3rd Down Efficiency

[Fjoinkay]

ND was coming off of a bye week, and last night they were prepared. SU competed hard throughout which is great to see. This SU team has potential to make big strides in its development. From the top down guys need to trust the process, be curious, open and adaptable in order to learn from mistakes, and grind. No shame or blame. Time for leaders to lead by example.

Last night on 3rd downs ND was about 65 percent effective. SU was about 20 percent effective. In the past 2 games SU has converted on 3rd down about 25 percent of the time.

Overall I thought SU's backend played better, but the ND screens were a problem. I may watch the game again just to take a closer look at that. Watching last night I often felt like the SU defenders engaged the ND blockers while defending the screen and then struggled to get off the blocks. On the flip side SU's screen game continues to fail the look test. Opposing defenders in all 4 games have had frequent success reading the screens, avoiding blockers, and blowing up the play. I wonder how effective SU's screen game has been in practice against the SU defense.

I like T-Hunt and the way he competes. I believe he's at a point in his development where if he continues to grow incrementally, be curious and open, and trust the process things could open up for him in a big way.

 

[orangenauburn]

simply put

if it is third down, count on a fourth with SU

 

['72 Orange]

As difficult a time we have with executing certain plays, my perception 1s that our lack of discipline (offensive penalties) have made the task of converting on 3rd down more difficult that it should be. Of the three 3rd downs we converted last night the average distance to make was 3 yds. On the 12 we did not convert the average distance was 8.4 yds. Three of our offensive penalties came on 3rd downs.

The first was a 5 yarder taking us out of a "makeable" 3rd and 2 out to a 3 & 7
The second was a 15 yarder pushing us from 3 & 9 out to 3 & 24
The third penalty was another 5 yarder pushing us from 3rd & 10 to 3rd & 15.

While these penalties made the job of converting on 3rd down harder, based on the way we were playing if the last two 3rd down penalties were not called we were not going to convert on either one in any event!