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I decided to wait a few days to in order to post my thoughts on Saturday's game to let the board calm down a bit, as well as go back and watch a few plays as my one year old was going nuts during the original broadcast.
My largest disappointment with the game is not the offensive scheme, or defensive performance. The single biggest reason we lost that game was evident from the second snap of the game. We did not match the energy level of our opponent. Louisville came to play Saturday, and we were not ready at all. We did not fire off the ball on both sides of the line, we allowed them to play at their pace, and I'm not sure this team has a leader on either side of the ball. Last year Derrell and Doug filled that role nicely. This staff needs to find a way to get these guys ready to play every game emotionally, not just on paper. They shouldn't have to rely on 45,000 Syracuse fans to pick up their emotion level ala WVU.
As for the offensive performance, it was another stinker. It will be more of the same when we play aggressive man blitz schemes because it highlights our biggest offensive maladies:
His struggles with the deep balls are well documented. He missed Chew on a sure touchdown by overthrowing him. He missed Chew again by lobbing a ball on a stop and go route allowing the single high safety to make a play (reminiscent of the lob to Graham against Tulane that was completed but should have been a TD). He missed Stevens on a seam route for 7. He missed a sure TD by missing an open Provo and then missing a wide open West (I think) by firing a bullet in the stands. These are points on the board that we cannot be leaving out there with the talent level that we have right now. We probably left at a minimum 14 points on the board, possibly 21.
This game also highlighted one other issue with Ryan I thought had been remedied -- his happy feet in the pocket. Ville was able to get to Ryan early with some excellent (hats off to them btw) blitz packages. I really haven't seen a lot of delayed A gap blitzes at this level, but they did it with some success early on. When Ryan gets hit, he tends to revert to a bit of panic mode so to speak. While line had some early issues figuring out the double A delay blitz, they did a decent job of containing it in the second half -- but by this time Ryan was a bit gun shy in stepping UP in the pocket and making a throw, subjecting himself to backside pressure that can easily be alleviated by stepping up in the pocket. The staff had really been working with him this year in doing that. I had seen improvement up until this game, where he regressed.
As to the WR's, what more can be said. If we combined Chew, Lemon, and Graham into one kid we'd have a great threat. We don't. I'd like to see more of West out there -- great set of hands and appears to be a bigger, slightly faster version of Lemon (our most consistent WR by far). However, I don't see him every week during practice, so there could be more to the story. They struggle getting open a lot. Not every down, but more than enough. Chew is a bit to skinny despite his measurables in the weight room, Lemon is probably a true 4.7 kid, and Graham is raw (but getting much better might I add).
The last point I will make on offense is relatively a newer gripe -- it's not a systematic gripe of going to the spread, etc. It's the fact that if a certain play does not work, or if we misfire on it we usually do not see that play again. Point in case the screen pass to Bailey. That play was well set up, but Chibane Missed a block and it went for maybe 5 when it could have and should have been a huge gainer -- it's an easy throw to get Ryan in a grove and it makes Ville back off a bit sending heat 75% of plays. We saw the success that had against us with it for christsakes. Why not go back to it? Why not continue to execute slant and gos, or more stop and gos? Just because we missed a pass vertically doesn't mean we should stop threatening the deep part of the field.
As for the defense, we weren't terrible. Ville's yardage came on two plays -- the second pass of the game and the long run off an option play by Anderson. Both those plays we allowed by Phillip Thomas. PT left his deep field responsibility when their QB rolled right and attempted to somehow try and make a play on a qb 20 yards away from him allowing the WR to be left all alone. Stupid play.
While Shamarko missed the tackle on Anderson in the backfield (not really his fault as he had pitch man on that play, actually almost an unreal play) PT's piss poor angle to the runner allowed him to run for 6. I have no idea what he was thinking on that play as well, and his angle actually took our own corner out of the play as well.
I like PT and think he's a good player. I don't think he is a great player or as good as he can be due to the amount of mental mistakes he makes out there. It's frustrating because he has the physical attributes to be great at this level.
