This is an interesting question.
I think our special teams are noticeably improved from last year.
We have a lot of our starters and best athletes on the coverage units and it shows. They have been very good so far.
Max has been solid as the new punter. He isn’t at all conference level but he is at least average and it appears he is improving from game to game. Big step up from the disaster at punter that was last season.
Andre looks improved at placekicker. Hated to see that miss against Purdue. Hope it is his last of the season. The quality of his kicks is noticeably more consistent. He is getting good height and showing improved power.
Andre started the season kicking off but Brady replaced him after the first game (if memory serves). Brady is a vast improvement and getting him in has taken away any possibly of opponents kicking kickoffs for big returns. This was badly needed.
That leaves the return teams. Trabor was okay returning kickoffs and punts to start the season. Didn’t get a ton of chances. He got hurt and was replaced by Courtney. Courtney’s good KO return on the final drive of the Purdue game quietly set the stage for the great comeback. He has looked good. Sounds like Trabor might be returning this week. I am thinking it might be a good idea to keep Courtney as the KO and punter returner in the hopes of keeping Trabor healthy and available to play WR. But maybe he brings more value as a return guy.
On defense, all those questions about the defensive line are getting answered. Slowly. Darton dominated the game on Saturday. That was one of the best performances we have had at NT in a long time. Terry continues to do a solid job here as well. I think Caleb moves inside sometimes as well. Happy with how things are inside.
At DE, we have mostly been playing Caleb, Linton, Geer, with Jaquez, Simmons also getting some snaps. I think Caleb has been solid all year. Geer is making the adjustment to college ball. Seems to be improving from game to game. Made a big play getting to O’Connell to force the turnover. Also made a foolish late hit on O’Connell that allow Purdue to continue a drive. More good than bad. Linton seems like he goes offsides a lot but he was terrific against UL and it seems like he is our best pass rusher and best athlete on the DL. Would like to see him get more PT. Jaquez and Simmons haven’t been able to get that ‘crazy’ in their eyes to translate into production yet.
The LBs have been good. I think we lost one of our best pass rushers when Thompson went down. McDonald has been fine but isn’t quite as good as Stefon was. Jones has been terrific. Might end up all conference. Wax is not far behind him. Hope he is okay. Has gone down and gotten shaken up a couple of times already this year. Lowery. Roon and Sparrow are the backups. I think Lowery has been first off the bench so far.
Williams has been great this year. Yes, he was beat in man against Jones a couple of times. But he is getting like 8 tackles a game. Unbelievable production for a CB. Has stepped up his tackling and run stopping ability in a major way. And his coverage skills are top notch. Chestnut has had some good and bad moments. Missed a tackle in the open field against Purdue that played a big role in them getting that late TD. But he has made a lot of good plays too.
I think Carter is doing well at boundary safety. Simmons is getting some PT behind him and might be better suited to that position. Maybe more run support there.
I have been a little disappointed in what Barron has done so far. At least one of the UConn TDs was on him, and I think he gets too aggressive and gets out of position too easily. Hanna is still get significant PT as his backup and even though he lacks the physical gifts Barron has, Rob might be better at positioning.
I think Clark got off to a bit of a rocky start when he was inserted into the starting lineup at free safety (think that happened when SImmons got banged up). Was a little over eager. But it looks to me as though he is getting a lot better very fast. His physical gifts are evident. The kid can really run and he can deliver a big hit as well. Happy to see him developing here.
I was expecting Oliver to stick at rover and eventually win the starting job there but he has been moved a couple of times and isn’t even listed on the two deep right now. I suspect this is a motivational ploy but maybe he is just lost for now. Like his athleticism. Hope he finds his way on the field soon.
Also hoping to see Isaiah Johnson on the field soon. He might be our first nickel type when the offense loads up with WRs. That hasn’t happened much so far so I haven’t noticed who is going in then. It was good to see Johnson and WIlson get PT against UConn and make big plays. Hoping we might be able to give Williams and Chestnut some rest to help keep them fresh and healthy all season.
