I'm about 2 weeks late, but...
Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:19 pm
Forgive me. I just got the tape of the Wisconsin game, and I felt the need to post a few comments. I'm sure some (hopefully not all) of this is a re-tread, and if so, don't bother reading it. This, I guess, is more for me, because I have a lot of thoughts after watching this tape and comparing it to what I saw this past Saturday.
STs:
The punt formation was not as god-awful as I thought. Yes, it MUST go, but from what I had heard, I was expecting to see Wisconsin having 4 defenders right on top of Rojas. Upon watching the tape, I saw that it was the same missed block in the same place both times, leading to one man being able to get right on top of the punt. I don't really want to point the kid out, but it was the same player the first two punts, and he's a RS Freshman. The good news is, as the game progressed, that mistake stopped being made. I'm not sure if it was him again this past weekend, but if I remember correctly, the defender came in on the opposite side.
Rojas (possibly because of nerves and the ever present UW defender coming in) seemed to have a stutter step on his punts when he was under pressure. I didn't see this when we had the max protect formation against UB, so I'm willing to chalk it up to pressure for the most part.
Blocking on our returns is lacking, badly. On all of the kick returns, the return man tried to follow and run off the blocks, but most of them didn't hold long enough for anything to materialize. I wish I had a tape of the UB game to see if it was any better (Wisconsin does, afterall, probably have bigger players)
Our kicks could also use some work. I'm not sure what the problem is, because I remember seeing Ellis boom a kick through the uprights on a kickoff in his scouting video, but his kickoffs seem to be lacking. I'm confident he can be everything he was touted to be with a little work, I just hope the coaches and fans give him that chance. After what we went through last year on STs, patience is in short supply.
Offense positives:
I really liked what I saw from our offense. Some standout points from start to finish: Macon makes smart cuts, he was able to slash through the line on a few plays. Winovich is a great blocker. He made some great blocks to seal out linebackers and was great at blocking upfield. I was also impressed with Barnes' awareness of the field (save for the fumble). He always had his head on a swivel, looking for daylight.
Other highlights: Our WRs seem to be great blockers, which works out because they do a lot of it. I saw Zach Charles make a few good ones. Ruiz made a couple of good catches coming back to the ball when Barnes was pressured. I like to see that sort of awareness.
I saw a lot of swagger from Barnes. I really liked that, you could see the confidence and I think the players around him felt it, too. I also liked Barnes' arm strength. The few short to mid-length passes he threw were bullets that stuck to the receivers.
Sean O'Drobinak also made some great catches (in both games). He's a big target with great hands and boy can he rumble. I'm excited to see what he can do this season.
Also, like everyone else, I'm very excited about the strength of our O-line. They dominated the line of scrimmage in both games (moreso in the UB game).
Negatives on offense:
Penalties. It's not that there were a boatload, but they were boneheaded moves at the worst times, killing drives and killing momentum. The ones that come to mind are the block in the back in the 3rd(?) quarter of the Wisconsin game and the late hit in the 4th(?) quarter, as well as a huge one in the UB game that negated what would have been a drive saving first-down.
Blocking. Our O-line dominated the line of scrimmage, but I noticed very little downfield blocking. Once they eliminated the D-linemen across from them, I saw a lot of them just watching the play, which led to a couple plays being stopped prematurely.
Macon, despite some great cuts early in the game, got a little too deliberate with them later on. He made a couple really slow cuts that got him caught.
Also, this one isn't as much of an issue because AT is back, but Barnes just lacked touch on his passes. There were a couple of wide open plays that he just didn't get on target. I guess that's to be expected from a Freshman QB, though.
Defensive highlights:
A couple of names have (deservedly) immediately come up when our defense has been discussed: Erique Dozier and Terrel White (especially in the UB game), but I also have to point out P.J. Mahone. Not only did he make quite a few tackles in the UW game, he probably had the best form of any of the tackles I saw in that game. Numerous times I saw him make the hit in the numbers, wrap up, and drive through the ballcarrier. In the midst of so many broken tackles, it was great to see. He also broke up the pass in the endzone that led to the INT.
Devon Parks was another that I saw make some great plays, especially the sack on Stocco. He fired hard, shed his blocker, got his hands up to force Stocco to wait and then grabbed on and didn't let go.
