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Message: [QUOTE="orangepassion, post: 3619195, member: 14"] [LIST] [*]First of all, though the season isn't officially over yet, in honor of Senior day, thanks to all the Seniors who always represented the team and school with class and great effort. Hope to see many of them for another year [*]Like to start off positive-We were in this game to the end. The guys played hard and dare I say well at times [*]Congrats to Pena and the Special teams on the KO return for a TD [*]Am pleased we did some quicker developing passes, which enabled us to sustain some drives- slants, crossing patterns. Hope we continue to do so [*]Taj obviously had a big miss (seems like we say that after many games), but overall had a very good game. [*]We still need to either bring in or develop a big, strong WR to catch some tough contested throws. NC State had 3 of them where our guys were right there and they just outmuscled them. We need a Steve Ish-type to make some of these catches. Queeley is solid, but he's not making those types of catches and Taj isn't reliable enough, either. [*]I say it a lot, but I really like our young LB's-They have a ton of talent and should get better. Think we need to find a way to get 4 of them on the field more often, especially considering what we're losing at DB this season. [*]First time we saw our CB's get beaten like that, Garrett in particular. Should be a good learning experience for him [*]The Defense generally played very well on 1st and 2nd, but continues to struggle on 3rd down, particularly 3rd and long. The only times we stopped them there was when we brought extra pressure. It's uncanny how much we've been beaten there. [*]I'm surprised how little stunting we've had on Defense. If you're just going to do a 4-man rush, can just play 4 DL. [*]DL continued to get pushed around a lot. [*]It's not just the amount of penalties that are a killer, it's also the timing. We seem to always get them when we can least afford them. How many 3rd down stops have been wiped out this year by penalties? The penalty on the return that brought us back to the 10 yard line after Nykeim had a nice return. The 15 yarders. Just killers. And it seems to happen every game, though I do think this is our 1st game w/o a false start in forever, so there's that. [*]Rex made some nice throws, but really struggled with any pressure. Our guys look totally lost the few times our QB's get out of the pocket, either just standing still or running out of bounds taking themselves out of the play. I don't know if they think the QB is gonna run somewhere, but it's really strange. This has been happening for 2 years. [*]3 yards total running-Not much needs to be added to that, but I will say it's not just the OL, the perimeter blocking has been terrible. Benson and the WR's really struggled (at best) or didn't look like they putting much effort (at worst) when we tried to run outside. There was one play to the outside where both Rex and Benson went to the outside like they were going to block and both got out of the way when the defenders came to tackle..and I've been a big Benson supporter. The short-yardage situations are embarrassing-Have we completed one 4th and 1 all year? And they're not even close, we almost always get tackled behind the LOS. [*]Would like to throw the backs a few short passes, which can be a like a run and give them a chance past the LOS. Not sure why we have forgotten about Lutz. He can and should have a role here. [*]These 3rd down passes 40 yards down the field continue to mystify me. You know the QB isn't going to have a ton of time to throw. The 1st drive of the game epitomized this-We had the ball on the opposing 38-yard line. This should be 4 down territory, especially for a team like us that struggles to score and has nothing to lose. If we even complete a 5-yard pass, we are in FG range, as well as a makeable 4th down. After a long pass out of bounds on 2nd and 10, we appear to send everyone deep before Rex forces a pass to a double-teamed Queeley that has no chance of being completed. We just throw away drives. Very frustrating. [*]Won't even touch the end of the game, but we have struggled in situational football for a long time. There seems to be little to no urgency in our 2-minute drill since at least last year. [*]Will be very interesting to see how Dino approaches the offseason. If he doesn't go all out to try to bring in immediate contributors on both sides of the LOS and QB, he can cry again next year about injuries, but it'll be on him. I really want to see him succeed. I hope he understands the urgency. [/LIST] [/QUOTE]

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