SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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- It felt like a loss, because I kept wondering what would happen if we played this badly against, well, anyone else on our schedule. It was like watching my Mets this week. But the Mets don’t get to play Holy Cross.
- The first quarter was great, maybe too great. The thought occurred to me that the team might relax up 21-0 after their first three possessions. I think they did and the Crusaders kept playing.
- McCord completed 13 of his first 19 passes, the last of those a 38 yard TD catch by Meeks down the sideline for a score. He was 15 for 31 for 1TD and 2 interceptions the rest of the ways. First quarter McCord was the McCord we saw in the first two games who would throw lasers into coverage in spots where only his guy could catch it and yet his guy COULD catch it. After that he was often hit or on the run, air-mailed some balls, misread the coverage, threw two picks and had a couple of side-balls batted down.
- Meanwhile the Cross, a team that likes to burn you deep, hit big plays on two completely blown coverages. As Fran Brown explained it, on the first one, our defender lost eye contact with his receiver and we wound up with the corner having to decide which of two people to cover. That doesn’t work and Max Mosey went 63 yards. On the second, everybody bit on a sweep, (do teams still run sweeps?), and halfback Sam Slade, looking to pass all the way, found the stuff that dreams are made of in the person of Jacob Peterson, who went 27 to make it 21-14.
- That sort of thing never happened again but those plays cast a pall over the crowd, who was wondering when they would. Meanwhile the offense and the kicking unit found ways to not take command of the game. McCord threw his two interceptions. A touchdown pass was called back due to an ineligible receiver being downfield. LeQuint Allen’s best run of the day on the next play was nullified by a hold. Brady Denaburg and the Jayden Oh missed three field goals, one of which was blocked.
- We finally clinched it with a LeQuint Allen high jump from the one and Bellamy’s pick six. But nobody looking at film of this game is scared of us. And UNLV just blew out Fresno State 59-14. Their other import QB, Haij Malik Williams, was 13/16 for 182 yards 3 TDs with no picks and ran for 119 yards on 12 carries and another score. They aren’t going to miss Matthew Sluka at all.
- What really bothers me is the trenches. Our O-Line did decently on running plays. Our running backs got 100 yards on 30 carries. But those were hard yards. Our running game has no explosive ability. We weren’t able to dominate a game against an FCS team with our running game.
- And we had real problems – again – protecting McCord, who got sacked 4 more times and hurried many more. This is on film and we can expect every opponent to try to do the same thing.
- And our defensive front just can’t seem to get much pressure on the other team’s backfield. We finally got some in the second half with a lot of blitzing but wasn’t this team supposed be full of talented edge rushers? Wasn’t Fadil Diggs supposed to be a force of nature? He had no tackles in this game. Freshman King Joseph Edwards had 3 of our 4 sacks.
- Oronde Gadsden is supposed to be a huge weapon but he’s on a milk carton somewhere. He had 2 catches for 12 yards last week and 1 catch for 2 yards this week. Brown and McCord point out that he’s drawing double coverage and setting his teammates like Meeks and Pena for big games. But even when McCord gets the ball to Oronde he bobbles it. Has he checked out?
- We are 3-1 and one bad defensive call on a 4th and 9 from being 4-0. Last year we were 4-0 at this point, having crushed Colgate 65-0, Western Michigan 48-6, beaten Purdue on the road 35-20 and came from behind to beat Army in the Dome 29-16. After that they went through a meat grinder in October and came out of it a shell of themselves in November, leading to a 6-7 finish. This year’s team doesn’t have such a meat grinder schedule. But I asked myself: who would win a game between last year’s 4-0 team and this year’s 3-1 team? I think last year’s team would be the winner. And wasn’t the new coaching staff and all the new talent supposed to make us better?
- Meanwhile Bob Chesney’s James Madison Dukes beat Ball State 63-7 to go 4-0. Maybe they’ll make the playoff. Maybe they’ll play UNLV.
