Cincinnati: What Did We Learn?

Glass half full...
- 6.7 per carry for Cincinnati is pretty high, but for the most part plays were made when they were needed - outside the 2 TD drives.
- Limited blitzing and the secondary covered really well. We've played worse quarterbacks who can at least get to 100 yds
- EJ gets north-south quickly and finishes runs well
- Low-risk offensive decisions by the play caller and QB. Don't think Dana or Dylan will be content with that for long.
 
Mavric said:
We ran a TON of slow-developing run plays.
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I was thinking about passing plays as I was writing that.

On running plays, we saw some zone runs and then some lead blocker stuff. You would definitely want to see our guys firing off faster and maybe a heavier dose of downhill stuff.
 
Not sure how long Emmett holds up with 35 touches a game, as much as my old arse loves seeing a feature back. Happy for a W, way too many close calls to turn that into a L.
Might be good that we have a couple easier games before Meechicken comes rolling in. A lot to clean up.
 
I learned that I am a poor predictor of a game's score and a season record. I predicted 40 points for our over hyped offense :oops: and I think we'll be very lucky to get to 8 wins if we play like we did last night.

EJ looked great but where was the rotation with other backs. I can't see EJ getting that many touches every game without getting banged up. As others have said, too much east/west slow developing plays.

I was disappointed in the DL play. When we needed a pass rush it wasn't there - Once again, no dominating person on the line that can take over a game. We haven't had a real game changer on the DL since Gregory.

Our Aussi kicker is the real deal. Great seeing him have a successful night.
Happy Hartzog made the final play. He went from goat on the previous play to redemption on the last play.

Winning the offseason has no bearing on the real season. There has got to be a lot of improvement to see that overly hyped year 3 jump.
 
TGHusker said:
I learned that I am a poor predictor of a game's score and a season record. I predicted 40 points for our over hyped offense :oops: and I think we'll be very lucky to get to 8 wins if we play like we did last night.

EJ looked great but where was the rotation with other backs. I can't see EJ getting that many touches every game without getting banged up. As others have said, too much east/west slow developing plays.

I was disappointed in the DL play. When we needed a pass rush it wasn't there - Once again, no dominating person on the line that can take over a game. We haven't had a real game changer on the DL since Gregory.

Our Aussi kicker is the real deal. Great seeing him have a successful night.
Happy Hartzog made the final play. He went from goat on the previous play to redemption on the last play.

Winning the offseason has no bearing on the real season. There has got to be a lot of improvement to see that overly hyped year 3 jump.
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I agree with much of this (except the score prediction... I anticipated a lower scoring game) but everything else is pretty much my exact takeaways.

We've had too many losses in recent years to feel bad about wins, but the team's continued lack of a strong pass rusher and very little apparent depth at RB are for sure concerns.
 
I learned that Holgerson didn’t want to put the good stuff on tape for Akron or Houston Christian to prepare for. Seriously tho, was quite disappointed that we didn’t throw any long balls or keep hitting the quick slant routes that appeared to be there. Cincy seemed to be playing their DBs well off the line, why we didn’t exploit that is beyond me.

EJ looked awesome but he isn’t going to hold up without some help behind him.

The kicking game is much improved. Archie is the man.

The lines did not appear to be B1G quality. OL wasn’t horrible but the DL was. B1G teams are going to ram it down our throat.

Very happy with the improvement in turnovers and penalties (except for Pritchett’s TD eraser).

And yay, we won a one score game. I think Rhule was 0-5 in games decided by 3 pts or less…until this one.

One game knee jerk reaction- We’re no longer on the verge of winning 10 or making the playoff. 9 looks to be the ceiling with 8 being highly likely. Texasing off season Kool-Aid.
 
I want to add, too, that these are weird games to critique early in a season. Neutral site against a D1 school, getting to meet and shake Andy Reid's hand, touring Arrowhead and KC, the Kelce brothers and Mahomes meandering around, Taylor Swift watching... that's a lot of distractions mixed in with some bowl game vibes.

Those aren't excuses, of course, and I'm not trying to make them sound like it. But, I feel a part of me thinks this is one of those games that you just have to find a way to win and it may or may not necessarily be reflective of the greater body of work three mos. from now.
 
Run defense is officially a concern (like a lot of people thought) - got a couple weeks to figure it out before Michigan comes to town.

