SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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- Nothing happened this afternoon that surprised me – and we lost by 4 touchdowns.
- Two coaches we fired came into the Dome this and came away with victories. Good for them but embarrassing for us.
- Rex Culpepper was sharp at times but dull at other times. As I understand it, we run bubble screens when the quarter back reads the defense and decides that they would be effective. Several times we wound up with a wide-put having to block 2-3 players to protect the player receiving the ball. Finally, one of them jumped the route and almost intercepted it. The ball hit the ground and our players assumed it was an incomplete pass but BC didn’t- it was a backwards pass and thus a free ball. BC scooped and scored and suddenly we were down three scores instead of two. But the point is, the defense was obviously set up to destroy that play, which means it should not have been called. The same can be said of an option play where Rex wound up optioning a tackle and pitched it to Neal, who had to deal with the end, the linebacker and the cornerback with no blocking. Some passes looked good but the interception and a couple of others, (including one when Phillips would have been off to the races) were “roads to nowhere”. Would Mahoney have bene better? we’ll never know but I understand why it was important to get Culpepper, who will be coming back, out there.
- I just don’t know what happened to our defense, other than injury and fatigue. The last three games, it just wasn’t the same unit we’d seen in the first 9 games. In those 9 games, gave up 364 yards per game, 22% of the third down situations and 25 points a game. In the last three games we gave up 681 yards per game, 54% of the third downs and 54 points a game. Who are these guys?
- Part of the problem in this game was that Brian Ward’s solution to stopping A. J. Dillon was to “send the house”. But their veteran line mostly handled that and any play that went wide with good blocking was a success and our defensive backs, going one-on-one gave their receivers such a wide cushion that Darius Wade, (played so well they didn’t miss the injured Anthony Brown) was just playing catch with his wide-outs. Ann in some terrible angles and arm-tackles and you have our defensive ‘effort’ in these last three games. The ball rolled down the hill, all the way to Pittsburgh, (2016).
- We blew two time outs to avoid delay of game penalties. We had to settle for a long field goal attempt that was baldy missed, (a combination of bad snap, bad hold and bad kick), because we didn’t have an extra time to stop the clock and get one more play in at the end of the half.
- Who replaces Ismael and Phillips? Devin Butler had three huge drops today. Matt Park said “His M.O. is to match only perfectly thrown balls.” I would add the word “sometimes”. He had 1 catch for 3 yards. Ravian Pierce caught one ball for 7 yards. Sean Riley had 2 catches for 12 yards. Moe Neal has 1 catch for 6 yards. That was it. It seems likely that they next group of receivers is going to have a lot of new names in it.
- Chris Elmore should be reassigned to the defensive line. He’s a good athlete for a big man and a game competition but he really does very little for us on offense. On the plays where he is the lead blocker he winds up at the bottom of the pile. When he gets the ball he runs as if through a swamp. More enal showed the importance of getting through the hole quickly. Elmore never gets there. And, for all of his 280 pound bulk he got straightened up and then pancaked on the 4th down attempt in front of the BC goal line.
- A.J. Dillon is the real deal and the best runner we’ve seen since Leonard Fournette. He’s big and strong, and fast but he’s not just a straight ahead runner. He can slide and glide. Addazio was doing us a favor when he had Hillman in there. And Dillon is a freshman. We’ll be seeing him the next three years, unless we call send messages to him that he belongs in the NFL, (hint, hint).
- We’ve had two great wins in the Dino Babers era: over #17 Virginia Tech last year and #2 Clemson this year. Our record after those games is a combined 1-9. Our record in November the last four years is 1-15.
- Here are the combined ACC standings since we entered the league in 2013:
Clemson 35-5
Florida State 30-10
Louisville 21-11 (2014-17)
U of Miami 25-15
Virginia Tech 23-17
North Carolina 22-17
Pittsburgh 21-19
Georgia Tech 20-20
Duke 19-21
Boston College 15-25 and Maryland 3-5 (2013)
NC State 14-25
Syracuse and Wake Forest 11-29
Virginia 10-30
You know what Bill Parcells said…..
