I was looking at the replay. Something like a minute and a half left. We stick that tackle and it it's game over. The hit was way behind the 1st down marker. Something like 5 yards out. Ughhh. So frustrating.
That 4th and 1
- Thread starter RebelAlbert
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Damn it man! You had to bring that up!!! I'm back to pissed again!
Sorry. One of 30 things that could have sealed the deal. Game of inches I guess.
Syracuse doubled us in time of possession. Was that all due to bad clock management? No. Special teams plays, plus honestly our offense almost being too efficient (7 yards per play), meant our D was on the field for a long long time..what do tired Defenses do? Drop picks, fail to complete tackles, etc. That is what we saw. Our D was simply worn out.
Lastly, why did we not go for it with 23 seconds left and 3 timeouts. We needed 40-45 yards for a shot at 3. Why didn't we get some attempts in? That, I think, was a mistake. Also, before that, coach should have burned atleast 1 timeout on Cuse final drive with our D sucking wind. Easy to say now though. Our team battled. This team is legit good. Now let's go beat USU and go from there. Beat USU and Oregon St. And we'll be on the doorstep of the top 25 again with a massive home matchup against Boise. Lets get there.
Lastly, why did we not go for it with 23 seconds left and 3 timeouts. We needed 40-45 yards for a shot at 3. Why didn't we get some attempts in? That, I think, was a mistake. Also, before that, coach should have burned atleast 1 timeout on Cuse final drive with our D sucking wind. Easy to say now though. Our team battled. This team is legit good. Now let's go beat USU and go from there. Beat USU and Oregon St. And we'll be on the doorstep of the top 25 again with a massive home matchup against Boise. Lets get there.
It was an odd situation. We actually ran tempo a bit this game too. Previously this season we would slow down on offense to save the defense, but we had bigger leads. I think we were effective by speeding up the offense and they didn't want to abandon that advantage.
I get why in general we knelt the ball. We should have the advantage being at home, and our redzone defense was actually decent. Also didn't want to risk a turnover.
BUT.
The defense was tired, everyone knew that. Running plays there, perhaps getting a GW field goal, using those timeouts, would give the defense just a bit more rest.
Hindsight is 20/20. But Man.
This loss doesn't ruin the season. We still are basically in the same spot, other than being ranked. It may depend on what Syracuse does the rest of the way, but if we can beat Boise we are right back in the drivers seat.
That was the first obvious mistake by Odom they had trouble stopping our O so take the chance and if not successful at least it rests your gassed defense.
Just needed to call one timeout on that final Syracuse drive. If things played out the same, would’ve gotten the ball back with 50 seconds and two timeouts. Would’ve set up nicely for a game winning FG.
A lot of missed opportunities on that last drive, including coaching. Bummer
A lot of missed opportunities on that last drive, including coaching. Bummer
I don’t suspect anyone left on our schedule will have that kind of success throwing the ball like Syracuse did. Our pass rush is still an issue, as we all saw Friday night.
But what team left on our schedule has a McCord at the QB spot? I did not think Syracuse could be that effective but the lack of pass rush was exposed big time and now will teams be able to hammer that weakness, we’ll see.
The question is, which QB left on the schedule can expose us, Schrager, Madsen, Petras, Brown, Lewis or McCoy?
I don’t think any of the names above are the threat that McCord was!
But what team left on our schedule has a McCord at the QB spot? I did not think Syracuse could be that effective but the lack of pass rush was exposed big time and now will teams be able to hammer that weakness, we’ll see.
The question is, which QB left on the schedule can expose us, Schrager, Madsen, Petras, Brown, Lewis or McCoy?
I don’t think any of the names above are the threat that McCord was!
Probably only Hawaii will throw 40+ times... no one else should otherwise it likely means the game is out of hand for them.
I don’t think the pass rush was as much an issue as them having a really good qb who was great at recognizing and getting the ball out quick when needed.
Agree. He read us quickly and responded quickly.
if it’s a freshman/sophomore quarterback, UNLV crushes Cuse. There are probably 75 other QBs starting in the country that would have lost that game against UNLV.
I’m not saying he’s an NFL HOF guy or anything. But his IQ/experience was high level.
Heard he transferred from Ohia St..
That guy is solid. Hope he gets drafted. I got no problems with Cuse.
Not passing, but Jeanty is going to be just as big of problem. I don't think we beat Boise because of him.
It was an issue!
You have to pressure a QB like McCord or you he will kill you!
We could neither sack him or even move him off his spot on Friday night, pass rush pressure was lacking!
Yes he has high IQ but we still could have pressured him, hit him or at least got him off his comfortable spot?
We didn’t and it looked like 7 on 7 out there most of the evening for him!
Jeanty is a whole other issue. Few slow him much. I can see him breaking 200 yards against us.
Of the 40 completions he had only 10 that were 10 yards or more. Of the 10 only 4 were over 15 yards. He was not sitting in the pocket chewing us up, he was chewing us up with 5-9 yard passes within 2-3 seconds of getting the ball.
If anything, our guys were playing too much off the receivers for fear they’d blow by.
So yeah… this site is messed up. Bull didn’t write that comment Oneepstein did.
I logged in as bull the other day. and a couple of other people. Don’t know what’s going on.
Our best chance of keeping Jeanty even remotely in check is controlling the possession. We need to put together some of those long scoring drives that eat up 8-9 minutes of game clock. Like the Syracuse game though, it could be a race to 40 or 50 to win.
That was exactly my take-away. Too often only 4 (sometimes 3) down linemen and corners playing 7 yards off. McCord was not rushed and simply taking what was being given.
