Post game thoughts...

[McNabb2Brominski]

- Dungey is a tank. He looked terrific tonight. He is still is stupid when he is outside the pocket. If he continues to take unnecessary hits, his season will be short lived.

- Ish, Erv and Custis are going to be the big 3 at WR this year. All contributed greatly tonight. I think it will be a committee at WR from those 3 this year.

- Running game is weak. Not sure if our RBs arent very good or if the run blocking is lacking.

- The D looked ok. Still not getting a lot of pressure on the QB.

- Culpepper looks good. He has a good arm. If Dungey (God forbid) goes down, I would feel more confident in Culpepper over Mahoney.

- Nykiem Johnson is going to be good. He is extremely quick. Wouldn't mind seeing him take some kick and/or punt returns.

All in all, not a bad showing. CCSU is pretty bad so not sure how much we can take from this game. Next week should be much more of a challenge when Shafer and company come into town...will be a better assessment of the team.

 

[CanadianSU]

Both... I don't believe Strickland is a great rb and our o line isn't looking very good.

Pretty concerning if it doesn't turn around.

 

[longislandcuse]

Our running game almost looks bad by design. There is nothing to it at all. We just spread it out and hand it to someone running straight ahead and hope there's a lane, if not, get a yard and hurry up.

Also, Moe Neal at the goal line... uh, what?

 

[TheCusian]

Babers said in his press conference that the scheme CCSU was running was to prevent the running game from taking off. 8 guys in the box.

But I bet he's concerned a bit. Even against 8, we should look better.

 

[billsin01]

Babers said in his press conference that the scheme CCSU was running was to prevent the running game from taking off. 8 guys in the box.

But I bet he's concerned a bit. Even against 8, we should look better.

Yeah, that's coach speak. The running game is a concern. 8 in the box against a team you know has a great QB and decent receivers makes no sense. And even if they were playing 8, we should still be able to pick up some yards with a few big hitters and we didn't do that at all.

 

[sdhall01]

Good lord does Culpeper have an arm. He was throwing fast balls.

 

[kmart128]

Well our oline struggled and Bradshaw was flat out bad. I said last year that he is not big or fast enough to be anything other than a nickle CB. Bigger faster recievers abuse him. He not only allowed the TD on 4th and 4 but gave up the big play on 3rd and long before that and missed the tackle

 

[Oswego93]

Good:

1)Dungey -looks imposing. Throws a crisp ball. Had issues going deep, but I don't have much concern on this aspect overall.
2)Erv, Ish, Custis - these will be our play makers this year. Pierce may jump into this group at some point, but it's clear we live or die with Eric and these 3.
3)LBs, Samuels, Slayton, and whoever is playing CB opposite Bradshaw. - looks like another year of zero pass rush, but these guys turned in a nice game.
4)The following true Frosh: Pierre, N. Johnson,
5)Coverage Teams

Bad:

1)OLine run blocking
2)Rex's pocket presence - looks very mechanical/unnatural/uncomfortable.
3)Kicking Game consistency


Ugly:

1)Sean Riley's Punt Returns
2)Bradshaw's Coverage
3)Strickland's Running
4)Any Semblance of consistent pass rush


Undecided

1)WR Butler - made a nice catch on a deep ball, but otherwise looked nowhere near as capable as Custis...hard to beleieve there was a competition here
2)Secondary as a whole. Bradshaw seemed to have issues, while everyone else did well...but the competition needs to be considered
3)Pierce. Seems like he should thrive...on paper. Made a nice catch for his TD grab, but was otherwise pretty quiet. Could be simply a matter of not enough balls to go around tonight when Ish and Erv were so wide open.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Babers said in his press conference that the scheme CCSU was running was to prevent the running game from taking off. 8 guys in the box.

Coaches say things. I'm not buying it.

That said, I don't think we need to run the ball well to have a successful season. This team is going to live and die by the passing game and getting just enough out of the defense.

I suspect we're years away from having a really good running game.

 

[tipphill]

dungey looks good. otherwise the team seems to have the same weaknesses as last year. ol is bad, defense line is questionable, special teams bad. all this against a horrible team. glad to see rex get snaps. it was said last year, that we had several ol guys that rs, and we would be fine this year. i did not see it.

 

[Newhouser]

I was not as enamored with ED as everyone else. His deep ball is not good. Either throws it out of bounds or too short. We won't win fifty fifty balls against good d backs.

 

[Alsacs]

The OL run blocking was fine our RBs decided to run in between the tackles pretty much the whole game and never tried to run outside.

Strickland needs to improve at reading the holes or the running game will be in trouble.

The RBs scared me more than the OL play.
CCSU wasn't keeping their safeties deep it made it obvious to try and pass as a result.
Deep shots 1 on 1 were available all game long as a result.

 

[orangenauburn]

The OL run blocking was fine our RBs decided to run in between the tackles pretty much the whole game and never tried to run outside.

Strickland needs to improve at reading the holes or the running game will be in trouble.

The RBs scared me more than the OL play.
CCSU wasn't keeping their safeties deep it made it obvious to try and pass as a result.
Deep shots 1 on 1 were available all game long as a result.

This 100%.

