Uconn game opens 9.5

[Archimedes]

It's true UConn played us tough last year but it was the week before Miami and we were coming off the west coast trip. That was a TCB game if there ever was one and we did just that -- Something to consider.

I'm happy to see it go to -6.5. The hook on a 7.5 line is a sucker bet for the public 75% of the time. Still, I just don't see how we lose if we run it right at that them, set up some play actions and get Cook isolated.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

You might want to do some research, your "eye" isn't worth much.
I'll help go look up Kent St, Oklahoma St, Tulsa, Texas Tech, Purdue, Wake Forest, USF...

We are currently ranked 78th, not sure how that's one of the WORST in the country...
FYI this is not 1982 when there was only 78 teams in D1.

Ward was a disaster. ERob isn't close to as bad as Ward. That said I think he is our 2nd worst DC of my fandom life.

 

[upperdeck]

EROB has a system that works much better if the Dline creates its own pressure.

 

[Orangezoo]

I would hope that even with the roster building still ongoing that given the resources we have there is a sizable talent gap up and down the roster vs UConn. Not saying they haven’t been a better team than expected given the difference in conference based revenue but even then there absolutely should be a clear difference if Fran, the AD and staff are doing things right which I believe they are.

 

[Cuse On 3]

We got blown out? Hmmm, that wasn't my experience. Yeah, the final score looks lopsided but we were just 12 points down with 11 minutes to go in the game. Should have only been 10 points but we oddly went for those two point conversions.

FINALLY, someone says it. Well said. I’m getting sick of the narrative that we got blown out all game. The final score was also misleading. Going down 17-0 first Q needs to be cleaned up, slow starts happened most games last season as well. Our 3rd quarter was really good, we clawed our way back into it but was too little too late no thanks to our horrible defensive scheme drawn up by Erob. I’m starting to think he doesn’t even have a scheme. He just throws plays out there and hopes it sticks, kind of like how I would play madden as a 7 year old, having no idea what I was doing.

 

[PAcuse]

Ward was a disaster. ERob isn't close to as bad as Ward. That said I think he is our 2nd worst DC of my fandom life.

Ward was easily or worst in the "modern ear" (Marrone on)
He had the worst yard per game under any DC.
If we purely look at yards per game (to keep it simple)
Ward is clearly the worst with an average of 458 (YIKES)
Then Bulloch with 384
Long with 380
ERob with 377
Tony White with 374 (Covid year really spiked his numbers, without it he is 330 yards)
Shafer with 350 (Big East helped but still a solid DC)

I think it's to soon to say if he is the 2nd worst we've seen
His defense had some solid games last year hidden amongst some bad outcomes (Pitt) and then some terrible games (BS, ending of Stanford)

One of the big issues with perception of last week was to many people thought losing their QB and RB would handicap their offense. Heupel is an offensive master mind and clearly can plug and play players into it. It's also a top tier SEC team.

It's a simple look at DCs (lots of other things that can be looked). GRob has a ton of work to prove to me that he is a good DC. If we want to break into the big boy world of football you need both coordinators operating on high levels (see FSU).

 

[Orangezoo]

We got blown out? Hmmm, that wasn't my experience. Yeah, the final score looks lopsided but we were just 12 points down with 11 minutes to go in the game. Should have only been 10 points but we oddly went for those two point conversions.

Unless a post got deleted I’ve not seen anyone say we got blown out vs Tenn nor any narrative to that effect.

 

[Orangezoo]

FINALLY, someone says it. Well said. I’m getting sick of the narrative that we got blown out all game. The final score was also misleading. Going down 17-0 first Q needs to be cleaned up, slow starts happened most games last season as well. Our 3rd quarter was really good, we clawed our way back into it but was too little too late no thanks to our horrible defensive scheme drawn up by Erob. I’m starting to think he doesn’t even have a scheme. He just throws plays out there and hopes it sticks, kind of like how I would play madden as a 7 year old, having no idea what I was doing.

