Troubling

[Rollo83]

Traveled to Kent to day to watch my first game in person this year. Couple of observations...

1. Our QB is very accurate and efficient in the pocket. When he's flushed out of the pocket or when we roll him out by design he struggles mightly. Throwing on the run he often makes bad decisions and loses his accuracy.

2. Our QB is painfully slow afoot. He struggles to avoid pressure. He doesn't seem to have the pocket presence to know when to step up or slide to the outside to buy some time. He also seems to go to great lengths to avoid contact...both when in the pocket or on the run. He won't go for the extra yard, rather he slides early or steps out of bounds early.

3. Play calling really needs to be addressed. The wildcat on two straight plays to gain a yard? Terrible. If you are going to run the ball, line-up the QB under center with a lead fullback and get your yard. Then on the next fourth down play you decide to try a field goal with a kicking game that is hardly been automatic. We know how that worked out.

It seems a lot of the time we did OK on first down plays but second down handoffs in the shot gun usually lost yardage. If you don't have the confidence in your QB to mix things up with your play calling, then you don't have the right QB in the game. Red Zone play calling was obviously done to minimize risks and mistakes. You can't consistently win games this way.

4. How can we not be able to find a legitiment D1 kicker? Field goals are a crap shoot...hell, extra points have been an adventure as well. Now, we can't even kick-off. Seriously? How long will this continue year after year before we recruit a true kicker. If we had Kent's kicker today we win the game! We make the two missed field goals and we don't let them start every posession at the 40 yard line.

I have been supportive of Clawson and Schilz up to this point, and I am not ready to give up on them yet, but man we are better than what we saw today. Eventually the buck has to stop at the head coach.

[footballguy51]

4. How can we not be able to find a legitiment D1 kicker? Field goals are a crap shoot...hell, extra points have been an adventure as well. Now, we can't even kick-off. Seriously? How long will this continue year after year before we recruit a true kicker. If we had Kent's kicker today we win the game! We make the two missed field goals and we don't let them start every posession at the 40 yard line.

I've wondered this as well. What's sad is that we've gone through several kickers this year. I know Burkhardt and Stein have done field goals this year and Burkhardt is currently doing kickoffs where Jerry Phillips originally had that place. We have at least three kickers on this roster, and at least 1 punter, and none of them can manage a decent kickoff? None of them can be trusted to consistently hit PATs? Kickers get thrown under the bus in every level of football because their mistakes are the most glaringly obvious. Field goals and PATs could be the fault of the kicker, holder, snapper, poor blocking, or the elements. Kickoffs? I don't see anybody else responsible for a kickoff going out of bounds except the kicker.

[able1]

The philosophy seems to have been to recruit kickers with a big leg and hope they develop some accuracy. The problem is, it's not that often you have someone on staff that really understands how to teach kicking mechanics. Bad habits formed by the time a kicker reaches college are hard to change, plus it's a big adjustment from high school to college. Kicking off the ground and losing 5' between the uprights is alot to get used to. Give me a kicker coming out of high school who has good solid fundamentals and can hit consistently from 40 and in over the guy who can occassionally hit from 50+ but misses a bunch of extra points every year.
Stein wasn't really doing too bad until this week. Tate worked with a good kicking coach and showed improvement from his junior to senior years. Hopefully he turns out to be as good as the coaches hope he will.

[Falconfreak90]

Good analysis Rollo....completely agree with everything. Just a very frustrating afternoon yesterday.