My largest disappointment with the game is not the offensive scheme, or defensive performance. The single biggest reason we lost that game was evident from the second snap of the game. We did not match the energy level of our opponent. Louisville came to play Saturday, and we were not ready at all. We did not fire off the ball on both sides of the line, we allowed them to play at their pace, and I'm not sure this team has a leader on either side of the ball. Last year Derrell and Doug filled that role nicely. This staff needs to find a way to get these guys ready to play every game emotionally, not just on paper. They shouldn't have to rely on 45,000 Syracuse fans to pick up their emotion level ala WVU.
As for the offensive performance, it was another stinker. It will be more of the same when we play aggressive man blitz schemes because it highlights our biggest offensive maladies:
- Nassib's accuracy issues
- WR playmaking ability
- Staff inability to commit to plays or packages
His struggles with the deep balls are well documented. He missed Chew on a sure touchdown by overthrowing him. He missed Chew again by lobbing a ball on a stop and go route allowing the single high safety to make a play (reminiscent of the lob to Graham against Tulane that was completed but should have been a TD). He missed Stevens on a seam route for 7. He missed a sure TD by missing an open Provo and then missing a wide open West (I think) by firing a bullet in the stands. These are points on the board that we cannot be leaving out there with the talent level that we have right now. We probably left at a minimum 14 points on the board, possibly 21.
This game also highlighted one other issue with Ryan I thought had been remedied -- his happy feet in the pocket. Ville was able to get to Ryan early with some excellent (hats off to them btw) blitz packages. I really haven't seen a lot of delayed A gap blitzes at this level, but they did it with some success early on. When Ryan gets hit, he tends to revert to a bit of panic mode so to speak. While line had some early issues figuring out the double A delay blitz, they did a decent job of containing it in the second half -- but by this time Ryan was a bit gun shy in stepping UP in the pocket and making a throw, subjecting himself to backside pressure that can easily be alleviated by stepping up in the pocket. The staff had really been working with him this year in doing that. I had seen improvement up until this game, where he regressed.
As to the WR's, what more can be said. If we combined Chew, Lemon, and Graham into one kid we'd have a great threat. We don't. I'd like to see more of West out there -- great set of hands and appears to be a bigger, slightly faster version of Lemon (our most consistent WR by far). However, I don't see him every week during practice, so there could be more to the story. They struggle getting open a lot. Not every down, but more than enough. Chew is a bit to skinny despite his measurables in the weight room, Lemon is probably a true 4.7 kid, and Graham is raw (but getting much better might I add).
The last point I will make on offense is relatively a newer gripe -- it's not a systematic gripe of going to the spread, etc. It's the fact that if a certain play does not work, or if we misfire on it we usually do not see that play again. Point in case the screen pass to Bailey. That play was well set up, but Chibane Missed a block and it went for maybe 5 when it could have and should have been a huge gainer -- it's an easy throw to get Ryan in a grove and it makes Ville back off a bit sending heat 75% of plays. We saw the success that had against us with it for christsakes. Why not go back to it? Why not continue to execute slant and gos, or more stop and gos? Just because we missed a pass vertically doesn't mean we should stop threatening the deep part of the field.
As for the defense, we weren't terrible. Ville's yardage came on two plays -- the second pass of the game and the long run off an option play by Anderson. Both those plays we allowed by Phillip Thomas. PT left his deep field responsibility when their QB rolled right and attempted to somehow try and make a play on a qb 20 yards away from him allowing the WR to be left all alone. Stupid play.
While Shamarko missed the tackle on Anderson in the backfield (not really his fault as he had pitch man on that play, actually almost an unreal play) PT's piss poor angle to the runner allowed him to run for 6. I have no idea what he was thinking on that play as well, and his angle actually took our own corner out of the play as well.
I like PT and think he's a good player. I don't think he is a great player or as good as he can be due to the amount of mental mistakes he makes out there. It's frustrating because he has the physical attributes to be great at this level.