Narrative ? Where? You want more positive? Sure go for it but. Yet this whole blowout narrative you speak of either got deleted or is made up.

The only constant that seems there is also a consensus and that is there are concerns with the defensive scheme and ERob still. All of which is a fair and objective concern.

 

[PAcuse]

UCONNs QB had a great year last year along with their RB. They lost their best Olineman and our old friend Wes Hoeh is returning at center. Red zone was amazing for them.
Their d stinks and so does their school.
We've got this.

 

[SuFTW]

Well 78th isn’t even in the top half, so technically….

So technically 78/136 =0.574 (43rd percentile) so not one of the worst.

 

[Rufus_13th]

UCONNs QB had a great year last year along with their RB. They lost their best Olineman and our old friend Wes Hoeh is returning at center. Red zone was amazing for them.
Their d stinks and so does their school.
We've got this.

Honestly, this is the right matchup for us going into our FCS game then Clemson. We get to see our offense with a little more breathing room and an opportunity to fix our tackling/scheme against some good players while on defense. It's a team they won't take lightly given the loss.

 

[Cuse On 3]

UCONNs QB had a great year last year along with their RB. They lost their best Olineman and our old friend Wes Hoeh is returning at center. Red zone was amazing for them.
Their d stinks and so does their school.
We've got this.

Yea I also heard they had a ton of defensive turnover from last season. Believe it or not I actually liked the pressure we had on Aguilar super early on in the game, but for whatever reason got away from it. If we can put pressure on nano & their inexperienced oline I think we have a chance at blowing the doors off before half time

 

[djorange1989]

Yea I also heard they had a ton of defensive turnover from last season. Believe it or not I actually liked the pressure we had on Aguilar super early on in the game, but for whatever reason got away from it. If we can put pressure on nano & their inexperienced oline I think we have a chance at blowing the doors off before half time

I think they literally lost all 11 defensive starters from last year? Or maybe 10 of 11? A lot of their offense returns so they will score on us but we absolutely should put up a lot of points on them. No excuses boys, get it done!

 

[wfschrec]

Well 78th isn’t even in the top half, so technically….

And how many in the top half actually played a P4 program ... not many. Easy to put up a good defensive effort vs NW Montana Technical Institute ... unless you are Texas A&M playing UTSA and giving up 200 on the ground or .. Indiana coughing up 200 on the ground to ODU. Perspective is everything.

 

[upperdeck]

Uconn will come in loose and try to play down hill. Our D looks slow across the board. How much of that was Tenn just being bigger/faster is what we find out.

 

[JeremyCuse]

I think they literally lost all 11 defensive starters from last year? Or maybe 10 of 11? A lot of their offense returns so they will score on us but we absolutely should put up a lot of points on them. No excuses boys, get it done!

Not all 11 but a lot. The entire front 7 is gone play I think 2 secondary guys. Their starting safety also got hurt last week and was in the hospital.
Seems highly unlikely he will play.

They also lost a lot on the Oline, I think 3 o4 starters. The QB is decent though, Bell is a very good Wr, they have a couple nice TEs and a fairly deep rb stable.

Big issue for Uconn is their dline had major issues and it wasn't against Tennessee. They struggled to get any pass rush or dominate the line of scrimmage. The offense should have a lot of success but needs to avoid turnovers and dumb penalties

 

[Chip]

Agreed, going to be a tight one with this defense which has to be one of the worst in the country. EROB is just a disaster, no other way to look at it

I think we have more of a talent problem, especially in the trenches on D. Not that I'm defending E-Rob, what would I base that on?

Teams that have a threat of a pass rush are the ones where blitzing works best. If there's no threat of a pass rush and the blitz is your only pass rush, opposing offensive coordinators will eat it up.

UConn's offense isn't Tennessee's, but they're not bad. And this is one of those sleepy Dome noon games where opponents tend to rip off bigger plays. Hopefully less break with the bend.

