Welp. We were struck with yet another Dook Debacle last week. What is it about that opponent that makes our players and coaches lose their collective minds year after year…
This is going to be much shorter than a normal recap because I intentionally waited a week before coming back to the board because it’s never good to post when annoyed (and also this place was likely to be salty if I read it). Also because by now I’ve forgotten 3/4 of what I would have written in the immediate aftermath.
A few takeaways though, starting with the good:
1. Cam Porter is good. Really good runner and showed skills out of the backfield. Excited for the RB room the rest of the year. Let’s get him lots of yards in the first half tonight and then hand it over to the other backs ideally. Give Komolafe a chance to redeem the fumble.
2. Stadium and setting looked great on TV.
3. OL showed improvement from week 1 I thought. Duke was blitzing every play basically and they gave Wright a bit of time. Also late in the game / into OT they started to get downhill on the Dook defensive front it seemed. At the margin I still think this unit is a negative as of now, but it was nice to see progress. Hoping to see us dominate the EIU defensive front this week and then get ready for Washington.
4. Defensive tackling still pretty good. I like our LBs and S crew. Xander and Devin Turner are the core of our defense.
5. DL was good for most of the game… they seemed to tire towards the end though. We seemed to get close to the QB a lot and struggled to get home. I think we have a better pass rush than the last couple of years which is nice. Hoping we can get pressure on B1G QBs. I think we might be able to.
6. AJ Henning had a nice game and was pretty dynamic.
Okay so the bad:
1. Gotta start with the QB position. I’m sure Mike Wright is a great kid. And he’s an excellent athlete, awesome runner. But jeez he looked scared out there. He threw an early pick and it was like he got the yips for the rest of the game. Was not going through his reads, was jumpy, quick to ditch the pocket, afraid to make a throw, etc etc. With a halfway competent QB and how our D was playing we should have won that game easily. Dook just started putting 6 guys on the LoS and blitzing relentlessly every play. And he couldn’t do anything about it because he looked terrified. Week 1 there were some pros and some cons to his performance. Week 2 was downright painful to watch. I’m hoping that was an aberration, and I don’t doubt that he’s played much better than that in practice against pressure to justify getting the starting job. But there’s a difference between a practice player and someone who steps up against pressure in a game, and responds from a mistake with resilience. I’m hoping that was his worst game that we see this season and he learns from it and progresses, but safe to say I have some concerns.
1A. I was heartened to see Braun is going with Lausch tonight. I think that’s the right move. None of us know if Lausch is better or worse than Wright, but after what we saw last Friday I think it would be extraordinarily stubborn to not give the other guy a chance under live game conditions and see what he shows. Then make a decision about what to do after that.
2. Next we gotta go to Lujan… he had a tough job with Wright having the yips all day I acknowledge, but that play call on 3rd and 1 in OT was one of the dumbest ones I’ve seen in quite some time. I have no idea what we were trying to accomplish there, obviously it didn’t work, but when you have 2 downs to gain a yard and after that 4 downs to plow it in, and your RB and OL is starting to move a tired defense… there’s a line that you can be too clever by half, we were too clever by 1000x. I don’t have enough words to describe how dumb a play call that QB stretch whatever the F that was was. It was bad enough that it made me wonder if we should fire him for a single play call when he’s on the second game of his tenure. So incredibly idiotic. So absurdly stupid. So infuriating. … … I guess let’s just hope he learns from that but I have nothing kind to say.
3. We gotta find a way to get the ball to Bryce Kurtz more. That was partly a function of the QB tbh so won’t dwell on it.
4. Our corners and coverage scheme. Not gonna name names at CB but they did not have a great night. Also looked like Tim McG did not trust them. I know the Hank philosophy is to play soft on the outside until the 20 and then tighten up, but we seemed to take that to the extreme late in the game. When we are up a FG maybe we should try to prevent them from getting a FG to tie us? Or at least we should try covering Moore a bit tighter (put safety help over the top) when he’s the primary guy they have been looking to all day. Too much soft coverage on the edge. And a lack of intensity up front to stop the runs and draws. Very frustrating we had been playing well on D most of the game and then we started playing from our back foot and then they got the upper hand which seemed to carry over into OT.
4A. I like Timmy McG as DC mostly. But there was a stark contrast between the Duke D approach and ours. I’ve seen the success of the Hank scheme over many many years so I’m not questioning the cover 4 and make them execute all the way down the field. But the way we played the late Q4 which then fed into OT was very frustrating. I’m hoping he learns from that and improves as a defensive play caller.
Turned out not to be that short. Alright well it’s gameday, let’s pummel EIU tonight and get right and then make some noise in conference season.
