Analysis of the replay

BarrelORum

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We know what we did well. After watching the game again, the bad wasn't as bad as I thought, but we still have some issues.

I saw a lot of improvement in both the oline and Nesbitt today. Leaps and bounds for the OLine. Last year they looked lost even late in the season, they looked really really good especially in pass blocking. This is a good sign.

Offensively, Dwyer, Wright, Orwin Smith, Bey Bey and the entire OLine looked REAL good.

Anthony Allen dropped two passes that should have been caught. I also saw him miss a block pretty badly on the outside on a smaller player. He finally made up for bad plays by catching the last TD.

Nesbitt fumbled twice but other than that, he looked great. The fumbles were disheartening because both of them he just let the ball go. Caused a third fumble on a bad pitch to Dwyer. I think this is more nerves than anything and will go away.


Defensively two players stand out Morgan Burnett and Derek Morgan. Julian Burnett is the real deal. Great instincts to the ball.

I have given #2 a hard time for most of last year, but today Mario Butler had a good day. On the other side I thought Tarrant played great special teams but he was leaving WAY too much cushion as CB. I was disappointed we didn't see more of Rashad Reid. I think Reid has the best instincts of any CB we have.

I thought Reese had an above par game. I thought Cooper Taylor looked like crap today. He was letting them throw over the middle at will and on run support he was a day late and a dollar short, and one time got stiff armed for an additional 8 yards. Ridiculous.

I was disappointed that Barnes seemed to only play in the second half. I watched Anderson take himself out of the play too much by not staying home and getting worked to the side. Peters was getting pushed around some. It wasnt as bad as I first thought, but we need much better play from both of them, and I would like to see Barnes come in more. Logan Walls also looked pretty decent on some plays.

Scott Blair... Yech... my 18 month old little girl may have a better leg than what was shown today. Awful.

Tarrant on special teams?? Best punt returner since Charlie Rogers. Orwin Smith also did real well at kick off duty.

Tevin Washington better figure out how to run the triple option better. Too many times he ran himself out of the designed play. He's got some wheels, but I don't feel comfortable if Nesbitt goes down.
 
Thanks for the early rewatch and recap. Like you said, the bad is never as bad as it seems in the moment. Looking at what some of these other teams are doing makes you feel better too.
 
I agree with most of that.

If you look Allen had a couple of great blocks. On Dwyers first TD he demolished his guy. Then on a Nesbitt keeper he had another great block.

Tarrant did leave a huge cushion. Not sure why. Although he had a nice tackle on Greg Smith.

Julian Burnett is a BEAST. I can't remember a true freshman LB with the skill he has. As soon as he came in the game he was in on every tackle it seemed like.

DT's scare me big time. Sometimes Ben looked good and at other times he struggled. Peters didn't do a awful lot. T.J. Barnes played well.

Nesbitt made better reads. But as BOR mentioned the fumbles didn't look good. He had some good passes. The pass to Embry was close. Allen was open and dropped one.

Tarrant is a great punt returner. On one return where he only gained a few yards he broke about 5 tackles. He's very quick.

Coop looked awful. Seemed out of place the whole game. Then when he decided to make a move he was hesitant.

Burnett's pick was great. He made a great jump on the ball
 
Thanks for the video recap. I hope that the interior D will step up. Maybe Dwyer's TD run to start the game was a bad thing (only in the sense the team kinda took it easy at times)? Team looked like they were sleep walking at times after the 1st quarter.

Having someone w/Tarrant's return skills has been sorely missed. I want to see more of Julian Burnett. Nice motor and tackling.

I am hoping that some of the lackadasical tackling and play was from having a lead and cruising a bit.

CPJ wasn't pleased. I expect us to look much better Thurs.--big game.
 
Leaps and bounds for the OLine. Last year they looked lost even late in the season, they looked really really good especially in pass blocking.

Pass blocking did look really good. Formed a solid wall and gave Josh plenty of time. Can this be maintained with a bigger defensive line is the real question and I guess will be answered at the end of this coming Thursday.
 