Negatives on defense:
Obviously, there was a lot of poor tacking going on. That has been discussed a lot, so I'll leave it.
One thing I saw a lot of was players not staying home. A couple of the bigger run plays that Wisconsin had were the result of our LBs and corners crashing inside immediately and then being sealed off on blocks. In some cases it was because of a fake and I understand wanting to get there, but there were a few where it just seemed they didn't even think to stay home. Watching some of the better LBs in other games over the weekend (college and NFL), I'd say what we lack is the ability for our LBs to slide along the line, shed blocks, stay square to the play and come up when the time is right. This may have just been a result of the large UW offensive line, but it's something I noticed.
Coaching:
I liked seeing GB get fired up a few times in the UW game, especially letting Nystrom hear it after the bonehead late hit call. I will say, though, that once again I was bothered by the number of QB dives we ran on 3rd and long. I specifically noticed 3 times in the UW game and plenty more in the UB game. As far as the first goes, Barnes showed he had a strong arm and could fire a pass on a comeback route to the sticks, so why didn't we do it more often? I really liked the call on the fake punt. Wisconsin was practically foaming at the mouth every time we ran that formation and we took full advantage of that. They weren't thinking about a fake for a second and we caught them off guard.
Overall, I like what I've seen. Like some others, I've taken a couple days to calm down (6 hours at a football game will do that to you), and I'm a lot more hopeful than I was. Hell, the way I see it, we were a dropped pass on 4th down from having a REAL chance in the Wisconsin game, not to mention the kicking.
Some minor changes in play-calling, better tackling form and an improvement on special teams execution and I think we'll be really tough to beat, I just hope we do make those changes. I think we've got the tools in the backfield to blow some games open and the speed and talent on defense to control opponents. I'm hoping we use the FIU game as a chance to tweak our STs and get it just right and as a chance to see what our offense really can do when given the chance to open up.
No matter what happens, I am VERY excited about the seasons to come. With all this young talent on our roster, we've got a great chance at dominating in years to come.
Again, I know I'm a little late on this, but I wanted to put my thoughts down now that I've seen both games. Had I had a tape of the UB game (I won't for a while, probably), I would have said more about that, but my memory of the game isn't serving me well, so I'll leave it.
STs:
The punt formation was not as god-awful as I thought. Yes, it MUST go, but from what I had heard, I was expecting to see Wisconsin having 4 defenders right on top of Rojas. Upon watching the tape, I saw that it was the same missed block in the same place both times, leading to one man being able to get right on top of the punt. I don't really want to point the kid out, but it was the same player the first two punts, and he's a RS Freshman. The good news is, as the game progressed, that mistake stopped being made. I'm not sure if it was him again this past weekend, but if I remember correctly, the defender came in on the opposite side.
Rojas (possibly because of nerves and the ever present UW defender coming in) seemed to have a stutter step on his punts when he was under pressure. I didn't see this when we had the max protect formation against UB, so I'm willing to chalk it up to pressure for the most part.
Blocking on our returns is lacking, badly. On all of the kick returns, the return man tried to follow and run off the blocks, but most of them didn't hold long enough for anything to materialize. I wish I had a tape of the UB game to see if it was any better (Wisconsin does, afterall, probably have bigger players)
Our kicks could also use some work. I'm not sure what the problem is, because I remember seeing Ellis boom a kick through the uprights on a kickoff in his scouting video, but his kickoffs seem to be lacking. I'm confident he can be everything he was touted to be with a little work, I just hope the coaches and fans give him that chance. After what we went through last year on STs, patience is in short supply.
Offense positives:
I really liked what I saw from our offense. Some standout points from start to finish: Macon makes smart cuts, he was able to slash through the line on a few plays. Winovich is a great blocker. He made some great blocks to seal out linebackers and was great at blocking upfield. I was also impressed with Barnes' awareness of the field (save for the fumble). He always had his head on a swivel, looking for daylight.
Other highlights: Our WRs seem to be great blockers, which works out because they do a lot of it. I saw Zach Charles make a few good ones. Ruiz made a couple of good catches coming back to the ball when Barnes was pressured. I like to see that sort of awareness.