We need some finishers rushing the passer. There were times we got pressure, usually Nwaneri and notably once Wright on a stunt. But they just ran by Sorsby. I know he's mobile and dude is a gamer, but not being able to finish the job was the biggest pass rush problem.

On the bright side, we usually lose these games and we didn't. The secondary played well, and I do think we'll break some longer gains from the short game moving forward. Honestly on both sides that was maybe the cleanest tackling in a season opener that I can recall. We gave up way too much YAC, but I only remember a couple complete whiffs - one right away, and one on a QB draw where there was just way too much space.

I was actually a little disappointed in the special teams, although obviously there was improvement. You have to be able to kick the ball, and so the 50+ yard field goal and 3/4 punts inside the 15 with no return is great. But 2 punt returns for 3 yards and 2 kick returns for 33 ain't great. And presumably Hohl was the kickoff guy with the intent of kicking it inside the 5, hoping the returner doesn't fair catch it, and the bury them inside their 20. But they returned the first one to the 28 and the second went out of bounds, although I'm not sure he got his foot down before touching the ball (it probably hit the line first anyway). To Eks credit he made the switch and let Cunanan just boot it through the end zone.

I'm still pretty optimistic about the season as a whole, but the areas of concern (front seven defense, RB depth, explosive play potential) are real. I also think Cincy could be better than we gave them credit for, but I always tell myself that after a close early season win and it's never actually true.
 
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The next two games should have been the first two games but with that said...3-0 with an undefeated Michigan team coming to Lincoln will be fun.

Win that and at 4-0 NU is probably sitting around the top 20-15 or so.
 
While the game was a bit closer than I expected, I really think there are many positives to take away:

1. Special teams was finally special. The long field goal was ultimately the difference in the game. Also, our punting was superb.
2. We dominated time of possession by almost 2 to 1. The offense, and run game in particular, looked solid and we just need to find more ways to get into the end zone.
3. We had no turnovers and forced 2 turnovers...big change from prior years.

My biggest concern was D-line and overall inconsistency on defense. It's apparent that our defense has not practiced against a mobile QB as they looked lost when Cincy's QB was scrambling.
 
JJ Husker said:
I learned that Holgerson didn’t want to put the good stuff on tape for Akron or Houston Christian to prepare for. Seriously tho, was quite disappointed that we didn’t throw any long balls or keep hitting the quick slant routes that appeared to be there. Cincy seemed to be playing their DBs well off the line, why we didn’t exploit that is beyond me.
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Some of the write-ups were saying Cincy played a lot of deep cover three, taking away the deep shots and keeping everything in front of them.
 
There was a lot to be left desired, but Cincy's QB running and scrambling like he did really kept them in the game. It sure seemed like it allowed them to eat up a ton of clock and kept NU's offense from being able to really wear down the Cincy defense. I'm not sure when we will see another guy like him, except maybe Michigan's QB. There were times NU was starting to run down Cincy's defense and then it took too long for our defense to get Cincy's offense off the field and their defense back on.

I thought Raiola played pretty well except for the one almost disaster throw he had. He remained calm and didnt force too much. His play that got us to first and goal was pretty nasty! At times NU ran the ball extremely well, but the offense became too predictable at times and the running game stalled as a result. I'm not sure why more RPO type plays weren't ran on short yardage downs, because everyone in the stadium knew the inside run was coming and Cincy was able to stop it. Cincy was smart to give a lot of cushion and force the NU offense to sustain large drives, and not allow big momentum shot plays.

Defensively the game was great and a trainwreck all at the same time. Other than on a handful of plays, the pass defense was really good. The run defense on the other hand was frustrating. Early in the game it was pretty rough, then they settled in and Cincy really struggled to move the ball, but then in the 4th Quarter, it fell to crap again. I've stated my biggest concern for this team was the new DC. I could not understand why on the last couple drives when everyone knew Sorsby was looking to run before pass, that Butler continued to dial up blitzes and refused to spy the QB. It was obvious that all Sorsby had to do was make one guy miss and he was in the wide open running for 10+.

Overall I'm not going to complain about winning a game that for the last several years is a loss. I hope this is an Oregon vs. Idaho situation from a few years ago where a good team just has week 1 issues and gets a whole lot better. I understand NU is not near the level of Oregon, but I also understand that week 1 games often are sloppy, and also I think or maybe hope that Cincy is better than we give them credit for.
 
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