There were holes, Strick chose to to run into a wall instead of the open field

He also stutters and hesitates coming to the line

 

[kcsu]

This 100%.

There were holes, Strick chose to to run into a wall instead of the open field

He also stutters and hesitates coming to the line

Agreed he doesnt have the vision.

 

[Finwad32]

Custis made a significant amount of mental mistakes, one time getting Dungey hit pretty good bc of it... But, he's a physical specimen.

 

[LeMoyneCuse]

There were holes, Strick chose to to run into a wall instead of the open field

He also stutters and hesitates coming to the line

The OL run blocking was fine our RBs decided to run in between the tackles pretty much the whole game and never tried to run outside.

Strickland needs to improve at reading the holes or the running game will be in trouble.

The RBs scared me more than the OL play.

I'll have to go back and rewatch the game, but I remember a play last night where Strickland stopped when he got the line. I think he was trying to make a decision about where to go, but only Le'veon Bell can get away with that.

 

[TheCusian]

Yeah, that's coach speak. The running game is a concern. 8 in the box against a team you know has a great QB and decent receivers makes no sense. And even if they were playing 8, we should still be able to pick up some yards with a few big hitters and we didn't do that at all.

Yep. It made no sense - but that's what they did. Similar to Narduzzi's plan. Rewatch, you'll see.

 

[TheCusian]

The OL run blocking was fine our RBs decided to run in between the tackles pretty much the whole game and never tried to run outside.

Strickland needs to improve at reading the holes or the running game will be in trouble.

The RBs scared me more than the OL play.
CCSU wasn't keeping their safeties deep it made it obvious to try and pass as a result.
Deep shots 1 on 1 were available all game long as a result.

Yep. This O puts S and LB in a bind. Teams that can rush 3 or 4 and have stud LBs shut us down (FSU, Clemson). They drop everyone back and we can't run when we need to. The opposite happened last night. The pulled everyone in and said "make the throws"... we did. But the running game (not designed runs for ED) got shut down.

I'd argue that P5 OL/RB should still get 4-5 yards a carry vs FCS. That is disappointing. But we'll see. Not giving up on it yet.

 

[SmilinBob]

Coaches say things. I'm not buying it.

That said, I don't think we need to run the ball well to have a successful season. This team is going to live and die by the passing game and getting just enough out of the defense.

I suspect we're years away from having a really good running game.

I agree and if they "loaded the box" SU should have had much more 30+ yard plays from their receivers against a team like this.

 

[billsin01]

Yep. It made no sense - but that's what they did. Similar to Narduzzi's plan. Rewatch, you'll see.

I did -- I didn't count 8 very often. I could be wrong -- maybe they're counting corners playing up on slot receivers? I guess but I would think most teams are going to try and take away at least some of that underneath stuff by having DBs up on those slot guys. Ultimately I think the reality is we still have a ways to go on the OL and we still have to find an RB. Thought Neal did a nice job of making a little something out of nothing at times.

 

[Killdozer]

The OL run blocking was fine our RBs decided to run in between the tackles pretty much the whole game and never tried to run outside.

Strickland needs to improve at reading the holes or the running game will be in trouble.

The RBs scared me more than the OL play.
CCSU wasn't keeping their safeties deep it made it obvious to try and pass as a result.
Deep shots 1 on 1 were available all game long as a result.

WRONG!!! The O-Line blocking was pathetic to say the least. I watched the game again this morning focusing on the run plays. They did not open ANY holes to run through however, Strickland gets just as much blame for not kicking it outside. He had many opportunities to do so but ran with his head down.

 

[longislandcuse]

Well our oline struggled and Bradshaw was flat out bad. I said last year that he is not big or fast enough to be anything other than a nickle CB. Bigger faster recievers abuse him. He not only allowed the TD on 4th and 4 but gave up the big play on 3rd and long before that and missed the tackle

He single handedly gave them their only TD drive. We have to have someone better out there than him... That was horrific.

 

[upperdeck]

you cant put 8 in the box when we are running 3 wide.. but they ran a ton of single high safety with 7 in the box. when they do you have to go deep at least some and we dropped 4-5 custis/phillips 2 that should have been tds or close to it. ED also made several poor throws on deep balls, had we connected in the 2nd quarter it would have been 50+ at the half as open as they were. Custis had steps 3-4 times and nothing came out of it..

 

[SUskibum]

I was not as enamored with ED as everyone else. His deep ball is not good. Either throws it out of bounds or too short. We won't win fifty fifty balls against good d backs.

Dino Babers (well known offensive perfectionist) jus stopped short of calling our QB play flawless but you weren't impressed? Interesting. I am glad we have Devito for the games that ED will inevitably miss but I hope he plays every one. I have a good feeling about 8 wins if that is the case.

 

[Shrmdougluvr]

Dino Babers (well known offensive perfectionist) jus stopped short of calling our QB play flawless but you weren't impressed? Interesting. I am glad we have Devito for the games that ED will inevitably miss but I hope he plays every one. I have a good feeling about 8 wins if that is the case.

It wasn't flawless. Ed missed a lot of throws from the end of the first quarter throughout the second quarter. But it was the first game and he's certainly been better. Not worth worrying about, that's for sure.