I saw a lot of swagger from Barnes. I really liked that, you could see the confidence and I think the players around him felt it, too. I also liked Barnes' arm strength. The few short to mid-length passes he threw were bullets that stuck to the receivers.
Sean O'Drobinak also made some great catches (in both games). He's a big target with great hands and boy can he rumble. I'm excited to see what he can do this season.
Also, like everyone else, I'm very excited about the strength of our O-line. They dominated the line of scrimmage in both games (moreso in the UB game).
Negatives on offense:
Penalties. It's not that there were a boatload, but they were boneheaded moves at the worst times, killing drives and killing momentum. The ones that come to mind are the block in the back in the 3rd(?) quarter of the Wisconsin game and the late hit in the 4th(?) quarter, as well as a huge one in the UB game that negated what would have been a drive saving first-down.
Blocking. Our O-line dominated the line of scrimmage, but I noticed very little downfield blocking. Once they eliminated the D-linemen across from them, I saw a lot of them just watching the play, which led to a couple plays being stopped prematurely.
Macon, despite some great cuts early in the game, got a little too deliberate with them later on. He made a couple really slow cuts that got him caught.
Also, this one isn't as much of an issue because AT is back, but Barnes just lacked touch on his passes. There were a couple of wide open plays that he just didn't get on target. I guess that's to be expected from a Freshman QB, though.
Defensive highlights:
A couple of names have (deservedly) immediately come up when our defense has been discussed: Erique Dozier and Terrel White (especially in the UB game), but I also have to point out P.J. Mahone. Not only did he make quite a few tackles in the UW game, he probably had the best form of any of the tackles I saw in that game. Numerous times I saw him make the hit in the numbers, wrap up, and drive through the ballcarrier. In the midst of so many broken tackles, it was great to see. He also broke up the pass in the endzone that led to the INT.
Devon Parks was another that I saw make some great plays, especially the sack on Stocco. He fired hard, shed his blocker, got his hands up to force Stocco to wait and then grabbed on and didn't let go.
Negatives on defense:
Obviously, there was a lot of poor tacking going on. That has been discussed a lot, so I'll leave it.
One thing I saw a lot of was players not staying home. A couple of the bigger run plays that Wisconsin had were the result of our LBs and corners crashing inside immediately and then being sealed off on blocks. In some cases it was because of a fake and I understand wanting to get there, but there were a few where it just seemed they didn't even think to stay home. Watching some of the better LBs in other games over the weekend (college and NFL), I'd say what we lack is the ability for our LBs to slide along the line, shed blocks, stay square to the play and come up when the time is right. This may have just been a result of the large UW offensive line, but it's something I noticed.
Coaching:
I liked seeing GB get fired up a few times in the UW game, especially letting Nystrom hear it after the bonehead late hit call. I will say, though, that once again I was bothered by the number of QB dives we ran on 3rd and long. I specifically noticed 3 times in the UW game and plenty more in the UB game. As far as the first goes, Barnes showed he had a strong arm and could fire a pass on a comeback route to the sticks, so why didn't we do it more often? I really liked the call on the fake punt. Wisconsin was practically foaming at the mouth every time we ran that formation and we took full advantage of that. They weren't thinking about a fake for a second and we caught them off guard.
Overall, I like what I've seen. Like some others, I've taken a couple days to calm down (6 hours at a football game will do that to you), and I'm a lot more hopeful than I was. Hell, the way I see it, we were a dropped pass on 4th down from having a REAL chance in the Wisconsin game, not to mention the kicking.
Some minor changes in play-calling, better tackling form and an improvement on special teams execution and I think we'll be really tough to beat, I just hope we do make those changes. I think we've got the tools in the backfield to blow some games open and the speed and talent on defense to control opponents. I'm hoping we use the FIU game as a chance to tweak our STs and get it just right and as a chance to see what our offense really can do when given the chance to open up.
No matter what happens, I am VERY excited about the seasons to come. With all this young talent on our roster, we've got a great chance at dominating in years to come.
Again, I know I'm a little late on this, but I wanted to put my thoughts down now that I've seen both games. Had I had a tape of the UB game (I won't for a while, probably), I would have said more about that, but my memory of the game isn't serving me well, so I'll leave it.