One thing that struck me about last night’s game was how wide open receivers seemed to get on almost every passing play. Early on, much like the earlier games in the season, Bryant missed some open receivers downfield. Last night, to my eyes, the Minnesota DC had his safeties favoring Johnson and Henning until late in the 4th, when he shifted to a zone that paid attention to Kirtz. Kirtz got single coverage most of the night: you saw the result. On the last drive and in OT, they added safety help on Kirtz and the result was Henning and the tight ends getting open areas to work on. The long and short of it is that the Cats have 3 WR’s who have the ability to get separation against single coverage or find an open area in a cheating zone, as well as two tight ends that can catch the ball if they are ignored. While a championship level team might have the D backs to deal with that ( Duke did a good job, and I suspect PSU and maybe Iowa will, too) the set of receivers should be able to overmatch the secondaries of almost every other team remaining on the schedule. Bryant needs a little protection, which he did not get against Rutgers, but if he gets it, I think the Cats will score a fair number of points with the exceptions of PSU and Iowa.
It has been a long time the Cats have had a complete set of receivers that could pressure a defensive backfield. In earlier times, when teams ran 2 WR steps, Bates, Musso and Drexler were pretty good together, but in my memory 1971 (Pearson, Lash and Craig) was the last time he Cats had the receivers that actually gave them an advantage against most of their competition.
It has been a long time the Cats have had a complete set of receivers that could pressure a defensive backfield. In earlier times, when teams ran 2 WR steps, Bates, Musso and Drexler were pretty good together, but in my memory 1971 (Pearson, Lash and Craig) was the last time he Cats had the receivers that actually gave them an advantage against most of their competition.
