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Message: [QUOTE="CIL, post: 351175, member: 22"] Huuuge disclaimer: I missed half the fourth quarter as we had a party to attend, and I was also a little bit drunk by the third quarter. Now that we got that out of the way, I thought it was a pretty good showing by the kids in Orange. We needed to our A game to win, and we probably brought our B game. Against a team as talented on both sides of the ball like USC, you must be as pretty close to perfect as you can get. We didn't quite get that, but what we got was great effort. Great effort can be most teams, but not this USC squad. Nassib cannot make that throw on his first pick, not as a 5th year senior after a USC turnover. That play is inexcusable. He also must make that throw to Kobena at the end of the half. Kobena had his defender flat out beat but Ryan underthrew him allowing the kid to close. Instead we had to settle for three. I'm sure a lot of it was nerves, as he was a bit wild in the first half but settled down in the second. I thought Hackett and Marrone did a great job calling some easy throws early int he second half to allow Ryan to get into a rhythm. He's not a pure passer, but more of a streaky thrower. Kiffen's Tampa 2 is really just a cover 2 with a MLB in a deeper drop than usual which takes away that deep post of seam route. It forces the QB to make the intermediate throws into a bit tighter windows than usual, generally in the deep curl, deep slant, skinny post area. We tried that early in the game and had some kids open, but KObena dropped that fastball that probably should have been caught, and Ryan really made a couple of throws that left the announcers a bit perplexed. We got him some swing passes, check down type throws early in the second and he took off from there. Another really solid game by the OL. This is by far the best DL we will face all year, and we were able to open lanes for our runners and keep Ryan protected for the most part. Hats off to them. Hickey looks like a future Sunday player out there. His body can easily add another 15-20 (unlike Chibane, who looks flat out chubby in his outfit) without suffering any athleticism. When Pugh comes back, we will certainly have 2 NFL caliber talents at both tackle positions. Hats off again to Macky McPherson, who is proving a lot of people wrong this year. Most of our strong runs came off the Center/Guard combo. A few rookie mistakes out there by Foy/Trudo (missing pickups) but mostly solid effort there. Gulley has really impressed me thus far. He may be the love child of Mungro and Dee Brown. He has that Brown wiggle with Mungro's one cut ability. Runs much bigger than his size suggests. USC had trouble finding him in the holes, unlike Smith, who really needs to learn patience out there. He has the tools and runs well through a defined hole. However, he cannot bubble to the sidelines when the middle has been taken away. He needs to learn to find a small seem and take his 2 yards. I am sure Ty is working with him on it. Marcus Sales continues to impress. His catch on a poorly thrown slant by Ryan was a play that maybe half of NFL receivers can make. Great concentration and body control. Kid just has a knack for the game, I'm not sure if he has enough pure athleticism to make it on Sundays, but his game is almost equivalent to Moten's in hoops. So smooth despite their athletic short comings. Nice to see Lemon back, not sure if he is at full speed yet. West has been a pleasant surprise thus far, but is good for a drop a game. He has to stop that. Imagine this group when Flemming gets back. Thought we gave good effort on defense. The game plan was apparent -- sit back in a three deep zone, take away the vertical threat of Woods and Lee and force Barkley to dink and dunk it down the field. Hope they get impatient and wait for a play that isn't there. It was a solid game plan, but I thought Barkley did a great job taking what the D gave him. Kudos to him. Our LB's were probably instructed to play pass first, hence the easier inside runs for SC. That being said, Diabate had a pretty poor game out there a he got caught guessing on 4 occasions that I saw. You cannot cheat the play underneath the blocker at the MIKE. At the very least, attack the blocker in his chest to allow someone else to make the play. He'll see that on film and learn to adjust. The one thing he does do is play with fantastic effort. Love that about him. Best game I have seen from Spruill ever. He was all over the field, especially early. Really solid in all levels. Same goes for Shamarko. His pick was a fantastic one. Great technique on that pick, and I give credit to Henderson on that. Shamarko was turned on the double move, and instead of opening his hips to change directions, he used a "baseball turn" ala a outfielder making a pivot by turning his shoulders and back to find the receiver first then ball second. He could start for 95% of teams in the country. Great athlete and tough as nails. Hats off to the skill of USC's big 2 receivers. That catch Woods made with Reddish all over him in the endzone was remarkable. Brandon played that as well as you could and he still caught it. Not much you can do there. Speaking of WR's, I thought the umpire crew allowed way to much contact out there. USC's DB's got a couple flags but should have been flagged for 5 or 6 more easy. Lots of cloth grabbing out there. Too much for my liking. I know they are supposed to have the better athletes, but that was bad. Same goes with their WR blocks down the field. Very close to being holds if you ask me. We should have adjusted a bit on offense to do the same, IMO. We weren't going to play much man press on D, so I understand why we didn't do that there. Now, onto the Marrone "hot topic" du jour. I coached for 3 years. My father was a professional hockey player and was a head coach in the Red Wings' system for 5 years. I usually tend to error on the side of the coaches, but I thought his decision to punt on 4th and 2 from their 30 something was dogshit. If you plan on punting, at least attempt to draw them offsides to pick up the first down. At the very least, you take a delay of game and give the punter more room to punt the ball. I didn't even like the punt early in the game, but that was more of a 50/50 call than this one. That being said, I respect Marrone's ability to learn from his mistakes. I know that decision is bothering him, and I would wager that we will see some different things from him in that department in the future. This year was his make or break season for my decision on his abilities. It was very difficult to judge him based on the obvious talent discrepancies the last few years. I thought this schedule would make it tough to get to 7 wins, but I wanted to see dynamic play calling on both sides of the ball and improved athleticism since most of GRob's recruits were gone. He has passed both those tests thus far. I had said that this team has the ability to beat any BE team on the schedule, and I still believe that. However, I think it is a bit premature to say that we SHOULD win the BE as some have alluded too. The gap from the Ville to Temple is pretty thin. We will need to steal a few games for that to happen. USF, Cinci, and the Ville are solid teams this year. 4-3 would be decent. Need the Stonybrook and Minny games to get to 6-6, steal one from any of USF, Ville, Cinci, and Mizzou. All in all, I'm optimistic that things will get done. [/QUOTE]

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