My Take

[bballbeadle]

I am so sad. So sad I cannot watch another football game today. Hope tomorrow my mood can turn better and able to watch NFL games.

…and leave us not but pain and sorrow for promised joy.

 

[stuckinbig11]

Thanks, Tom. A lot of things to be unhappy about, but this really frustrated me:

"Our problems on offense were exacerbated by an awful performance by the special team return teams. I lost count. I think we tried to return three or four kick offs, and everyone of them was a disaster. No blocking, tentative returns, just a big mess. And we actually took a fair catch inside the 5 yard line on a punt."

 

[UpstateSM]

I don't think that Dook's defense is really any good but the difference in their physicality and ability to tackle yesterday compared to ours was eye opening

 

[upperdeck]

Duke creates a ton more pressure on the QB with no game starts

Ater a few games he might deal with it better.

Duke was out of position a ton, but they seemed to play faster on key spots of the field

I dont think we have any players anywhere that seem to play fast. even the guys who are supposed to have speed don't play fast. Especially on D. Look how the Dukes RBs all seem to run around our guys. Do we do that to anyone elses D?

 

[Newhouser]

Duke creates a ton more pressure on the QB with no game starts

Ater a few games he might deal with it better.

Duke was out of position a ton, but they seemed to play faster on key spots of the field

I dont think we have any players anywhere that seem to play fast. even the guys who are supposed to have speed don't play fast. Especially on D. Look how the Dukes RBs all seem to run around our guys. Do we do that to anyone elses D?

Duke's #20 looked like he was faster than any kid on the field. He also was more physical than any defender he saw in the secondary.
I think Fran has obviously elevated our program - but fact is we weren't physical last year and aren't this year, and no matter how much hitting is taken out of the game it's still football and physical usually wins.

 

[Archbold44]

The problem is that our WR talent is leaps and bounds ahead of our running game.

As for the running game... Willis is very good, Nixon is good. But they are two different types of talents, so defenses will know which RB means which type of plays. So we run Nixon and throw screens to Willis to try to keep them off guard. Even so, nobody is fooled. It would be like having your option QB pass into coverage and your pro style QB running a triple option. Anyway, the only way we get them space is when they respect our passing game.

The bottom line is that this offensive talent only clicks when it is a high octane passing game. It's that or bust with this roster.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

The problem is that our WR talent is leaps and bounds ahead of our running game.

As for the running game... Willis is very good, Nixon is good. But they are two different types of talents, so defenses will know which RB means which type of plays. So we run Nixon and throw screens to Willis to try to keep them off guard. Even so, nobody is fooled. It would be like having your option QB pass into coverage and your pro style QB running a triple option. Anyway, the only way we get them space is when they respect our passing game.

The bottom line is that this offensive talent only clicks when it is a high octane passing game. It's that or bust with this roster.

I don't think it is talent but system. We have the talent to run the ball and pass off the run, but we don't have those plays in the playbook.

I also think Nixon is mediocre at best. I think talent wise we have better guys behind him.

 

[PhatOrange]

I don't think it is talent but system. We have the talent to run the ball and pass off the run, but we don't have those plays in the playbook.

I also think Nixon is mediocre at best. I think talent wise we have better guys behind him.

I think Nixon is bit overrated myself. He's an average OC imo.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I think Nixon is bit overrated myself. He's an average OC imo.

This is insane.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

I think Nixon is bit overrated myself. He's an average OC imo.

I meant his son. The father I think is a good OC. Especially his passing concepts. I do think he needs to mix in the run more like he did first half of Clemson.

 

[sufan59]

I think Nixon is bit overrated myself. He's an average OC imo.

This is insane.

Penn State would hire him right now to be with them for the rest of the season if they could. No one schemes up a better passing offense in the country than Nixon. End of story. Penn State lacks that. Now we do have a problem if Collins or others currently in the QB room can’t operate his system. Real decisions on how to adjust will need to be made. But he designed what was an offense last season that was good enough to win teams with great defenses a national championship.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I meant his son. The father I think is a good OC. Especially his passing concepts. I do think he needs to mix in the run more like he did first half of Clemson.

