gocraz4dasu
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This is going to be a long one. (And sorry for the many spelling/grammatical errors that will be throughout this post, I'm sure. I'm not going to proofread because I'm watching football)
Alrighty, I live in VA so I have had this game circled on my calendar for quite a while. I was lucky enough to have a few connections to be able to watch the game in a press box. Unfortunately, that meant that I was the only SU fan there alongside my father. UVA fans did not attend the game very well and the students pulled a SU students move and bailed by half time, mostly. When UVA got it to a three point game, I watched as people were leaving which is always disappointing and we SU fans can understand the frustration of fans bailing mid-game. The traffic after the game wasn't even bad so I don't accept the trying to beat traffic excuse.
On to the game..
The QB: Dungey had a fairly solid game outside of the botched snaps/read-options and the fumble/incomplete for a touchdown (I thought it was an incomplete pass, obviously). He made a couple good throws, missed a couple too but that is to be expected especially for a QB so young. He made some incredible plays with his feet and I was impressed with his pocket awareness when the offensive line broke down numerous times. He kept the plays alive and turned them into great gains. I think there is a lot to be excited about with Dungey. He still needs to work on his willingness to slide, how to take a hit, and his throwing motion needs to be a little quicker. Those are all things that can be fixed with coaching.
Grade: B
The RBs/eXBs: Fredericks ran pretty well and is still the best of the bunch in terms of runningbacks. I wish we would put the ball in Stricklands hands more because he is pretty explosive. The very well defended option play in the red zone in the first quarter where he made a great move to get us down to the half yard line was completely due to his resilience and ability. It's too bad the cameras had terrible viewpoints and couldn't give us the best perspective to see if it crossed the line but I do think he was a tad short. Phillips continues to look quick and I am much more happy when he is out there than when he is absent. Ben Lewis actually had a solid game himself and we didn't see any jet sweeps with him which made me happy with Lester. The play where Dungey broke the pocket and looked as if he was going to run and Ben Lewis broke off and got open then Dungey hit him with a touch pass and Lewis took in ~20 yards was nice to see from both of them (sorry for the run-on).Morris and McFarlane were lackluster. I know they ran a couple times but nothing stood out.
Grade: B-
The O-line: This was definitely not there strongest game. The UVA defensive line was bigger and our lineman really seemed to struggle in pass blocking and some run blocking. One of the Dungey fumbles occurred because a UVA dlineman had just blown up the play. Dungey had to deal with a lot of pressure and it really limted our ability to throw the ball down field which allowed the UVA defense creep up and play the run(ie the entire second half). I haven't rewatched the game but there wasn't anybody who I thought played exceptionally well. The UVA's dline was aggressive which did allow for Dungey to take advantage of that in the first half because the dlineman went so far up the field which the offensive line were good and bad at dealing with. Once the UVA line was more disciplined in the second half, the offensive line created no holes and got pushed back consistently.
Grade: D+
The WRs: This unit is probably the hardest to grade from the game. Dungey didn't have a lot of blocking and there weren't many shots down field. I thought Ishmael played fairly well and Brisly played okay, his special teams ability pushes him to a solid game. Ishmael actually had a sweep, if I do remember correctly, which is a call I like. After the two of them, I think Avant caught a pass but I can't recall if anybody else in this unit made any sort of impact. I don't remember any glaring drops or anything too stupid so it was a decent game. The only big play was the Ishmael one in the fourth (I think) where one block could have meant a TD.
Grade: C+
The D-line: This unit was very different in each half. In the first half they played the run very well until the end of the first half. There was a time when UVA had run the ball 9 times for one yard which was phenomenal but unfortunately it did not stay that way. UVA ran at will in the second half. It always seemed like they were picking up 4 to 8 yards on every yard. I thought Slayton had a strong pursuit on a sweep and Clarke had a great stop in the red zone early on. It was nice to see Sheppard on the field and making an impact by getting the interception which, I think, Slayton swatted up into the air. Ron Thompson played in typical Sugar Bear fashion, sans the sacks. Donnie Simmons had the FF which was great. Arciniega vanished unfortunately. The pass rush was virtually nonexistent which is unusual for a Shafer led SU team/defense. I can only recall one sack and it coming fro Windfield. We are lucky UVA's QB isn't very good or they could have torched us because he had all day.