Overall, happy with the defense. We have finally had the guts to play press coverage with the corners. Think that happened in the second half against Purdue. Had good success with this for most of the half but it fell apart some late in the fourth quarter.
We haven’t had the pass rush I would like and a lot of that is because the LBs haven’t been rushing the QB a lot so far. Thinking that will change the rest of the year. Liked seeing Caleb downfield covering the Purdue TE. He did a nice job on the play I saw. Looks like the player switching and stunting this year is more advanced and involved and is causing offenses a lot of problems.
On offense, Garrett has looked like a new man all season. Except the first half against Purdue. What happened? Sometimes I think his hesitation to pass was legit. No one was open. We had a lot of heavy formations with one or two TEs and didn’t send a lot of players out on passing routes. The Purdue CBs were VERY aggressive bumping and holding our WRs and while the refs occasionally called penalties, they let a lot go. We played guys like Courtney and Cooper a lot and they had a hard time getting open.
Garrett missed Trabor for an easy TD against UConn but generally has done a really nice job finding the open man. There were a couple more instances Saturday where Garrett missed a receiver running wide open. Hope this was more a function of him missing practices and that he will be better here from this point forward. It looked like he was shown film of plays he missed at halftime and made adjustments immediately. One of the late TDs was the same play that was run in the first half where Garrett missed Gadsden for a TD.
Garrett had at least 2 throws down the sideline that went OB where he had his guy open but threw it poorly. That one wheel route to Tucker where he maybe hung it up just a tad, or maybe under threw it slightly, also hurt. But he missed that throw by inches.
In the second half, he looked a lot more comfortable in the pocket and threw the ball significant;y more accurately. Whatever happened in the first half went away and he was solid again. Might have just been a lack of confidence.
The two big questions for the offense coming into the year were whether the OL could pass block effectively and whether the young SU WRs could get open and make catches in games.
I think the OL has been much better pass blocking. They might only be average here, or slightly above average. But that is a vast improvement over what happened the last couple of years.
The crazy illegal procedure calls we saw against UL has gone away, at least in part because only UL has been willing to try and break rules so blatantly. We should be good on this front the rest of the year.
Gadsden looks like an emerging star at the UVa football player position. He has been really good. Jones looked like he was right behind him. Until his injury. That opens the door for Alford to get a lot more PT and have a chance to redeem himself. So big, so strong, so fast, and so inconsistent. Let’s hope he can step up his game and stop dropping the ball, lining up wrong and jumping off sides.
I am disappointed with Courtney Jackson. He has a lot of experience and should be a rock solid option. Still getting bodied up by physical CBs. Still dropping some balls. He can and needs to be better. Still think he is the best YAC guy we have.
It will be interesting to see who jumps into the PT that was going to Jones. Could be Adams or Cooper. Could be Brown or Hatcher finally get their chance. Maybe they play Villari at football player some and give Gadsden some PT at OWR? I suspect Cooper is going to benefit the most at least to start off.
Hoeh seems a far better blocker than Mang and is surely headed for significantly more PT. I bet he starts at one of the OG positions or C next year.
It was really disturbing to see how well Purdue did shutting down the SU offense in the first half. They committed to taking away the run and we really didn’t have an answer until the second half.
UVa saw the tape of the game and has to be thinking about using press coverage and playing 8 in the box as well. It will be interesting to see if they do it. I don’t think their CBs are highly regarded and I don’t think they have been playing a lot of press coverage. But they play in the other division and I am not close to as familiar with them as teams in the Atlantic. I could be wrong but I think they are going to play things more straight up, with zone coverage. Doubt they will be willing to put their CBs on an island. If they do, we better go after them hard and make them pay for trying it.
We heard about rub routes with running backs in the red zone all preseason camp and I am not sure we have seen that play all year. Guessing the staff is holding it for conference play. Guessing we might see it for the first time Friday night.
Very good start to the season. Gotta get this one too. Then the season starts getting really interesting.
