Some thoughts on Fran's debut

[FrancoPizza]

That long run he had with 8 blocking, my son said he should have bounced left outside but he did what u said and tucked it up. Would been a score maybe.

Outside of Tucker we have not had the luxury of runners blessed with great open field vision (and even at that, Tucker was more of a one-cut back). I still remember Dontae Strickland just plowing straight ahead no matter what.

Would love to see what Tricky Dick and Willis can do with that opportunity.

 

[cayugacuse]

I am willing to bet that this Ohio team we just beat will be bowling this year. Appreciate this win!

 

[Dinkyspond]

I wouldn’t be surprised by these two things, the Ohio RB is going to be in the NFL next year. Albin will be the head coach at a big 10 program next season if Ohio has a winning record again this season.

Not getting this. Tyus could not break the lineup at Northwestern. He transferred down to a non-P4. Our poor defense made him look like Jim Brown. The defense better improve substantially and quick or we are in for some tough times.

 

[kcsu]

Not getting this. Tyus could not break the lineup at Northwestern. He transferred down to a non-P4. Our poor defense made him look like Jim Brown. The defense better improve substantially and quick or we are in for some tough times.

And Ohio State told Kyle to hit the road.

 

[Orangezoo]

Tyus is pretty legit, I think. But I thought what he got out of Navarro and Owen -- pretty much the sum total of their passing game -- was pretty impressive.

Yeah Navarro was a cool customer given the environment and Owen was catching everything. Their starting RB is no slouch and with an all conference first teamer at center, playmakers up the middle on defense and at least one pretty good DE they have a solid team for a team that had to replace 39 guys this off season.

Back to the offense though - there was not an ounce of seeming rattled from Ohio. The Navarro to Owen connection provides memories from dealing with the Purdue combination…

 

[PhatOrange]

Not getting this. Tyus could not break the lineup at Northwestern. He transferred down to a non-P4. Our poor defense made him look like Jim Brown. The defense better improve substantially and quick or we are in for some tough times.

I’d question what the Northwestern coaches were doing. He carried 50x for 238 yards last season which is 4.8 per carry.

They had a back get 75 carries and average 2.8 yards per carry and then they had a back get 166 carries and he averaged a whopping 3.9 yards per carry.

Their offense was terrible.

 

[FrancoPizza]

I am willing to bet that this Ohio team we just beat will be bowling this year. Appreciate this win!

Sure as hell hope so

 

[JRHEETER]

I’d question what the Northwestern coaches were doing. He carried 50x for 238 yards last season which is 4.8 per carry.

They had a back get 75 carries and average 2.8 yards per carry and then they had a back get 166 carries and he averaged a whopping 3.9 yards per carry.

Their offense was terrible.

Yeah and he has legit NFL size.

Ohio got a diamond

 

[cayugacuse]

Not getting this. Tyus could not break the lineup at Northwestern. He transferred down to a non-P4. Our poor defense made him look like Jim Brown. The defense better improve substantially and quick or we are in for some tough t

You make valid points. My thoughts are Tyus has matured and gained confidence after playing in an elite conference. Agree that we have to get our defense straightened out asap. It wasn't just outside runs but inside as well that hurt us.

 

[Crusty]

Not getting this. Tyus could not break the lineup at Northwestern. He transferred down to a non-P4. Our poor defense made him look like Jim Brown. The defense better improve substantially and quick or we are in for some tough times.

He looked pretty good to me. Big boy pretty fast and had some moves. Also, was hard to bring down.
Will probably eat up the MAC.
Tim Albin is a good judge of talent so he might have found a diamond in the rough.

 

[UpstateSM]

Finally got a rewatch in:

Still not happy with the defense but wasn't as bad as it was live. Thought we looked a step slow but there is a whole thread about that I'm going to read again.

Heard looks small out there but I know Fran is excited about him so I'm anxious to see how he does tomorrow. I'm a huge McDonald fan and have always thought Sparrow was solid so if Heard is ready to rock we can survive Marlowe.

No idea what to make of the DBs. Diggs is a monster and I'm excited to see him tee off against teams that want to sling it.

McCord is so freaking good. I comprehend the decision that OSU made but I think it was a silly one. Still can't believe he's our QB but I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it the next four months.

Pretty sure I have some posts a year ago talking about how important Pena is and I feel very smart now. Think I said he could be an Erv Phillips type of dude and I probably wasn't giving him enough credit.

Super underwhelmed by Hatcher. In a room full of dudes that flashed on Saturday he was very disappointing, imo. He ran a bad route on an incomplete out on, I believe, the first drive of 2H and giving up at that pick at the end was very weak. I hope JRS is in his spot tomorrow and, if he isn't, I think that Meeks should be there. Meeks earned it and Hatcher did not.

I thought the line was better than I remember it being live. In the moment I thought we were neglecting the run game a little too much but on the rewatch we were great in pass pro and a freaking MAC secondary isn't doing chit with our pass catchers so I loved what we did. And when we wanted to run the ball, we didn't have much of an issue doing so.

After watching again and seeing what FSU actually is, I think it's ridiculous that we are dogs tomorrow. FSU gashed GT when they didn't load 18 guys in the box and our QB and pass catchers are exponentially better than what the Noles have. I am still worried about our run defense and, while I don't think it will be fixed overnight, I have a hard time seeing it not improve week over week. We might need to score 35+ but I think we put up a 40 burger. Cannot wait for tomorrow.