I get not giving up the big play, but it was death by a thousand cuts for our defense. I felt the scheme let us down. Waaaaaayyyyy too many 3rd down conversions, and many of those with 6+ yards to go. Not aggressive enough in the approach.
So I watched the game a second time. We were playing off receivers a lot, but especially in the first half this was part of a zone blitz scheme with a lot of cover 3 or cover 4 and asking DEs to get into flat zones. We did mix in some man and some matchup looks which helped stymie the short dink and dunk game a little but almost all the big plays we gave up in the passing game were in man or matchup looks. Gasdsen especially thrived on running posts and corner looks across the formation and showing little hitches in his routes to just ditch LB in coverage.
The funny thing is this offensive game plan was something that Cuse hadn't really done yet...they never averaged fewer than 6.9 Y/A, or 7.7 AY/A. They stretched the field and showed some vulnerability to blitzing. We did have some success adapting and changing up our coverage packages at times, but they were content to get the ball out in under 3 seconds for most of the night and we were content to keep everything in front of us. We also didn't sack him at all--Holy Cross got to him 5 times with aggressive blitz packages.
Zone blitz works great if you can get home on the rush or if you have excellent zone coverage DBs who can anticipate routes, but it almost always fails when a QB gets good protection or can figure out where the pressure is coming from. Tom Brady would always shred those Dick LeBeau defenses because there are certain routes from the slot or bunch formations that will be open against almost every zone. I think we were so worried about the big throws that McCord was hitting in their other wins (10+ AY/A in every game but the Stanford loss), that we never considered what to do against a short passing game that overloaded zones.
The funny thing is this offensive game plan was something that Cuse hadn't really done yet...they never averaged fewer than 6.9 Y/A, or 7.7 AY/A. They stretched the field and showed some vulnerability to blitzing. We did have some success adapting and changing up our coverage packages at times, but they were content to get the ball out in under 3 seconds for most of the night and we were content to keep everything in front of us. We also didn't sack him at all--Holy Cross got to him 5 times with aggressive blitz packages.
Zone blitz works great if you can get home on the rush or if you have excellent zone coverage DBs who can anticipate routes, but it almost always fails when a QB gets good protection or can figure out where the pressure is coming from. Tom Brady would always shred those Dick LeBeau defenses because there are certain routes from the slot or bunch formations that will be open against almost every zone. I think we were so worried about the big throws that McCord was hitting in their other wins (10+ AY/A in every game but the Stanford loss), that we never considered what to do against a short passing game that overloaded zones.
Great analysis. Definitely death by a thousand cuts. I was actually surprised to go back and look at the play by play to see just how many passes under 10 yards (30 of 40 completions). When you factor in the fact that all those passes that were less than 10 yards included any YAC it almost makes it worse.
I go back to our first series and the decision to air it out straight out of the gate… I mean of the catch is made, great! But it was wholly unnecessary and essentially gave them possession of the ball to start both halves. A nice opening drive of “doing what you do” and possibly scoring that way might have set a different tone and put pressure on them to “keep up”. Pressure = forcing mistakes.
I've been multiple people as well.
I WISH I could log in as Bull just one time. I'd turn this board upside down! He'd have to walk back statements for months!
So, I don't mind the deep short on first down. It keeps those safeties honest. But I've watched this play a lot, and I think they were ready for us to take a big shot deep.
Cuse came out in a 3-3 big nickel double mug look with 7 in the box in a cover 1 shell. After the snap it looks like they're breaking into a cover two man. The LBs that don't blitz stay in 'man' vs the RBs for the first 2 counts until they read pass. But it's all a disguise, they're playing a Tampa 2 variant with the deep safety stepping into the middle zone and the backside corner getting to the back half. The backers and SS stay under and play it match up style with one backer following Ballunguy on the under cross, and the shallow weak side backer dropping back into the middle zone to take away the RW11 deep cross and the FS stepping up to take away the over throw. But Hajj never looks to the defensive left, he's read cover one and sees the deep safety step up. He thinks that's 100% a home run on the deep post and never bothers to look backside to see the strong side corner hustling back to help deep. He's so enamored with his read that he takes an extra 2 steps on his drop and waits--still never peaks backside. Really, with a good throw here we're going to still beat that coverage as the DB is late getting back on the strong half deep zone, but Hajj throws up a lofted ball with enough air under it that the DB can close meaning he's throwing it into double coverage. But if we're being totally fair, this route concept was clearly designed for man with a cover 2 behind. against what is basically a staggered cover 3 it's a bad play call.
Also, Jet for some reason leaks out of the backfield and gets into a blocking position and breaks down likes he's going to block which really adds nothing...running a texas or drag route here would have been a nice gainer as the there was going to be a big hole in the middle zone thanks to Ricky's gravity.
I just wish I had the all-22 view as maybe Bradley was running a skinny post--that would explain the lofted ball more.
Should have absolutely called a TO after the 1st down inside the 10. They would have likely had at least a minute if not more to work with. He isn’t too savvy with clock management ie end of Kansas 1st half
He released the ball so quickly that most of the time (70%?) there was no way to get to him before he threw the ball. He was taking what our defense was giving. When we did shut down the initial pass lane is when he was gettable (but still completing well above 50% of his passes)
I was so pissed I deleted my recording the second they scored the TD in OT. But am curious how often they blitzed. I don't remember it if they did, it was successful vs FSU.
If Holy Cross could get 5 sacks, we should have been able to pressure him better than what we did!