GO CATS
Rick
PS Manny Diaz is a douche and I’m pissed we lost to him
This is going to be much shorter than a normal recap because I intentionally waited a week before coming back to the board because it’s never good to post when annoyed (and also this place was likely to be salty if I read it). Also because by now I’ve forgotten 3/4 of what I would have written in the immediate aftermath.
A few takeaways though, starting with the good:
1. Cam Porter is good. Really good runner and showed skills out of the backfield. Excited for the RB room the rest of the year. Let’s get him lots of yards in the first half tonight and then hand it over to the other backs ideally. Give Komolafe a chance to redeem the fumble.
2. Stadium and setting looked great on TV.
3. OL showed improvement from week 1 I thought. Duke was blitzing every play basically and they gave Wright a bit of time. Also late in the game / into OT they started to get downhill on the Dook defensive front it seemed. At the margin I still think this unit is a negative as of now, but it was nice to see progress. Hoping to see us dominate the EIU defensive front this week and then get ready for Washington.
4. Defensive tackling still pretty good. I like our LBs and S crew. Xander and Devin Turner are the core of our defense.
5. DL was good for most of the game… they seemed to tire towards the end though. We seemed to get close to the QB a lot and struggled to get home. I think we have a better pass rush than the last couple of years which is nice. Hoping we can get pressure on B1G QBs. I think we might be able to.
6. AJ Henning had a nice game and was pretty dynamic.
Okay so the bad:
1. Gotta start with the QB position. I’m sure Mike Wright is a great kid. And he’s an excellent athlete, awesome runner. But jeez he looked scared out there. He threw an early pick and it was like he got the yips for the rest of the game. Was not going through his reads, was jumpy, quick to ditch the pocket, afraid to make a throw, etc etc. With a halfway competent QB and how our D was playing we should have won that game easily. Dook just started putting 6 guys on the LoS and blitzing relentlessly every play. And he couldn’t do anything about it because he looked terrified. Week 1 there were some pros and some cons to his performance. Week 2 was downright painful to watch. I’m hoping that was an aberration, and I don’t doubt that he’s played much better than that in practice against pressure to justify getting the starting job. But there’s a difference between a practice player and someone who steps up against pressure in a game, and responds from a mistake with resilience. I’m hoping that was his worst game that we see this season and he learns from it and progresses, but safe to say I have some concerns.
1A. I was heartened to see Braun is going with Lausch tonight. I think that’s the right move. None of us know if Lausch is better or worse than Wright, but after what we saw last Friday I think it would be extraordinarily stubborn to not give the other guy a chance under live game conditions and see what he shows. Then make a decision about what to do after that.
2. Next we gotta go to Lujan… he had a tough job with Wright having the yips all day I acknowledge, but that play call on 3rd and 1 in OT was one of the dumbest ones I’ve seen in quite some time. I have no idea what we were trying to accomplish there, obviously it didn’t work, but when you have 2 downs to gain a yard and after that 4 downs to plow it in, and your RB and OL is starting to move a tired defense… there’s a line that you can be too clever by half, we were too clever by 1000x. I don’t have enough words to describe how dumb a play call that QB stretch whatever the F that was was. It was bad enough that it made me wonder if we should fire him for a single play call when he’s on the second game of his tenure. So incredibly idiotic. So absurdly stupid. So infuriating. … … I guess let’s just hope he learns from that but I have nothing kind to say.
3. We gotta find a way to get the ball to Bryce Kurtz more. That was partly a function of the QB tbh so won’t dwell on it.
4. Our corners and coverage scheme. Not gonna name names at CB but they did not have a great night. Also looked like Tim McG did not trust them. I know the Hank philosophy is to play soft on the outside until the 20 and then tighten up, but we seemed to take that to the extreme late in the game. When we are up a FG maybe we should try to prevent them from getting a FG to tie us? Or at least we should try covering Moore a bit tighter (put safety help over the top) when he’s the primary guy they have been looking to all day. Too much soft coverage on the edge. And a lack of intensity up front to stop the runs and draws. Very frustrating we had been playing well on D most of the game and then we started playing from our back foot and then they got the upper hand which seemed to carry over into OT.
4A. I like Timmy McG as DC mostly. But there was a stark contrast between the Duke D approach and ours. I’ve seen the success of the Hank scheme over many many years so I’m not questioning the cover 4 and make them execute all the way down the field. But the way we played the late Q4 which then fed into OT was very frustrating. I’m hoping he learns from that and improves as a defensive play caller.
Turned out not to be that short. Alright well it’s gameday, let’s pummel EIU tonight and get right and then make some noise in conference season.
GO CATS
Rick
PS Manny Diaz is a douche and I’m pissed we lost to him
