Western game thread

[Rollo83]

Upsets all over the place today. We lost, Akron lost to Ohio who we thumped last week, CMU lost to Ball State, NIU barely won, and Kent beat Army.

I didn't get a chance to watch our game but I'll catch a replay next week. Seems by the stats Knapke didn't force the ball down field enough. Also I heard Moore got hurt? We've got two and a half weeks to review and heal. I'd like to see the offense play all game at a faster pace because the running game works best when FalconFast works. Once I watch the game I'll know better but by stats every problem looks correctable.

Akron lost but was playing without starting QB Pohl and the Zips fumbled late to set up Ohio's FG then threw a pick after that. Yes, Moore got hurt and never came back. Looked like a leg/knee injury. They appeared to be looking at his knee on the field.

They showed a shot of Moore getting his ankle re-taped on TV so I don't think it is his knee.

[Class of 61]

Upsets all over the place today. We lost, Akron lost to Ohio who we thumped last week, CMU lost to Ball State, NIU barely won, and Kent beat Army.

I didn't get a chance to watch our game but I'll catch a replay next week. Seems by the stats Knapke didn't force the ball down field enough. Also I heard Moore got hurt? We've got two and a half weeks to review and heal. I'd like to see the offense play all game at a faster pace because the running game works best when FalconFast works. Once I watch the game I'll know better but by stats every problem looks correctable.

Akron lost but was playing without starting QB Pohl and the Zips fumbled late to set up Ohio's FG then threw a pick after that. Yes, Moore got hurt and never came back. Looked like a leg/knee injury. They appeared to be looking at his knee on the field.

They showed a shot of Moore getting his ankle re-taped on TV so I don't think it is his knee.

He had a small boot on his left foot late in game, stood in sweats w/ trainers.
QUESTION: was the facemask call legit? I had my binocs on that play, thought they MIGHT have called a horse collar (debatable), but didnt look like facemask from seats.

[BGSU33]

Upsets all over the place today. We lost, Akron lost to Ohio who we thumped last week, CMU lost to Ball State, NIU barely won, and Kent beat Army.

I didn't get a chance to watch our game but I'll catch a replay next week. Seems by the stats Knapke didn't force the ball down field enough. Also I heard Moore got hurt? We've got two and a half weeks to review and heal. I'd like to see the offense play all game at a faster pace because the running game works best when FalconFast works. Once I watch the game I'll know better but by stats every problem looks correctable.

Akron lost but was playing without starting QB Pohl and the Zips fumbled late to set up Ohio's FG then threw a pick after that. Yes, Moore got hurt and never came back. Looked like a leg/knee injury. They appeared to be looking at his knee on the field.

They showed a shot of Moore getting his ankle re-taped on TV so I don't think it is his knee.

He had a small boot on his left foot late in game, stood in sweats w/ trainers.
QUESTION: was the facemask call legit? I had my binocs on that play, thought they MIGHT have called a horse collar (debatable), but didnt look like facemask from seats.

It was legit.

[Flipper]

Totally legit..Thomas gave the universal "on me" gesture as soon as it happened. it's a 4qtr game. but it really came down to about three plays. That penalty, the long TD when Phillips found a seam and the misfire/lousy play call on 4th and goal at the 2.

[footballguy51]

If we want to talk about stupid calls, why did we take a delay of game penalty of 4th and 1 just to turn around and punt? We were at the 34 and moved back to the 29 to punt. What brand of stupid was that?

[MarkL]

If Knapke was a bit hurt and playing like it, and there was some sloppiness on both sides of the ball, and the offense looked a bit out of sync, then a bye week is just what the doctor ordered. Just as long as they don't look rusty when they return at Akron.

[Schadenfreude]

I swear the play calling was screen, screen, incomplete fly route, punt. Screen, screen, incomplete fly route, punt. Screen, run up the middle, screen, punt.

It's not hard to defend a team that runs a screen for half of its plays.

I think Babers is trying to call plays within what he thinks Knapke can do. For whatever reason, deep throws have not been effective for this team. That's been evident to me for several weeks. I think it's been evident to Babers. And I think it's been evident to other teams who are daring Knapke to throw deep.

I suspect the play calls got especially conservative after Knapke seemed to take that rib injury. He seemed to be having a hard time after that. Deep balls were even tougher for him after that. At least that's the way it looked to me.

[BGSU33]

If we want to talk about stupid calls, why did we take a delay of game penalty of 4th and 1 just to turn around and punt? We were at the 34 and moved back to the 29 to punt. What brand of stupid was that?

I was wondering the same damn thing. I could see if we were at midfield. But we weren't. And we were going into the wind. SMH

[hammb]

I swear the play calling was screen, screen, incomplete fly route, punt. Screen, screen, incomplete fly route, punt. Screen, run up the middle, screen, punt.

It's not hard to defend a team that runs a screen for half of its plays.

I think Babers is trying to call plays within what he thinks Knapke can do. For whatever reason, deep throws have not been effective for this team. That's been evident to me for several weeks. I think it's been evident to Babers. And I think it's been evident to other teams who are daring Knapke to throw deep.

I suspect the play calls got especially conservative after Knapke seemed to take that rib injury. He seemed to be having a hard time after that. Deep balls were even tougher for him after that. At least that's the way it looked to me.

I think Knapke's biggest struggle to this point is recognizing blitz and hitting a got read on time. Babers said it in the press conference and he was right: wmu blitzed nearly every down, there were plays to be made and we repeatedly didn't make them.

Not going to completely throw a young player under the bus but we will always have a hard time winning with QB okay like we got today. Hopefully knapke will learn from this.

