program thoughts

[Millhouse]

Shafer is a defense minded coach. Whenever defensive coaches become head coaches , they always say they want to install the state of the art offense. But , at any sign of stress , they will pull the offense back and try to win the game with D. That's fine , though predictable. What I don't understand is , if he want's to run a D first bias , ball control is job No.1. Why doesn't he pound AAM , 3 yards and a cloud of field turf pellets.

because punts are turnovers

 

[Chip]

If they had just played soundly on 3rd down against Lville it might have been a different game.

I think this is a reach. Louisville was 7-16 on 3rd down. If we were top 50 in 3rd down conversions, we would have stopped 1 more of them. Top 25 defense stops 2 more of them.

There was still a much bigger problem in that game. Louisville's offense really only had 14 points thru 3 quarters (safety and losing 7 yards but kicking a FG doesn't count against the D). By the 4th Q, I think the defense realized there was no way we were coming back.

 

[Millhouse]

I think this is a reach. Louisville was 7-16 on 3rd down. If we were top 50 in 3rd down conversions, we would have stopped 1 more of them. Top 25 defense stops 2 more of them.

There was still a much bigger problem in that game. Louisville's offense really only had 14 points thru 3 quarters (safety and losing 7 yards but kicking a FG doesn't count against the D). By the 4th Q, I think the defense realized there was no way we were coming back.

louisville had 18 first downs. in their other games against real teams (throwing out murray st and fla intl), they averaged ... wait for it... 18 first downs

 

[GoSU96]

I think this is a reach. Louisville was 7-16 on 3rd down. If we were top 50 in 3rd down conversions, we would have stopped 1 more of them. Top 25 defense stops 2 more of them.

There was still a much bigger problem in that game. Louisville's offense really only had 14 points thru 3 quarters (safety and losing 7 yards but kicking a FG doesn't count against the D). By the 4th Q, I think the defense realized there was no way we were coming back.

I'm talking about a couple of specific plays on 3rd and medium (4,5,6) where we blitzed and they ran past it that if we didn't do that could have gotten off the field or held them to a FG.

 

[Chip]

I'm talking about a couple of specific plays on 3rd and medium (4,5,6) where we blitzed and they ran past it that if we didn't do that could have gotten off the field or held them to a FG.

I'd guess at least one of them had terrible tackling. I know that was a theme on several of their runs, so I'd guess at least one of them being a 3rd and long run.

We gambled against a true freshman QB by blitzing him and trying to force them into a mistake. I'm fine with that approach knowing there's a risk to every blitz. End of the day, if we can figure out how to score more points in our own building, at least to something average, we win more of those games than we lose.

Even against that Louisville defense, an average SU offense should have been leading 17-14 going into the 4th, and then who knows. But down 19-6 and feeling hopeless, it was essentially over and our entire sideline knew it.

 

[Crusty]

I'm talking about a couple of specific plays on 3rd and medium (4,5,6) where we blitzed and they ran past it that if we didn't do that could have gotten off the field or held them to a FG.

Live by the blitz - die by the blitz.