There was definitely a point where most of the team stopped really caring, and the first quarter is probably to blame. It is probably better for us to do that against a much inferior opponent (rather than against UVA like last year). Also, it might be a good thing the white out is the next game. If the players get as psyched for it as they did last year then it could reverse that deficiency.
 
There was definitely a point where most of the team stopped really caring, and the first quarter is probably to blame. It is probably better for us to do that against a much inferior opponent (rather than against UVA like last year). Also, it might be a good thing the white out is the next game. If the players get as psyched for it as they did last year then it could reverse that deficiency.

This is a great point. PJ should use this as an example of what is expected 100%. The Chan Gailey mindset still plagues some of these players.
 
Just got done watching ESPN360. Their D was pursuing very quickly to the ball with 8 players. The backside LB was following the motion A-back, and the MLB was plugging the dive. This left the DE, CB and S to cover the reverse option, which we rarely called. Had we called it, the DE would be optioned, the CB would be run out of the play by the WR, leaving the S to take either the QB or pitch. Get past him and you go a long way.

We also could have passed much, much more. I'm sure PJ wanted us to run the offense though to get a good break-in for Thursday night.

In short, I think we could have fairly easily hung about 60 on this team if PJ had wanted. Instead, he played a lot of bench (2nd half) and kept things very vanilla.
 
There was definitely a correlation between Julian Barnett's strong play and TJ Barnes driving the offensive line back 2-3 yards. These two can flat out play.
 
I saw Nesbitt miss two wide open receivers that probably would have resulted in TDs. Brought back bad memories of Reggie Ball. Hopefully, he won't miss many more like that as the season goes on.
 
Really the pass to Embry Peeples didn't look awful...it was really close to a catch. To me Nesbitt looked improved throwing the ball.
 
I didn't know why Tarrant gave so much of a cushion either--really seemed like it hurt his play. He seemed like he was ready to be pretty physical and laid a couple of hits.
 
The biggest thing that I noticed was Allen's horrible pitch relationship in the option game. He seems to always be too close and not enough ahead of the QB.
 
I saw Nesbitt miss two wide open receivers that probably would have resulted in TDs. Brought back bad memories of Reggie Ball. Hopefully, he won't miss many more like that as the season goes on.

I also counted three passes that should have been caught. Two by Anthony Allen. They catch those and he is 9 for 11 passing, so I'll ask you, were the two incompletes the ONLY two over thrown balls?
 
Anthony Allen had alligator arms on one or two passes --I distinctly remember one over the middle in the first half. Another pass over the middle --this one in the first quarter-- was a bit overthrown but the receiver (can't recall who) could have laid out and perhaps come up with it ..would have been a great catch.
 
Just got done watching ESPN360. Their D was pursuing very quickly to the ball with 8 players. The backside LB was following the motion A-back, and the MLB was plugging the dive. This left the DE, CB and S to cover the reverse option, which we rarely called. Had we called it, the DE would be optioned, the CB would be run out of the play by the WR, leaving the S to take either the QB or pitch. Get past him and you go a long way.

Thanks man, this is the type of stuff I like reading. :biggthumpup:

Gonna go rewatch some of the game.
 
Anthony Allen had alligator arms on one or two passes --I distinctly remember one over the middle in the first half. Another pass over the middle --this one in the first quarter-- was a bit overthrown but the receiver (can't recall who) could have laid out and perhaps come up with it ..would have been a great catch.

I believe it was Peeples. He appeared to pull up on his route very slightly when watching real time. Haven't seen the replay.
 
I've pretty much had it with Blair myself. Does Jaybo know how to kick?
 
Really the pass to Embry Peeples didn't look awful...it was really close to a catch. To me Nesbitt looked improved throwing the ball.

Nesbitt was night and day from last year throwing the ball. He looked like a QB Saturday. We have put in the straight PA drop, which will be effective when we send 4. Even on the roll, he did well. His footwork and throwing is much better. He will complete a lot of passes this season. He really only overthrew one pass. Bebe dropped one, Allen dropped one and the pass to Peeples.
 
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