[BGSU33]

Watching WMU play defense yesterday reminded me a little of how we played defense last year. They were attacking constantly and made us play the way we didn't want to play. Very much like we did to teams last year in the second half in games such as Kent State, Akron and Buffalo.

[hammb]

Watching WMU play defense yesterday reminded me a little of how we played defense last year. They were attacking constantly and made us play the way we didn't want to play. Very much like we did to teams last year in the second half in games such as Kent State, Akron and Buffalo.

I dunno...I wasn't really impressed with westerns defense at all. I'd have to rewatch the game (preferably all 22) to confirm, but it really seemed to me that we did far more to stop ourselves than they did. I will give them props for controlling the los and stopping our run game but this blitz 5-6 guys on every down defense only looks good when the qb looks scared. We had guys running nearly uncovered between the hashes all day. More specifically we let our backs leak out on blitzes (rather than keeping them in) and they were all alone most of the time...and I don't think we threw it to them more than a couple of times.

I think we were out executed far more than we were outschemed. That being said I wanna know if Knapke has another option on screen plays. If he does they need to get him to actually look at it. If he doesn't they need to redesign their screens. It's getting a bit ridiculous that every time the defense reads screen he just chucks it into the dirt right away. You have to give him a backside wr option...again if like to see the film to see if there was somebody running that route and he just didn't look or if we are completely selling out for that rb screen.

All in all it was an abysmal offensive performance even though the d played pretty tough. Qb couldn't hit throws, ol got handled easily, center couldn't get a clean snap off, and none of the rbs did much either. And we may have lost our #2 wr...

[MarkL]

I got a chance to watch the game finally. Most of my thoughts are already in this thread but three quick thoughts ...
- our D played really well. They gave up a big TD on a blitz, but I can't really say I even minded giving up the play so much. I like it when our D is bringing pressure all the time. We saw some sacks, we contained Franklin until the D wore out in the fourth, and we can credit our defensive successes to the pressure. If you bring pressure, you occasionally give up a big play, but I'll take the tradeoff any day if we can stop their consistent offense.
- Penalties - 6 for 40. The team played with good discipline. Obviously the facemask penalty hurt (take that away and it is 5 penalties for 25, or just a bunch of 5 yard penalties), but we're talking about an effort-related 15 yard penalty, not several taunting / unsportsmanlike 15 yard penalties. I sure wish we would have won the game but the lack of penalties was certainly refreshing.
- We are still in first place and the Akron game is still going to be a must-win to win the east. Akron looked bad Saturday. Yes they were down their starting QB but I can't say that Pohl would have won against Ohio. Akron was out-played by OU, plain and simple. We pretty easily beat Ohio, and OU beat Akron in a tough game. I think we're the best team in the east but we had an off day against a motivated team. The team gets a nice long break from play to heal and an opportunity to re-evaluate what to do on offense when our young QB is facing all kinds of blitz looks. I hope the team looks refreshed at Akron and the offense is at full pace and looks unstoppable again.

[mscarn]

I swear the play calling was screen, screen, incomplete fly route, punt. Screen, screen, incomplete fly route, punt. Screen, run up the middle, screen, punt.

It's not hard to defend a team that runs a screen for half of its plays. Roger Lewis was getting jammed at the line constantly, and honestly we should have been doing that when we had them in 3rd and long.

Clearly, screen plays weren't working. Yes, we ran multiple screen plays (middle screens, bubble screens), but if you need to move the ball it helps when the receiver is catching the ball past the line of scrimmage. Obviously we weren't hitting the long passes, but are we incapable of throwing the slant, out, drag, and square routes? For some unknown reason, we only throw screens and fly routes. If that is our new offensive philosophy, that's not that hard to stop.

Excellent points. The 1, 2 and 3 yard passes are anticipated now and stopped quickly for little to no gain. The rare deep attempts are low percentage fly routes where the sideline acts as a defender and are extremely difficult to execute anyway. Where are the crossing routes over the middle of the field or any route combinations that are meant to confuse the DB's (like Western Kentucky used against us, for instance)? 90% of the passing game is within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage and the other 10% are the hard-to-execute deep throws where our WR's are covered. How about something in the intermediate range every once in a while?

[Flipper]

Those throws get batted down at the line

[jpfalcon09]

I swear the play calling was screen, screen, incomplete fly route, punt. Screen, screen, incomplete fly route, punt. Screen, run up the middle, screen, punt.

It's not hard to defend a team that runs a screen for half of its plays. Roger Lewis was getting jammed at the line constantly, and honestly we should have been doing that when we had them in 3rd and long.

Clearly, screen plays weren't working. Yes, we ran multiple screen plays (middle screens, bubble screens), but if you need to move the ball it helps when the receiver is catching the ball past the line of scrimmage. Obviously we weren't hitting the long passes, but are we incapable of throwing the slant, out, drag, and square routes? For some unknown reason, we only throw screens and fly routes. If that is our new offensive philosophy, that's not that hard to stop.

Excellent points. The 1, 2 and 3 yard passes are anticipated now and stopped quickly for little to no gain and half the time. The rare deep attempts are low percentage fly routes where the sideline acts as a defender and are extremely difficult to execute anyway. Where are the crossing routes over the middle of the field or any route combinations that are meant to confuse the DB's (like Western Kentucky used against us, for instance)? 90% of the passing game is within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage and the other 10% are the hard-to-execute deep throws where our WR's are covered. How about something in the intermediate range every once in a while?

To further that, I've noticed that Knapke favors throwing to the right side of the field. His tendencies have become predictable and teams are starting to prepare for them. The screen passes need to be dropped from the playbook all together. They are ending up as drive killers and a wasted play.