to start and try some new things and get sharp and nasty.

 

Overall the game was fun and my 4 year old son got to witness it first hand for the first time. He loved it and cheered and threw the bones. I love this team and think we can win all our games this year, but Saturday we were floundering around and that needs to stop.

 

GBR