Ah.

 

[Ozone!]

This is not a post I have been looking forward to making. But this weekend, I am finding The Rolling Stones were right.

You can’t always get what you want.

This list includes

a) a sub 90 round at Ravenwood, a nice course in Victor, near Rochester.
b) a sweep for the Mets against the Marlins in Miami. We might actually get a sweep but if we do, it will be a swap for the Marlins. Not good.
c) some sterling play from the US team against Europe at the Ryder Cup this weekend.
and last but not least,
d) a win against Duke in the JMA Dome today.

Tough weekend.

Anyway, let’s start my review of today where it began. At the Fine Mess Tailgate, in the prestigious Fine/Henry Lot at Raynor and Henry.

The menu was fabulous. It featured a lot of carb laden favorites, like pancakes, some kind of potato dish, cheese enchiladas, home made gnocchi, tortellini salad and lots of other stuff I am forgetting. I remember the cheese burgers, hot dogs,bacon and breakfast sausage, because they is what I had to eat. There was also a fresh fruit salad with whipped cream, chocolate chip cookies and a variety of other tasty dessert items. Props to all involved in the tailgate. Well done.

Talked with a bunch of people. At this time, I thought it was going to be a high scoring close game. Was worried about what Collins might do in his first start, but thought Coach Nixon would figure out how to get him comfortable and productive. That would unfortunately not be the case.

What happened on offense? Was Collins awful? Is this all on him?

I would say no, this is not all on him. But yes, he was part of the problem.

I think Coach Nixon decided that the way to beat Duke was to control the ball, mostly running it, burning clock and keeping the potent Duke offense off the field. From the first drive in, it looked like he wanted to establish the run, take some pressure off Collins and wear Duke’s thin defense down.

While we had some success running the ball, we were not able to move the ball consistently doing this. Collins forced the ball into coverage repeatedly and again rushed a throw early, not seeing the safety waiting for him to throw it to him. That resulted in an interception and I think, a fundamental change in how Nixon called the game.

SU has thrown the ball all over the field since Coach Nixon came on board. I think he has called plays to the left sideline, the right sideline and over the middle pretty evenly. But with Collins continually locking into his primary target and rarely if ever progressing to secondary targets, Nixon decided to throw the ball over the middle less. And I think this made it easier to defend us. The safeties knew they could.pretty much ignore targets over the middle and focus on covering sideline routes. This is not what you want

Weatherspoon appeared to really have his hands full trying to block 97. Looked like he got dominated pretty badly. Pretty sure he also got called for a big penalty running well past the line of scrimmage on a successful passing play. Veterans need to do better than this. That said, the OL generally gave Rickie enough time to get a pass off. Collins looked tentative a lot and started and stopped a throw a few times. He had people open but was plagued by self doubt and waited too long yo get rid of the ball.

I think a lot of the passes he was able to complete were short safe ones that Duke expected and their defenders weee able to lock in and deliver hard hits to our WRs just after catching the ball. They looked like they knew exactly what we were going to do and executed accordingly. They were fast to the ball and tackled well in space. A lot better than our guys did in similar situations. So props to the Duke defensive coaches and players. They dominated our offense and deserved to win.

Our problems on offense were exacerbated by an awful performance by the special team return teams. I lost count. I think we tried to return three or four kick offs, and everyone of them was a disaster. No blocking, tentative returns, just a big mess. And we actually took a fair catch inside the 5 yard line on a punt.

So we ended up starting a bunch of drives well inside our 20 yard line, which I think scared Coach Nixon even more than normal regarding what plays he was willing to call with Collins being so shaky. It takes a village to win games and lose them too.