 

[Cuse181]

Finally got a rewatch in:

Still not happy with the defense but wasn't as bad as it was live. Thought we looked a step slow but there is a whole thread about that I'm going to read again.

Heard looks small out there but I know Fran is excited about him so I'm anxious to see how he does tomorrow. I'm a huge McDonald fan and have always thought Sparrow was solid so if Heard is ready to rock we can survive Marlowe.

No idea what to make of the DBs. Diggs is a monster and I'm excited to see him tee off against teams that want to sling it.

McCord is so freaking good. I comprehend the decision that OSU made but I think it was a silly one. Still can't believe he's our QB but I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it the next four months.

Pretty sure I have some posts a year ago talking about how important Pena is and I feel very smart now. Think I said he could be an Erv Phillips type of dude and I probably wasn't giving him enough credit.

Super underwhelmed by Hatcher. In a room full of dudes that flashed on Saturday he was very disappointing, imo. He ran a bad route on an incomplete out on, I believe, the first drive of 2H and giving up at that pick at the end was very weak. I hope JRS is in his spot tomorrow and, if he isn't, I think that Meeks should be there. Meeks earned it and Hatcher did not.

I thought the line was better than I remember it being live. In the moment I thought we were neglecting the run game a little too much but on the rewatch we were great in pass pro and a freaking MAC secondary isn't doing chit with our pass catchers so I loved what we did. And when we wanted to run the ball, we didn't have much of an issue doing so.

After watching again and seeing what FSU actually is, I think it's ridiculous that we are dogs tomorrow. FSU gashed GT when they didn't load 18 guys in the box and our QB and pass catchers are exponentially better than what the Noles have. I am still worried about our run defense and, while I don't think it will be fixed overnight, I have a hard time seeing it not improve week over week. We might need to score 35+ but I think we put up a 40 burger. Cannot wait for tomorrow.

I agree with your defense take. It wasn’t as bad watching the replay because 4/5 big runs from Tyus were allowed because of missed diving tackles which was brutal to watch. There were definitely some bad angles as well but when the guys weren’t going for arm tackles they were doing alright with filling the gaps

 

[baggerbob]

Finally got a rewatch in:

Still not happy with the defense but wasn't as bad as it was live. Thought we looked a step slow but there is a whole thread about that I'm going to read again.

Heard looks small out there but I know Fran is excited about him so I'm anxious to see how he does tomorrow. I'm a huge McDonald fan and have always thought Sparrow was solid so if Heard is ready to rock we can survive Marlowe.

No idea what to make of the DBs. Diggs is a monster and I'm excited to see him tee off against teams that want to sling it.

McCord is so freaking good. I comprehend the decision that OSU made but I think it was a silly one. Still can't believe he's our QB but I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it the next four months.

Pretty sure I have some posts a year ago talking about how important Pena is and I feel very smart now. Think I said he could be an Erv Phillips type of dude and I probably wasn't giving him enough credit.

Super underwhelmed by Hatcher. In a room full of dudes that flashed on Saturday he was very disappointing, imo. He ran a bad route on an incomplete out on, I believe, the first drive of 2H and giving up at that pick at the end was very weak. I hope JRS is in his spot tomorrow and, if he isn't, I think that Meeks should be there. Meeks earned it and Hatcher did not.

I thought the line was better than I remember it being live. In the moment I thought we were neglecting the run game a little too much but on the rewatch we were great in pass pro and a freaking MAC secondary isn't doing chit with our pass catchers so I loved what we did. And when we wanted to run the ball, we didn't have much of an issue doing so.

After watching again and seeing what FSU actually is, I think it's ridiculous that we are dogs tomorrow. FSU gashed GT when they didn't load 18 guys in the box and our QB and pass catchers are exponentially better than what the Noles have. I am still worried about our run defense and, while I don't think it will be fixed overnight, I have a hard time seeing it not improve week over week. We might need to score 35+ but I think we put up a 40 burger. Cannot wait for tomorrow.

Fran needs to go into the archives and pull out film from 1997 and show players film on the 22nd and 25th pick in the 1998 NFL draft T Jones and Darius to see how you should play defense.

 

[FrancoPizza]

One thing that bugged me about the Defensive Coaching staff was the lack of adjustments made at halftime.

I thought they were going to scheme to their personnel? The 4-2-5 relies on dudes who can set the edge and linebackers who can cover a LOT of ground. Why not stick with something closer to the 3-3-5 until we have the right bodies for it to work? It’s hard enough adjusting to a new scheme as it is… don’t compound it by exposing your veterans’ weaknesses.

 

[bnoro]

I thought they were going to scheme to their personnel? The 4-2-5 relies on dudes who can set the edge and linebackers who can cover a LOT of ground. Why not stick with something closer to the 3-3-5 until we have the right bodies for it to work? It’s hard enough adjusting to a new scheme as it is… don’t compound it by exposing your veterans’ weaknesses.

Easiest way for a coach to lose the room. Let the players do what they were doing before, not what we want them to do now?

Not to mention we turned half the defense over...