Grade: First half-- B Second half-- D- Overall-- C-
The LBs: The linebackers had a pretty rough day. I feel bad for Zaire on that face mask because that was an absolute killer penalty but it happens. Ted Taylor had a good tackle for loss in the second half but I can't remember too many other ones. They have a difficult time in pass coverage. They really didn't stand out in too many ways. The number of times UVA ran a screen pass on us and it seemed like there no linebackers in the area was far too high. I think their runningback had 11 catches or something like that.
Grade: C-
The DB's: This unit frustrates me to no end. I could probably write a PhD thesis on it but I will try and spare you all as much as I can. I'll start out with the best of the bunch, Antwan Cordy. He continues to make game changing plays and he did so this game with the fumble recovery for a touchdown. e is easily my favorite despite his risky play because at least he is attempting to make something happen and an offense has to account for him. Windfield had the sack which was a good play by Bullough and Windfield. There was a couple pass break-ups which was nice. Now, here comes a barrage of my frustrated thoughts with them so if you do not want to read the whining rant of a fan, I'm giving you fair warning...... Julian Whigham does not deserve to be on the field. He is playing terribly. He can't tackle and gets beat every week. He finally, almost, made a play on that screen to stop them on third down but he didn't finish the tackle. He got killed in pass coverage again. That 36 yards touchdown pass had two players in the area and they both blew it, the major one being Whigham. He was in relatively decent position to make a play and had his turned when the ball initially came out so he saw it coming. He then proceeded to get burnt and turned his back to the ball and never turned back around to make a play and instead put a lazy hand up to try and blindly break it up. Awful game for him. Now, on to the rest of the secondary as a whole. They are horrific in run support. When we were stopping the UVA rush attack in the first it was because we were clogging them up in the middle. UVA then discovered out CB's are terrible at making tackles and shedding blocks so they continuously ran sweeps/stretches/jet sweeps to the outside because the secondary could not tackle their runningbacks on first contact. I rue the day when we play FSU and Dalvin Cook bounces something outside because it will be bad. I would have given the linebackers an even worse grade had I not understood that it wasn't entirely their fault in the run game because they were on the hook for trying to play the running lanes inside and outside because the CB's weren't going to make the play. They had a lot of field to cover without a lot of help on the outside. UVA exploited our soft CB's by repeatedly calling the same type of plays to punish them and they did. UVA also had us beaten on a couple different long pass plays but their QB made bad passes on each of them.
Grade: D- (not an F because 0f Cordy making a great play)
Special Teams: Riley Dixon is an absolute legend, or magician, with that fourth down run and he also made a great punt to pin them down a couple times. Cole Murphy is not a very good kicker. I welcome the day when Hofrichter steps onto the field. Norton was good on the kickoffs. Brisly had a good punt return, per usual, and it's great to have a threat back there and UVA was even trying to avoid him.
Grade: B+
Despite us losing and my reactions being harsh, I am still very much behind this team and even the coaching staff. Of course we have some areas to improve but we are an extremely young team with a coaching staff still figuring things out for themselves and how to play with these new players. Are they going to be Nick Saban, no, but I do believe we should keep them around for next year regardless of the rest of the season. I might get rid of 2 position coaches but that would be the most turnover I really would like to see. Lester called a better game than he did against USF (to be fair, it was pretty easy to but I thought he called a decent game). I think we lost because of blown chances and shooting ourselves in the foot more-so than coaching. We had a crucial penalty, an unfortunate call on the field that led to a TD and a 'call stands' from the booth, and two missed field goals. None of those plays fall on the coaching. Now could they improve, yes, but they had us in position to win and our inexperienced players made inexperienced plays. It is to be expected. I am actually having a positive attitude towards our team for the rest of the year.
I personally think we end up with 5 wins this year and I will be watching every game because I enjoy watching the team. Even though they make the boneheaded inexperienced plays, they are fun to watch. I had a great time at the game, until we lost, and I'm sorry I couldn't make it to any of the tailgates but my father had back surgery a month or so ago and he can't stand around a tailgate for a few hours.
On to Pitt, I hope we absolutely destroy them but I think it will be a really good game. Pitt is a tough match-up because they are a strong team but we are capable of beating them. We just need to eliminate some of the glaring mistakes and try to cover up for our weak secondary. Go Cuse!
