sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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I think this game should tell us a lot about the character of the players still able to play and the abilities of the two new coordinators, who each have major challenges to overcome today.
It is easy to get down on a team after a game they do not play well, and assume that is how they will play the rest of the season. But it is often not true, and probably more so than ever is in this most unusual season. You have to look no further than Duke as an example of a team that completely changed direction in one game.
I know many are down on the team, the staff and the players. They were embarrassed last week. They were already dealing with a lot of injuries, and somehow the incredible streak of bad luck with players getting hurt continued, and we lost our starting QB, our starting RB, as well as our starting MIKE, And one of our starters at safety got pretty banged up and missed large portions of the game.
I expect Sterlin is going to put in some changes on offense. We have a new quarterback with a much different skill set. I expect Liberty to pack the box, take away the run and force Syracuse to beat them through the air. Sterlin should be expecting it and should have a game plan to counter this. From the little I have seen of Rex, he doesn’t throw it great but he is good throwing on the run and he is very good at RPO plays, where his intelligence is a huge asset. If I were Sterlin, I would do a lot of RPO, and try and take advantage of mismatches with our skill guys. I am pretty sure Pena and Lutz will be able to do damage catching the ball out of the backfield. Might be good to try and give Rex short, easy passes to complete and try and get fast guys the ball in space.
I would think this will be a game where it makes sense to pass it to the TEs a lot. We should have a big size advantage here and I think it would be a good idea to have Rex throw short, easy to complete passes to the big guys.
Some option sounds like a good idea, where Rex can take advantage of his size, strength, surprising agility and his ability to read the defense. I think we have to find a way to hold on to the ball and give the defense, devastated by so many injuries, a chance to stay rested.
Speaking of the defense, Tony White has some challenges too. This is the first game under him where we face a QB who can really run with the ball. Let’s see how well we handle this. I am hoping we do not try too hard to get sacks and give him the ability to run outside the pocket and through our defense for big gains. This game, I think we want to contain the QB in the pocket (and hopefully take him down from there). While it was disappointing to watch the defense unable to stop a simple run play over and over last week, I take some comfort from the fact that Tony did not just use the same defense and approach as his unit was getting abused. He tried a bunch of things. It looked like he was running our goal line defense for long periods, he showed them a ton of new blitzes we had not used before, etc. I really think we would have shut them down if not for the huge problems caused by injuries down the center of the defense. We played without Cisco and Coley at safety. We played without Thompson. We played a big part of the game without Cantin-Arcu. And we played a lot with Carter out as well.
The first thing I can going to look at when the telecast begins is if Cantin-Arcu and Thompson are playing. If they are, and are close to 100%, we have a real good chance to win this game. If they are still out, wow, it is going to be hard to win. We need some men to play LB. I think Richards is still out as well,,,,should add him to this list.
As with Sterlin, Tony has a great challenge today to piece together a unit from the players he has left to work with, and to find a way to stop Liberty rushing attack. It is unfortunate that our biggest weakness on defense is their biggest strength. It is going to take a tremendous effort from all the remaining players to play well and win this game today.
I am an optimist. I think this team was embarrassed last week and I think they will be highly motivated to show their character on the field today. I expect our coordinators are going to really step up with great game plans and I think we are going to win this game, fairly easily. If nothing else, this game is going to provide good insights into what we have with our 2 new coordinators. They have great challenges before them. I hope they are up to the task.
It is easy to get down on a team after a game they do not play well, and assume that is how they will play the rest of the season. But it is often not true, and probably more so than ever is in this most unusual season. You have to look no further than Duke as an example of a team that completely changed direction in one game.
I know many are down on the team, the staff and the players. They were embarrassed last week. They were already dealing with a lot of injuries, and somehow the incredible streak of bad luck with players getting hurt continued, and we lost our starting QB, our starting RB, as well as our starting MIKE, And one of our starters at safety got pretty banged up and missed large portions of the game.
I expect Sterlin is going to put in some changes on offense. We have a new quarterback with a much different skill set. I expect Liberty to pack the box, take away the run and force Syracuse to beat them through the air. Sterlin should be expecting it and should have a game plan to counter this. From the little I have seen of Rex, he doesn’t throw it great but he is good throwing on the run and he is very good at RPO plays, where his intelligence is a huge asset. If I were Sterlin, I would do a lot of RPO, and try and take advantage of mismatches with our skill guys. I am pretty sure Pena and Lutz will be able to do damage catching the ball out of the backfield. Might be good to try and give Rex short, easy passes to complete and try and get fast guys the ball in space.
I would think this will be a game where it makes sense to pass it to the TEs a lot. We should have a big size advantage here and I think it would be a good idea to have Rex throw short, easy to complete passes to the big guys.
Some option sounds like a good idea, where Rex can take advantage of his size, strength, surprising agility and his ability to read the defense. I think we have to find a way to hold on to the ball and give the defense, devastated by so many injuries, a chance to stay rested.
Speaking of the defense, Tony White has some challenges too. This is the first game under him where we face a QB who can really run with the ball. Let’s see how well we handle this. I am hoping we do not try too hard to get sacks and give him the ability to run outside the pocket and through our defense for big gains. This game, I think we want to contain the QB in the pocket (and hopefully take him down from there). While it was disappointing to watch the defense unable to stop a simple run play over and over last week, I take some comfort from the fact that Tony did not just use the same defense and approach as his unit was getting abused. He tried a bunch of things. It looked like he was running our goal line defense for long periods, he showed them a ton of new blitzes we had not used before, etc. I really think we would have shut them down if not for the huge problems caused by injuries down the center of the defense. We played without Cisco and Coley at safety. We played without Thompson. We played a big part of the game without Cantin-Arcu. And we played a lot with Carter out as well.
The first thing I can going to look at when the telecast begins is if Cantin-Arcu and Thompson are playing. If they are, and are close to 100%, we have a real good chance to win this game. If they are still out, wow, it is going to be hard to win. We need some men to play LB. I think Richards is still out as well,,,,should add him to this list.
As with Sterlin, Tony has a great challenge today to piece together a unit from the players he has left to work with, and to find a way to stop Liberty rushing attack. It is unfortunate that our biggest weakness on defense is their biggest strength. It is going to take a tremendous effort from all the remaining players to play well and win this game today.
I am an optimist. I think this team was embarrassed last week and I think they will be highly motivated to show their character on the field today. I expect our coordinators are going to really step up with great game plans and I think we are going to win this game, fairly easily. If nothing else, this game is going to provide good insights into what we have with our 2 new coordinators. They have great challenges before them. I hope they are up to the task.