- Forgive me. I’ve been switching back and forth between rooting for Georgia against Alabama and my Mets against the Brewers and I’m a bit on the grouchy side.
- The first quarter was great, maybe too great. The thought occurred to me that the team might relax up 21-0 after their first three possessions. I think they did and the Crusaders kept playing.
- McCord completed 13 of his first 19 passes, the last of those a 38 yard TD catch by Meeks down the sideline for a score. He was 15 for 31 for 1TD and 2 interceptions the rest of the ways. First quarter McCord was the McCord we saw in the first two games who would throw lasers into coverage in spots where only his guy could catch it and yet his guy COULD catch it. After that he was often hit or on the run, air-mailed some balls, misread the coverage, threw two picks and had a couple of side-balls batted down.
- Meanwhile the Cross, a team that likes to burn you deep, hit big plays on two completely blown coverages. As Fran Brown explained it, on the first one, our defender lost eye contact with his receiver and we wound up with the corner having to decide which of two people to cover. That doesn’t work and Max Mosey went 63 yards. On the second, everybody bit on a sweep, (do teams still run sweeps?), and halfback Sam Slade, looking to pass all the way, found the stuff that dreams are made of in the person of Jacob Peterson, who went 27 to make it 21-14.
- That sort of thing never happened again but those plays cast a pall over the crowd, who was wondering when they would. Meanwhile the offense and the kicking unit found ways to not take command of the game. McCord threw his two interceptions. A touchdown pass was called back due to an ineligible receiver being downfield. LeQuint Allen’s best run of the day on the next play was nullified by a hold. Brady Denaburg and the Jayden Oh missed three field goals, one of which was blocked.
- We finally clinched it with a LeQuint Allen high jump from the one and Bellamy’s pick six. But nobody looking at film of this game is scared of us. And UNLV just blew out Fresno State 59-14. Their other import QB, Haij Malik Williams, was 13/16 for 182 yards 3 TDs with no picks and ran for 119 yards on 12 carries and another score. They aren’t going to miss Matthew Sluka at all.
- What really bothers me is the trenches. Our O-Line did decently on running plays. Our running backs got 100 yards on 30 carries. But those were hard yards. Our running game has no explosive ability. We weren’t able to dominate a game against an FCS team with our running game.
- And we had real problems – again – protecting McCord, who got sacked 4 more times and hurried many more. This is on film and we can expect every opponent to try to do the same thing.
- And our defensive front just can’t seem to get much pressure on the other team’s backfield. We finally got some in the second half with a lot of blitzing but wasn’t this team supposed be full of talented edge rushers? Wasn’t Fadil Diggs supposed to be a force of nature? He had no tackles in this game. Freshman King Joseph Edwards had 3 of our 4 sacks.
- Oronde Gadsden is supposed to be a huge weapon but he’s on a milk carton somewhere. He had 2 catches for 12 yards last week and 1 catch for 2 yards this week. Brown and McCord point out that he’s drawing double coverage and setting his teammates like Meeks and Pena for big games. But even when McCord gets the ball to Oronde he bobbles it. Has he checked out?
- We are 3-1 and one bad defensive call on a 4th and 9 from being 4-0. Last year we were 4-0 at this point, having crushed Colgate 65-0, Western Michigan 48-6, beaten Purdue on the road 35-20 and came from behind to beat Army in the Dome 29-16. After that they went through a meat grinder in October and came out of it a shell of themselves in November, leading to a 6-7 finish. This year’s team doesn’t have such a meat grinder schedule. But I asked myself: who would win a game between last year’s 4-0 team and this year’s 3-1 team? I think last year’s team would be the winner. And wasn’t the new coaching staff and all the new talent supposed to make us better?
- Meanwhile Bob Chesney’s James Madison Dukes beat Ball State 63-7 to go 4-0. Maybe they’ll make the playoff. Maybe they’ll play UNLV.
- Forgive me. I’ve been switching back and forth between rooting for Georgia against Alabama and my Mets against the Brewers and I’m a bit on the grouchy side.
