With all the conclusions that have been leapt to since Saturday, my own included, I went back and watched most of Saturday's game again.
First of all, Duke deserves a huge amount of credit. Jones played a terrific first half, their coaches made some smart adjustments, and they played close to error-free football. I sometimes feel that when the Cats win and the defeated fanbase says the Cats won because they played smart that the compliment is condescending. I don't mean it in this context. The Duke coaches and players found weaknesses in the Cats to exploit, shielded their weak spots with good in-game adjustments, and made few mistakes.
Because the offense failed to put points up after the initial drive, I really concentrated on trying to figure out why and to think through if this failure is likely to persist the rest of the year. To me, there are really three elephants in the room: Thorson's limitations due to the knee, the play of the O-Line, and the inability of the wide receivers to get separation.
With respect to Thorson's situation, it clearly depresses output in two key ways. The first is that while Green is doing an admirable job in the snaps he takes, he has shown limited ability to get the ball downfield or threaten the perimeter with his legs. He has taken a third of the series so far, and I am willing to not consider those series with respect to how things will probably be as Thorson approaches full game playing ability. Two things relative to Thorson's game were pretty clear me while watching his series. The first is that he is a little slow and hesitant to step up in the pocket. In the first 6 series he had Saturday, there were two times when he could have avoided pressure if he stepped up. He did not do so, either because he did not see the opportunity, felt he would not be quick enough to exploit his opportunity, or did not want to risk contact. One of these yielded a sack and one a bad throw. The second thing that is clear is that without the need to contain Thorson, the defensive ends were able to completely sell out on some passing downs and loop Hance and Slater, creating pressure. If Thorson was able to run, he would have had a lane to the sideline for gains. The long and short of it is that some of the pressure that was coming is a result of Thorson's current limitations. If he does continue to heal and breaks a few runs against this type of pressure, the O-line may mysteriously seem to improve quite a bit.
Relative to the O-Line, with Thorson in the game up to the point where Slater left (about 4 minutes to go in the third) they generally played OK, though not great. They pretty much controlled the line on designed runs - of the few times Larkin was stopped for no gain or a loss, the play ran into run blitzes; in general Thorson recognized the run blitzes well and the options selected went to vacated areas. To that point, the pressures on Thorson (I am discounting Green because of his inexperience) would generally have been negated if Thorson was at full speed and either able to run past the DE rush or step up. While I am not qualified to do medical diagnosis, it looked to me like Slater might be out for a while. It looked like he may have sprained a knee on the play he was hurt on. He was engaged, but the injury did not arise from contact to the leg. It looked like a lock and buckle and he left limping. Up to that point, he had really dominated his man, and it made a huge difference. If he is out a while, the line's effectiveness will go down a significant amount. I did not see the injury to Hance; per Fitz, he wanted to stay in, so I would assume he would at least be back for Michigan. All in all, while the O line was not stellar Saturday, the thing that causes me the most concern is the injury relative to Slater rather than the ability of the regular 5 to perform adequately in conference play assuming Thorson has close to full mobility.
What was really interesting to me was watching the receivers on Thorson's first 6 possessions before Slater left the game. Generally speaking, the set of receivers, working with Thorson, were able to find openings in the short game and challenged Duke deep, which I will get to in a minute. In this time, Thorson was 17-28-1 overall. Of the 11 misses, 4 were deep downfield throws and 2 were drops. Since one was a downfield completion, on 23 shorter routes, 18 were either compete or dropped. On 2 of the others, Thorson locked on his primary target and missed a relatively easy check down, so on 20 of the 23 attempts, a receiver was sufficiently free to make a catch. After the first series that yielded the touchdown, Thorson threw long once on each of his next 5 full series. On 3 of these, the receiver created separation. On the first (the second possession for the Cats in the game) Nagel broke free and was grabbed by Duke's cornerback; he then broke free again as the was in the air, but the Duke cornerback was able to hold down his arm preventing the completion. On Thorson's 4th possession, this same pattern was repeated, only the receiver was Skowronek. In each case the Cats receiver had beaten the corner and contact by the Duke corner prevented a long gain or touchdown. I am not blaming the failure on the refs, by the way. The refs allowed a lot of defensive back grabs on both sides, and the Cornerbacks generally took advantage of it. If the game is called differently, these plays may well have gone the Cats' way (as would have several plays the would have favored Duke). On the first possession of the second half, Nagel beat his man by a full 7 to 10 yards, but Thorson underthrew the ball, which went for 32 yards instead of much more. Of the other 2 deep throws, there was not separation. The first was the arm-punt interception on third and long. The final deep throw was targeting Jefferson during Thorson's 6th full possession. On that throw, Jefferson did nothing to make the DB commit during the route, and the DB was right on him when the ball arrived. My take away from all of this is that the Cats' receivers are adequate but not outstanding, particularly relative to the scheme they run. They are not strong enough to break a game open against a team like Duke that plays a smart game and minimizes mistakes, but they are good enough to usually put up some points on long drives and off turnovers. For the Cats passing game to put up a lot of points, it will need most or all of four things: 1) Thorson's leg to heal to put more pressure on the perimeter defense and open a little more space 2) Misplays by the other team 3) Brown returning from injury and adding a deep threat, probably allowing Nagel or Skowronek a better match up 4) younger players like Jefferson to learn how to run a better route.
The total takeaway is that the offense will probably get a little better as the year progresses, but for the Cats to have a good or very good season they will need the rapid convalescence of Thorson, Slater and Brown. Without them, they will probably still win games where the other team makes mistakes (see Purdue). I really don't think, assuming Thorson can get close to 100% by the time of the MIchigan game, that they will be blown out of games, but may well lose 3 or 4 to the stronger teams on the schedule, and could lose 1 to one of the weaker teams.
