SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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- I guess it was too much to hope for that the team would maintaining it’s degree of focus from last week and continue to perform on this “next level”. I realize that it is a young team, (any college team is young) and the quality, if not the degree, of effort will vary from week to week, so I’m not shocked. But I am disappointed. I’m watching Kansas State give Oklahoma quite a battle. Last year we played them in the Pinstripe Bowl- two mediocre teams playing an exciting game, both programs trying to rebuild to their glory eras. Now they are undefeated, ranked #8 in the country and if they can pull off this upset they will be in great shape for a BCS bowl, maybe even a shot at the national title. Looking at their roster and watching them play, I don’t think they had an infusion of superstars. They are just playing consistent ball from week to week and their confidence as risen so they appear to be peaking at the right time. Meanwhile we have been on a roller-coaster ride, barely beating bad teams and having to rally to beat mediocre ones. We finally had a great performances “in all phases” but it was just the way we played last week. Now we are back to being a team that can’t seem to get out of it’s own way. It makes you wonder how good we can get.
- The biggest thing was the penalties. You can get beat on defense and on offense because you aren’t talented enough but when you have penalty after penalty, including personal fouls, that’s the product of not concentrating or not channeling your aggression properly. Coach Marrone lauds his “leadership program” and wants to make sure it’s credited for the good things the team does. Where was the leadership program here?
- Louisville has been struggling on offense but we let their receivers run wide open for much of the first half. Teddy Bridgewater, who came into the game with 5TD passes and 6 interceptions completed his first seven passes and got two touchdowns out of it and we never came close to intercepting anything. The defense then made some adjustments and shut down the big plays until they let Victor Anderson get outside of everyone on a third and long in the fourth quarter and he cruised untouched for the clinching score.
- But Louisville didn’t need all that much offense to win this one. After producing 7 touchdowns against West Virginia’s 16th ranked defense last week, all we could get against Louisville’s 15th ranked defense this week was a miserable field goal until garbage time when Ryan Nassib threw a stat-padding touchdown. Nassib had decent numbers- 22 for 36 (.611) for 162 yards, 1 score and no picks. But it was all dink and dunk, (7.4 yards per completion, 4.5 per attempt). We took several shots down the field and receivers were open but Nassib overthrew them every time. He tends to throw nice-looking low spirals that don’t give the receiver time to get there. We left several big plays that could have made a huge difference on the field.
- Of course a big part of the problem is that the offensive line, the one unit on the team that did seem to have steadily progressed during the course of the season had the ball roll all the way down the hill past them and sack the quarterback. Nassib was hit on basically ever passing play and was sacked five times. Antwon Bailey constantly had to fight his way back to the line of scrimmage and that’s not what he’s good at. Louisville deserves a lot of credit for this of course, but we had hoped our improving line could compete with their pressure. We couldn’t. After having no play in which we lost yardage against West Virginia, we were thrown for 45 yards in losses in this game.
- Doug Marrone has got to be cursing himself for calling a timeout on a play where a hand-off was muffed by Louisville and Dyshawn Davis scooped the ball up and was off to the races when the whistle blew. But you can’t really blame him if he saw we were in the wrong defense for the play and just got a gift handed to us. But he did make some strange decisions. We again deferred to the second half when we won the coin toss. We did that vs. Toledo and they went on a 10 minute touchdown drive. Here Louisville scored in four plays. Does he have a lot of trust in our defense or not much in our offense. We were coming off of a seven touchdown game and our defense has sprung plenty of leaks this year. Then there was the weird sequence at the end of the half where we didn’t call a time out and let most of the last minute run off, then called one with one second left. Then Louisville punted the ball rather than throw a hail Mary and Rene was told not to think about fielding it. Then, when we finally score a touchdown, we don’t go for two and then try an onsides kick. If we’d gone for two, we are within 16 points and it’s a two possession game. If we weren’t ready to concede the game, why not go for two? The players didn’t bring their “A” game and neither did the coaches.
- We didn’t return a single punt in the entire game. Louisville punted 5 times. Frankly, they weren’t all returnable. They tended to be short or off the side of the punter’s foot. But the punt return hasn’t been an offensive play for us all year. We’ve forced 35 punts this year. Seven of them have been returned for 17 yards. When an offense is struggling it needs all the help it can get and simply passing on punt returns is not the way to help them.