I think we all thought Duke had a good offense. And they certainly showed that today. Their OL put on a master class in beating the blitz. Every time we tried to blitz, Mensah saw it coming and checked into a screen designed to run into the area vacated by one or more blitzers. I sat next to the Duke coaching box and it was clear they knew our signals when we blitzed. They got excited and started celebrating before the play even started. We must do better here in the future.

Number 20 is a tough little RB that consistently moved the pile when he made contact. I was struck by the all out speed the Duke RBs used hitting holes. Their big FB (might have worn 4) really did damage running inside. They got 3-5 yards after contact all game long and got into our secondary regularly for big gains. We rarely held our ground with our DL and just got pushed around by Duke all game long.

I don’t think Duke did a ton of damage passing it down field but their screens seemed to get 5 or 10 yards minimum all game long. They did a nice job blocking and their WRs were fast and determined. And Mensah got rid of it very quickly.we tried to run some screens but they were almost all blown up for little or no gain. Our execution on offense in general was slow and poor. We have had problems with screens in past games. I am sure Duke saw this and incorporated screens into their game plan.

They saw Samuel making penalties, went after him and got more PI calls against him. I think some of this is on the DL. They didn’t get consistent pressure on Mensah and he was a far more effective QB when he was not moved from his initial setup point. Very solid approach by the Dukies.

I think we need bigger, stronger, tougher safeties who can fare better against the run. We got man handled out there today.

Chestnut got some run but I don’t think he was 100% and he was not effective.

What else?

SUMB did their usual solid job. Great to see us over 12 tubas for the first time ( I believe) in decades. We had 13 out there today. Instead of just the guy and gal leading the singing of the NA and alma mater, they had around 15 SUMB members sing today. It was nice.

I think Collins might end up being fine. Our margin of error with him in is significantly smaller than with a more experienced guy. He has a good arm and for the most part, his throws were on the money and solid. We had a nice drive pretty early in the game where we went all the way to inside the Duke 10. I think we ran a run or two for little gain and tried a pass. Duke got penetration but Rickie somehow evaded the guy who was in his face almost immediately (I assume it was a blitzer who was not,picked up). Then another Duke defender ran at him and again he evaded him. But the SU OL looked to have taken the play off and another Duke ran at him and blew the play up. I suspect Rickie missed the initial blitzer and test is on him. If he checked into his hot route, like Mensah did so well, we would have been fine. But inexperienced guys rarely did this next level stuff and hopefully he will learn from this.

I hope so, because SMU is going to see all the issues Collins had and try to recreate what Duke did to stop Rickie. This game will tell us a lot about Rickie. Let’s hope the kid is ready to step up and play better in start number 2. Playing well on the road is a big ask. But I think the kid can do it. Guys like Cook, who on paper had a big game with a lot of catches, but who also had two unbelievably big fumbles, must step up to help him.

Great analysis, as usual. I believe Rickie will grow through this and be coached up for SMU, this was actually his first college start; did not play at LSU.

IMO, we have much work to do to prepare for the tougher, more experienced teams on our schedule. Many of our best players are sophomores and freshmen.

I believe Fran and the coaches will clean many of these miscues, in time.
I hope we see many of these improvements for SMU!

 

[PhatOrange]

Penn State would hire him right now to be with them for the rest of the season if they could. No one schemes up a better passing offense in the country than Nixon. End of story. Penn State lacks that. Now we do have a problem if Collins or others currently in the QB room can’t operate his system. Real decisions on how to adjust will need to be made. But he designed what was an offense last season that was good enough to win teams with great defenses a national championship.

Ahh any (passing first) system looks great when you have a QB who can run it and make throws. It's cool and all to throw the ball around so much but sometimes it's just stupid. And it you're being honest with yourself WRs making circus catches sure makes things look good to.

I like Nixon, he's better than what we typically have, but I don't think he's any better than Beck or even Sean Lewis.

And in 2 of the 5 games this season the head coach publicly called him out on the lack of touches for Yasin Willis. That doesn't make you a great OC.