First of all, Duke deserves a huge amount of credit. Jones played a terrific first half, their coaches made some smart adjustments, and they played close to error-free football. I sometimes feel that when the Cats win and the defeated fanbase says the Cats won because they played smart that the compliment is condescending. I don't mean it in this context. The Duke coaches and players found weaknesses in the Cats to exploit, shielded their weak spots with good in-game adjustments, and made few mistakes.
Because the offense failed to put points up after the initial drive, I really concentrated on trying to figure out why and to think through if this failure is likely to persist the rest of the year. To me, there are really three elephants in the room: Thorson's limitations due to the knee, the play of the O-Line, and the inability of the wide receivers to get separation.
With respect to Thorson's situation, it clearly depresses output in two key ways. The first is that while Green is doing an admirable job in the snaps he takes, he has shown limited ability to get the ball downfield or threaten the perimeter with his legs. He has taken a third of the series so far, and I am willing to not consider those series with respect to how things will probably be as Thorson approaches full game playing ability. Two things relative to Thorson's game were pretty clear me while watching his series. The first is that he is a little slow and hesitant to step up in the pocket. In the first 6 series he had Saturday, there were two times when he could have avoided pressure if he stepped up. He did not do so, either because he did not see the opportunity, felt he would not be quick enough to exploit his opportunity, or did not want to risk contact. One of these yielded a sack and one a bad throw. The second thing that is clear is that without the need to contain Thorson, the defensive ends were able to completely sell out on some passing downs and loop Hance and Slater, creating pressure. If Thorson was able to run, he would have had a lane to the sideline for gains. The long and short of it is that some of the pressure that was coming is a result of Thorson's current limitations. If he does continue to heal and breaks a few runs against this type of pressure, the O-line may mysteriously seem to improve quite a bit.
Relative to the O-Line, with Thorson in the game up to the point where Slater left (about 4 minutes to go in the third) they generally played OK, though not great. They pretty much controlled the line on designed runs - of the few times Larkin was stopped for no gain or a loss, the play ran into run blitzes; in general Thorson recognized the run blitzes well and the options selected went to vacated areas. To that point, the pressures on Thorson (I am discounting Green because of his inexperience) would generally have been negated if Thorson was at full speed and either able to run past the DE rush or step up. While I am not qualified to do medical diagnosis, it looked to me like Slater might be out for a while. It looked like he may have sprained a knee on the play he was hurt on. He was engaged, but the injury did not arise from contact to the leg. It looked like a lock and buckle and he left limping. Up to that point, he had really dominated his man, and it made a huge difference. If he is out a while, the line's effectiveness will go down a significant amount. I did not see the injury to Hance; per Fitz, he wanted to stay in, so I would assume he would at least be back for Michigan. All in all, while the O line was not stellar Saturday, the thing that causes me the most concern is the injury relative to Slater rather than the ability of the regular 5 to perform adequately in conference play assuming Thorson has close to full mobility.
What was really interesting to me was watching the receivers on Thorson's first 6 possessions before Slater left the game. Generally speaking, the set of receivers, working with Thorson, were able to find openings in the short game and challenged Duke deep, which I will get to in a minute. In this time, Thorson was 17-28-1 overall. Of the 11 misses, 4 were deep downfield throws and 2 were drops. Since one was a downfield completion, on 23 shorter routes, 18 were either compete or dropped. On 2 of the others, Thorson locked on his primary target and missed a relatively easy check down, so on 20 of the 23 attempts, a receiver was sufficiently free to make a catch. After the first series that yielded the touchdown, Thorson threw long once on each of his next 5 full series. On 3 of these, the receiver created separation. On the first (the second possession for the Cats in the game) Nagel broke free and was grabbed by Duke's cornerback; he then broke free again as the was in the air, but the Duke cornerback was able to hold down his arm preventing the completion. On Thorson's 4th possession, this same pattern was repeated, only the receiver was Skowronek. In each case the Cats receiver had beaten the corner and contact by the Duke corner prevented a long gain or touchdown. I am not blaming the failure on the refs, by the way. The refs allowed a lot of defensive back grabs on both sides, and the Cornerbacks generally took advantage of it. If the game is called differently, these plays may well have gone the Cats' way (as would have several plays the would have favored Duke). On the first possession of the second half, Nagel beat his man by a full 7 to 10 yards, but Thorson underthrew the ball, which went for 32 yards instead of much more. Of the other 2 deep throws, there was not separation. The first was the arm-punt interception on third and long. The final deep throw was targeting Jefferson during Thorson's 6th full possession. On that throw, Jefferson did nothing to make the DB commit during the route, and the DB was right on him when the ball arrived. My take away from all of this is that the Cats' receivers are adequate but not outstanding, particularly relative to the scheme they run. They are not strong enough to break a game open against a team like Duke that plays a smart game and minimizes mistakes, but they are good enough to usually put up some points on long drives and off turnovers. For the Cats passing game to put up a lot of points, it will need most or all of four things: 1) Thorson's leg to heal to put more pressure on the perimeter defense and open a little more space 2) Misplays by the other team 3) Brown returning from injury and adding a deep threat, probably allowing Nagel or Skowronek a better match up 4) younger players like Jefferson to learn how to run a better route.
The total takeaway is that the offense will probably get a little better as the year progresses, but for the Cats to have a good or very good season they will need the rapid convalescence of Thorson, Slater and Brown. Without them, they will probably still win games where the other team makes mistakes (see Purdue). I really don't think, assuming Thorson can get close to 100% by the time of the MIchigan game, that they will be blown out of games, but may well lose 3 or 4 to the stronger teams on the schedule, and could lose 1 to one of the weaker teams.