- Two coaches we fired came into the Dome this and came away with victories. Good for them but embarrassing for us.
- Rex Culpepper was sharp at times but dull at other times. As I understand it, we run bubble screens when the quarter back reads the defense and decides that they would be effective. Several times we wound up with a wide-put having to block 2-3 players to protect the player receiving the ball. Finally, one of them jumped the route and almost intercepted it. The ball hit the ground and our players assumed it was an incomplete pass but BC didn’t- it was a backwards pass and thus a free ball. BC scooped and scored and suddenly we were down three scores instead of two. But the point is, the defense was obviously set up to destroy that play, which means it should not have been called. The same can be said of an option play where Rex wound up optioning a tackle and pitched it to Neal, who had to deal with the end, the linebacker and the cornerback with no blocking. Some passes looked good but the interception and a couple of others, (including one when Phillips would have been off to the races) were “roads to nowhere”. Would Mahoney have bene better? we’ll never know but I understand why it was important to get Culpepper, who will be coming back, out there.
- I just don’t know what happened to our defense, other than injury and fatigue. The last three games, it just wasn’t the same unit we’d seen in the first 9 games. In those 9 games, gave up 364 yards per game, 22% of the third down situations and 25 points a game. In the last three games we gave up 681 yards per game, 54% of the third downs and 54 points a game. Who are these guys?
- Part of the problem in this game was that Brian Ward’s solution to stopping A. J. Dillon was to “send the house”. But their veteran line mostly handled that and any play that went wide with good blocking was a success and our defensive backs, going one-on-one gave their receivers such a wide cushion that Darius Wade, (played so well they didn’t miss the injured Anthony Brown) was just playing catch with his wide-outs. Ann in some terrible angles and arm-tackles and you have our defensive ‘effort’ in these last three games. The ball rolled down the hill, all the way to Pittsburgh, (2016).
- We blew two time outs to avoid delay of game penalties. We had to settle for a long field goal attempt that was baldy missed, (a combination of bad snap, bad hold and bad kick), because we didn’t have an extra time to stop the clock and get one more play in at the end of the half.
- Who replaces Ismael and Phillips? Devin Butler had three huge drops today. Matt Park said “His M.O. is to match only perfectly thrown balls.” I would add the word “sometimes”. He had 1 catch for 3 yards. Ravian Pierce caught one ball for 7 yards. Sean Riley had 2 catches for 12 yards. Moe Neal has 1 catch for 6 yards. That was it. It seems likely that they next group of receivers is going to have a lot of new names in it.
- Chris Elmore should be reassigned to the defensive line. He’s a good athlete for a big man and a game competition but he really does very little for us on offense. On the plays where he is the lead blocker he winds up at the bottom of the pile. When he gets the ball he runs as if through a swamp. More enal showed the importance of getting through the hole quickly. Elmore never gets there. And, for all of his 280 pound bulk he got straightened up and then pancaked on the 4th down attempt in front of the BC goal line.
- A.J. Dillon is the real deal and the best runner we’ve seen since Leonard Fournette. He’s big and strong, and fast but he’s not just a straight ahead runner. He can slide and glide. Addazio was doing us a favor when he had Hillman in there. And Dillon is a freshman. We’ll be seeing him the next three years, unless we call send messages to him that he belongs in the NFL, (hint, hint).
- We’ve had two great wins in the Dino Babers era: over #17 Virginia Tech last year and #2 Clemson this year. Our record after those games is a combined 1-9. Our record in November the last four years is 1-15.
- Here are the combined ACC standings since we entered the league in 2013:
Clemson 35-5
Florida State 30-10
Louisville 21-11 (2014-17)
U of Miami 25-15
Virginia Tech 23-17
North Carolina 22-17
Pittsburgh 21-19
Georgia Tech 20-20
Duke 19-21
Boston College 15-25 and Maryland 3-5 (2013)
NC State 14-25
Syracuse and Wake Forest 11-29
Virginia 10-30
You know what Bill Parcells said…..