 

[FrancoPizza]

Ward was a disaster. ERob isn't close to as bad as Ward. That said I think he is our 2nd worst DC of my fandom life.

The only difference so far is ERob has coached fewer games. They both suck.

 

[upperdeck]

I hope that at some point I find someplace that the line goes under 7.

 

[djorange1989]

I think we have more of a talent problem, especially in the trenches on D. Not that I'm defending E-Rob, what would I base that on?

Teams that have a threat of a pass rush are the ones where blitzing works best. If there's no threat of a pass rush and the blitz is your only pass rush, opposing offensive coordinators will eat it up.

UConn's offense isn't Tennessee's, but they're not bad. And this is one of those sleepy Dome noon games where opponents tend to rip off bigger plays. Hopefully less break with the bend.

Totally agree about the talent, we have some young undeveloped talent for sure but our veterans are meh. As far as EROB, bend don’t break doesn’t work in this era of RPOs and 70% accuracy by QBs. It worked ok for us in 2018 when things were a bit different and when we had two stud DLs with double digit sack totals. You better get pressure from your front four if you aren’t going to blitz and that isn’t happening

 

[Chip]

Totally agree about the talent, we have some young undeveloped talent for sure but our veterans are meh. As far as EROB, bend don’t break doesn’t work in this era of RPOs and 70% accuracy by QBs. It worked ok for us in 2018 when things were a bit different and when we had two stud DLs with double digit sack totals. You better get pressure from your front four if you aren’t going to blitz and that isn’t happening

And that's why they often go 3 pass rushers, 8 in coverage. I sorta get it. Only sort of. You just have to mix it up more.

Seemed like Tennessee threw everything at our OL. Nixon and the players are good enough to still have some offensive numbers over the course of a game, but those big plays from the Vols D often hurt.

 

[Eric15]

Deep down I'm very insecure at how their basketball program has left ours in the dust, so it's important to me that we own them in football whenever we have the opportunity. If we win it would be six in a row.

I see this game as similar to the Army game in the Dome two years ago. I could see the first half being somewhat frustrating and then we impose our will and win by a couple scores. I like us to cover, but not blow them out.

 

[BomberOrange]

I think we have more of a talent problem, especially in the trenches on D. Not that I'm defending E-Rob, what would I base that on?

Teams that have a threat of a pass rush are the ones where blitzing works best. If there's no threat of a pass rush and the blitz is your only pass rush, opposing offensive coordinators will eat it up.

UConn's offense isn't Tennessee's, but they're not bad. And this is one of those sleepy Dome noon games where opponents tend to rip off bigger plays. Hopefully less break with the bend.

Sleepy dome noon games? So noon games only affect Syracuse? Many other teams have noon kickoffs. Would love to see the statistics on Syracuse’s sleepy noon game big plays given up versus the rest of college football.

 

[Chip]

Sleepy dome noon games? So noon games only affect Syracuse? Many other teams have noon kickoffs. Would love to see the statistics on Syracuse’s sleepy noon game big plays given up versus the rest of college football.

Thanks for not mentioning Texas and Ohio State playing at noon. As I started reading your post, I thought it was coming.

Just referring to us specifically when we play an opponent at noon that the fans aren't exactly planning their day around. Tends to be a late arriving crowd, kinda quiet, team sometimes comes out a little flat. I can't be the only one who's noticed that.

I guess the good part about this is that it's the home opener, so sometimes that has a little more juice.

 

[BomberOrange]

Thanks for not mentioning Texas and Ohio State playing at noon. As I started reading your post, I thought it was coming.

Just referring to us specifically when we play an opponent at noon that the fans aren't exactly planning their day around. Tends to be a late arriving crowd, kinda quiet, team sometimes comes out a little flat. I can't be the only one who's noticed that.

I guess the good part about this is that it's the home opener, so sometimes that has a little more juice.

I’m not worried about the fans. The players should Be prepared regardless.