Post Louisville Game Discussion 9.2.2023

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My thoughts:

First and foremost, you can see the buy-in from the players unlike with Clown Shoes. Fundamentals were better overall be it gap fits (for the most part) tackling and angles to the ball carrier. Offensively we are more diverse and can run multiple sets and be successful.

That said, defensively.......We are still very much behind top end talent and depth wise along the front 7. We barely had any push and even our blitz packages were fairly blah with them mostly being delayed gap type blitzes. We need to recruit better along the DL. Lack of depth hurt us down the stretch, too many guys with hands on hip because we are thin. We seem to still be a bit confused on the misdirection type plays and drag/mesh routes with guys running wide open underneath. Gotta clean that up, though some of it was them throwing it to where our LBs vacated space on the blitzes. Not too many busted assignments on the back end which was encouraging.

Offensively, we are more diverse, but our O-line is a work in progress. Run blocking was decent at times, pass pro and switching off assignments on the blitz pickups wasn't there. Louisville had success with the stunts on their DL for the most part even if it didn't end up with a sack, they got King off his mark. OT has to improve as well, greatly. Too much pressure from straight speed rushes off the edge when Louisville was playing a wide 9. Can't happen! Especially when we keep a TE in to chip the edge. The main deficiency I see on offense is we still are not confident enough to challenge teams deep, be it by design for game 1 or because we don't feel good about it. We have speed on the perimeter, but seemed more content with spacing the field horizontally rather than vertically. It worked for a quarter in the 2nd, but Louisville adjusted 2nd half and it shrinks the field with which they have to defend. They then started stacking the box knowing that.

We got outplayed for the majority of the game, but we very easily could have won that game and maybe should have. That IMO is progress as with Clown Shoes, we often times rolled over when hit in the mouth. We need to learn how to "finish" games and not sit on a lead and go conservative. I'm confident CBK will address this.

THWg
 
It dawned on me this morning that we looked a lot like UNC. Feast or famine on offense. Poor line play on both sides. Issues tackling on D. But extremely explosive when things are clicking. I wouldn’t mind having a UNC type 8+ win season in year one. Looking for the killer instinct to bury our FCS opponent next week. Then we’ll see what progress has been made for week 3 Ole Miss.
 
The UL QB is a terrible passer. If we face any teams with a decent QB, such will be a problem.
If it wasn’t for all of UL’s penalties the score would have been a lot worse.
 
JJacket said:
I've been to that same game at least a dozen times in my life. I still have bad memories of the home collapse against Miami when we had the game pretty well in hand (not the away bubble screen game).

Hell, we lost to VT because Sneezy decided to punch VT's QB after a huge 3rd down stop.
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I remember that home game against Miami year ango, another crash and burn.
 
I didn’t have a problem with calling runs in the second half, it was the types of runs. I would have preferred some read option since UL was expecting the run. Add in the TE to make it a triple option with the short pass that were ran several times. Maybe our Ol was too gassed to run laterally that much.
 
I missed the first half but was able to watch the 2H. Missed the good part. Would have liked to see Pyron get some snaps in 2H when 10 was gassed. He is a good runner on the outside, had me wanting to see some option looks.

D looked pretty bad in 2H. Corners lost leverage on all wide stuff. Looked like they were playing without arms. The Ga State transfer schooled us bad. Our lines were less athletic and physical than ULs. Our RBs are tiny. Our TEs still miss balls they should catch. Lots of new players in our lineup. Hope to see big improvement thru the year. Playcalling in 2H was not impressive. If you can't out athlete them you have to outsmart and outquick them.
 
Didn’t think the offense played bad at all. Even OL was ok against a really good front. It wasn’t like King was getting assaulted. We lost because we missed a FG and had a very poorly timed fumble.

Also, not sure why you guys are questioning the playcalling. We scored 35 and had 400 yards of offense against a good team.

Defense struggled, but we had our two best guys out.
There was some weird clock management by Key at the end of the first half; only glaring coaching mistake I saw
 
YellowJacket4Life said:
We need to learn how to "finish" games and not sit on a lead and go conservative. I'm confident CBK will address this.

THWg
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While I won't speak to the rest, this very last part is what I am least confident about. Key went conservative and tried to sit on what few leads we ever had last year and that may just end up being the way he is. If so it will cost us a number of games cause we aren't good enough to do that.
 
I thought Louisville played really well except for QB. We had them completely flat footed in the 2Q through creative play calling and O line execution. We lost the creativity a bit, but we did have two scoring drives going in the second half that fizzled with a missed 32 hard FG and the red zone turnover. Ultimately the strip sack killed us and was in my opinion an avoidable situation with a little more awareness on the part of King or a little bit better blocking by the line.
 
GTLiebs said:
While I won't speak to the rest, this very last part is what I am least confident about. Key went conservative and tried to sit on what few leads we ever had last year and that may just end up being the way he is. If so it will cost us a number of games cause we aren't good enough to do that.
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Agreed, the history is there to cause concern, but I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt to make the changes needed late in games now that he isn't coaching for his job security. The progress in many areas is evident but this is one he needs to grow in immediately.
 
GTLiebs said:
While I won't speak to the rest, this very last part is what I am least confident about. Key went conservative and tried to sit on what few leads we ever had last year and that may just end up being the way he is. If so it will cost us a number of games cause we aren't good enough to do that.
Click to expand...
I think he really wants to develop confidence along the O Line to be able to win games. But it will have the opposite effect if we continue to lose the way we did last night.
 
We lost this in the trenches on both sides of the ball.
giving up 39 points isn't a sign of a strong defense.
seems like we haven't had strong defense now in 5th straight year....
i wonder if there's any common denominator over these past four years?
 
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