Alrighty, I live in VA so I have had this game circled on my calendar for quite a while. I was lucky enough to have a few connections to be able to watch the game in a press box. Unfortunately, that meant that I was the only SU fan there alongside my father. UVA fans did not attend the game very well and the students pulled a SU students move and bailed by half time, mostly. When UVA got it to a three point game, I watched as people were leaving which is always disappointing and we SU fans can understand the frustration of fans bailing mid-game. The traffic after the game wasn't even bad so I don't accept the trying to beat traffic excuse.
On to the game..
The QB: Dungey had a fairly solid game outside of the botched snaps/read-options and the fumble/incomplete for a touchdown (I thought it was an incomplete pass, obviously). He made a couple good throws, missed a couple too but that is to be expected especially for a QB so young. He made some incredible plays with his feet and I was impressed with his pocket awareness when the offensive line broke down numerous times. He kept the plays alive and turned them into great gains. I think there is a lot to be excited about with Dungey. He still needs to work on his willingness to slide, how to take a hit, and his throwing motion needs to be a little quicker. Those are all things that can be fixed with coaching.
Grade: B
The RBs/eXBs: Fredericks ran pretty well and is still the best of the bunch in terms of runningbacks. I wish we would put the ball in Stricklands hands more because he is pretty explosive. The very well defended option play in the red zone in the first quarter where he made a great move to get us down to the half yard line was completely due to his resilience and ability. It's too bad the cameras had terrible viewpoints and couldn't give us the best perspective to see if it crossed the line but I do think he was a tad short. Phillips continues to look quick and I am much more happy when he is out there than when he is absent. Ben Lewis actually had a solid game himself and we didn't see any jet sweeps with him which made me happy with Lester. The play where Dungey broke the pocket and looked as if he was going to run and Ben Lewis broke off and got open then Dungey hit him with a touch pass and Lewis took in ~20 yards was nice to see from both of them (sorry for the run-on).Morris and McFarlane were lackluster. I know they ran a couple times but nothing stood out.
Grade: B-
The O-line: This was definitely not there strongest game. The UVA defensive line was bigger and our lineman really seemed to struggle in pass blocking and some run blocking. One of the Dungey fumbles occurred because a UVA dlineman had just blown up the play. Dungey had to deal with a lot of pressure and it really limted our ability to throw the ball down field which allowed the UVA defense creep up and play the run(ie the entire second half). I haven't rewatched the game but there wasn't anybody who I thought played exceptionally well. The UVA's dline was aggressive which did allow for Dungey to take advantage of that in the first half because the dlineman went so far up the field which the offensive line were good and bad at dealing with. Once the UVA line was more disciplined in the second half, the offensive line created no holes and got pushed back consistently.
Grade: D+
The WRs: This unit is probably the hardest to grade from the game. Dungey didn't have a lot of blocking and there weren't many shots down field. I thought Ishmael played fairly well and Brisly played okay, his special teams ability pushes him to a solid game. Ishmael actually had a sweep, if I do remember correctly, which is a call I like. After the two of them, I think Avant caught a pass but I can't recall if anybody else in this unit made any sort of impact. I don't remember any glaring drops or anything too stupid so it was a decent game. The only big play was the Ishmael one in the fourth (I think) where one block could have meant a TD.
Grade: C+
The D-line: This unit was very different in each half. In the first half they played the run very well until the end of the first half. There was a time when UVA had run the ball 9 times for one yard which was phenomenal but unfortunately it did not stay that way. UVA ran at will in the second half. It always seemed like they were picking up 4 to 8 yards on every yard. I thought Slayton had a strong pursuit on a sweep and Clarke had a great stop in the red zone early on. It was nice to see Sheppard on the field and making an impact by getting the interception which, I think, Slayton swatted up into the air. Ron Thompson played in typical Sugar Bear fashion, sans the sacks. Donnie Simmons had the FF which was great. Arciniega vanished unfortunately. The pass rush was virtually nonexistent which is unusual for a Shafer led SU team/defense. I can only recall one sack and it coming fro Windfield. We are lucky UVA's QB isn't very good or they could have torched us because he had all day.