- I’d like to see Nassib run more to keep the defense honest but not on the option, please. The quarterback on the option has got to make the defense want to tackle him and then pitch to the trailing back. The defense knew Nassib wasn’t going to run it and went right after Antwon Bailey for a loss.
- Third downs: 3 for 14. That isn’t going to cut it.
- West Virginia, the victims of our “big” win aren’t looking so hot against Rutgers today. Was it a big win? Did it even happen?
- The biggest thing was the penalties. You can get beat on defense and on offense because you aren’t talented enough but when you have penalty after penalty, including personal fouls, that’s the product of not concentrating or not channeling your aggression properly. Coach Marrone lauds his “leadership program” and wants to make sure it’s credited for the good things the team does. Where was the leadership program here?
- Louisville has been struggling on offense but we let their receivers run wide open for much of the first half. Teddy Bridgewater, who came into the game with 5TD passes and 6 interceptions completed his first seven passes and got two touchdowns out of it and we never came close to intercepting anything. The defense then made some adjustments and shut down the big plays until they let Victor Anderson get outside of everyone on a third and long in the fourth quarter and he cruised untouched for the clinching score.
- But Louisville didn’t need all that much offense to win this one. After producing 7 touchdowns against West Virginia’s 16th ranked defense last week, all we could get against Louisville’s 15th ranked defense this week was a miserable field goal until garbage time when Ryan Nassib threw a stat-padding touchdown. Nassib had decent numbers- 22 for 36 (.611) for 162 yards, 1 score and no picks. But it was all dink and dunk, (7.4 yards per completion, 4.5 per attempt). We took several shots down the field and receivers were open but Nassib overthrew them every time. He tends to throw nice-looking low spirals that don’t give the receiver time to get there. We left several big plays that could have made a huge difference on the field.
- Of course a big part of the problem is that the offensive line, the one unit on the team that did seem to have steadily progressed during the course of the season had the ball roll all the way down the hill past them and sack the quarterback. Nassib was hit on basically ever passing play and was sacked five times. Antwon Bailey constantly had to fight his way back to the line of scrimmage and that’s not what he’s good at. Louisville deserves a lot of credit for this of course, but we had hoped our improving line could compete with their pressure. We couldn’t. After having no play in which we lost yardage against West Virginia, we were thrown for 45 yards in losses in this game.
- Doug Marrone has got to be cursing himself for calling a timeout on a play where a hand-off was muffed by Louisville and Dyshawn Davis scooped the ball up and was off to the races when the whistle blew. But you can’t really blame him if he saw we were in the wrong defense for the play and just got a gift handed to us. But he did make some strange decisions. We again deferred to the second half when we won the coin toss. We did that vs. Toledo and they went on a 10 minute touchdown drive. Here Louisville scored in four plays. Does he have a lot of trust in our defense or not much in our offense. We were coming off of a seven touchdown game and our defense has sprung plenty of leaks this year. Then there was the weird sequence at the end of the half where we didn’t call a time out and let most of the last minute run off, then called one with one second left. Then Louisville punted the ball rather than throw a hail Mary and Rene was told not to think about fielding it. Then, when we finally score a touchdown, we don’t go for two and then try an onsides kick. If we’d gone for two, we are within 16 points and it’s a two possession game. If we weren’t ready to concede the game, why not go for two? The players didn’t bring their “A” game and neither did the coaches.
- We didn’t return a single punt in the entire game. Louisville punted 5 times. Frankly, they weren’t all returnable. They tended to be short or off the side of the punter’s foot. But the punt return hasn’t been an offensive play for us all year. We’ve forced 35 punts this year. Seven of them have been returned for 17 yards. When an offense is struggling it needs all the help it can get and simply passing on punt returns is not the way to help them.
- I’d like to see Nassib run more to keep the defense honest but not on the option, please. The quarterback on the option has got to make the defense want to tackle him and then pitch to the trailing back. The defense knew Nassib wasn’t going to run it and went right after Antwon Bailey for a loss.
- Third downs: 3 for 14. That isn’t going to cut it.
- West Virginia, the victims of our “big” win aren’t looking so hot against Rutgers today. Was it a big win? Did it even happen?