Grade: First half-- B Second half-- D- Overall-- C-
The LBs: The linebackers had a pretty rough day. I feel bad for Zaire on that face mask because that was an absolute killer penalty but it happens. Ted Taylor had a good tackle for loss in the second half but I can't remember too many other ones. They have a difficult time in pass coverage. They really didn't stand out in too many ways. The number of times UVA ran a screen pass on us and it seemed like there no linebackers in the area was far too high. I think their runningback had 11 catches or something like that.
Grade: C-
The DB's: This unit frustrates me to no end. I could probably write a PhD thesis on it but I will try and spare you all as much as I can. I'll start out with the best of the bunch, Antwan Cordy. He continues to make game changing plays and he did so this game with the fumble recovery for a touchdown. e is easily my favorite despite his risky play because at least he is attempting to make something happen and an offense has to account for him. Windfield had the sack which was a good play by Bullough and Windfield. There was a couple pass break-ups which was nice. Now, here comes a barrage of my frustrated thoughts with them so if you do not want to read the whining rant of a fan, I'm giving you fair warning...... Julian Whigham does not deserve to be on the field. He is playing terribly. He can't tackle and gets beat every week. He finally, almost, made a play on that screen to stop them on third down but he didn't finish the tackle. He got killed in pass coverage again. That 36 yards touchdown pass had two players in the area and they both blew it, the major one being Whigham. He was in relatively decent position to make a play and had his turned when the ball initially came out so he saw it coming. He then proceeded to get burnt and turned his back to the ball and never turned back around to make a play and instead put a lazy hand up to try and blindly break it up. Awful game for him. Now, on to the rest of the secondary as a whole. They are horrific in run support. When we were stopping the UVA rush attack in the first it was because we were clogging them up in the middle. UVA then discovered out CB's are terrible at making tackles and shedding blocks so they continuously ran sweeps/stretches/jet sweeps to the outside because the secondary could not tackle their runningbacks on first contact. I rue the day when we play FSU and Dalvin Cook bounces something outside because it will be bad. I would have given the linebackers an even worse grade had I not understood that it wasn't entirely their fault in the run game because they were on the hook for trying to play the running lanes inside and outside because the CB's weren't going to make the play. They had a lot of field to cover without a lot of help on the outside. UVA exploited our soft CB's by repeatedly calling the same type of plays to punish them and they did. UVA also had us beaten on a couple different long pass plays but their QB made bad passes on each of them.
Grade: D- (not an F because 0f Cordy making a great play)
Special Teams: Riley Dixon is an absolute legend, or magician, with that fourth down run and he also made a great punt to pin them down a couple times. Cole Murphy is not a very good kicker. I welcome the day when Hofrichter steps onto the field. Norton was good on the kickoffs. Brisly had a good punt return, per usual, and it's great to have a threat back there and UVA was even trying to avoid him.
Grade: B+
Despite us losing and my reactions being harsh, I am still very much behind this team and even the coaching staff. Of course we have some areas to improve but we are an extremely young team with a coaching staff still figuring things out for themselves and how to play with these new players. Are they going to be Nick Saban, no, but I do believe we should keep them around for next year regardless of the rest of the season. I might get rid of 2 position coaches but that would be the most turnover I really would like to see. Lester called a better game than he did against USF (to be fair, it was pretty easy to but I thought he called a decent game). I think we lost because of blown chances and shooting ourselves in the foot more-so than coaching. We had a crucial penalty, an unfortunate call on the field that led to a TD and a 'call stands' from the booth, and two missed field goals. None of those plays fall on the coaching. Now could they improve, yes, but they had us in position to win and our inexperienced players made inexperienced plays. It is to be expected. I am actually having a positive attitude towards our team for the rest of the year.
I personally think we end up with 5 wins this year and I will be watching every game because I enjoy watching the team. Even though they make the boneheaded inexperienced plays, they are fun to watch. I had a great time at the game, until we lost, and I'm sorry I couldn't make it to any of the tailgates but my father had back surgery a month or so ago and he can't stand around a tailgate for a few hours.
On to Pitt, I hope we absolutely destroy them but I think it will be a really good game. Pitt is a tough match-up because they are a strong team but we are capable of beating them. We just need to eliminate some of the glaring mistakes and try to cover up for our weak secondary. Go Cuse!
