First off big shout out to Alex Collins who is making himself a lot of money with the way he has been playing lately. I couldn't be happier for as class of a young man as he is. He is having a monster year and in any other year where there wasn't a Leonard Fournette, he would be getting a lot of publicity. Also I want to give a lot of credit to Enos as each week he adds wrinkles and he continues to impress me. Our offense last year was inept and he has brought life to it.
Offensive Player of the game: Alex Collins
Defensive Player of the game: (really I don't think we deserve one) I would go with Brooks Ellis since I have to pick one.
The Good:
Alex Collins continues to have a monster season and he was 1 touchdown away from tying Madre Hill's (6 against South Carolina) all time record for touchdowns in a single game. I don't care that it was against UT Martin or not he has been playing well all season, and without a doubt is our offensive MVP and it isn't even close. Also continue to be impressed with how we use 12 personnel (2 tight ends, and 1 back) the way Enos uses Sprinkle and Henry is a thing of beauty. Then continually find ways to use our best personnel package and show multiple looks out of it, and he does a great job of creating match up problems out of it.
The Bad:
Our pass rush is just bad anyway to slice it. Coming into the season many of us believed the hype that this dline was just going to be insane this year. With the exception of a few plays that make every once in a while against the run, this Dline has NO play makers. I honestly have spent most of this year saying, "I think we will be fine with our Dline." I am not nearly as confident now as I was earlier, we continue to get dominated up front especially in pass rush situations. We have only 7 sacks and that is pretty bad, but to make things worse we didn't affect UT-Martin team on all but 4 times. We barely even changed their QB's launching pad. Now I don't solely judge pass rush by sacks, but we rarely this WHOLE season (not just today) get pressure on the QB. Yesterday was pathetic to be honest and as soft as our scheme is in the secondary without a pass rush it gets magnified.
The Ugly:
Our Secondary and overall defensive play surrendered 519 yards against our defense.380 through the air, and that a very bad 139 on the ground. Our scheme continues to get abused over the middle and the play action quick hitter to the slot verses our Linebackers continues to get exposed at least once a game. I don't care who UT Martin is in their little league, there are zero excuses and I mean zero for those number against our defense. The Middle of our defense is open to whomever wants to abuse it, because we have no pass rush and our linebackers aren't not good in pass coverage underneath. We also are so bad at tackling in the secondary this season our scheme is working against us as we are suppose to let them catch underneath then finish with a tackle, but that rarely happens.
Grades:
QB: Brandon Allen was good yesterday again. He threw the deep ball as well as I have seen him through it maybe in his career. Another good game by him will result in another good grade. Also little brother Austin looked good on his one throw.
Grade: A+
RB: Alex Collins, Kody Walker had very good games. However, this day belongs to AC as he continues to impress me by fighting through a heavy work load and the punishment he continues to take. He is showing me a lot of durability, really love watching him play hate that this will likely be his last year (or it should be ) He is set to make money and he doesn't need to take this kind of beating again next year.
Grade: A+
WR: Man once again Kudos needs to go out to Michael Smith and this group. This group has faced more adversity this year than any group on the team and they continue to thrive. Dominique Reed is slowly becoming a freak and I love that. I have always thought Jared is our best overall guy, love watching this guy play. Drew is turning into a stud, and continues to play through injuries and make plays.
Grade: A+
TE: These guys are the focal point of our offense and since they have became accustomed to their roles in this new offense our offense has continued to improve daily. We do more with Tight Ends than anyone in the nation, and if you are a 5 star tight end or whatever it wouldn't even be a decision to come to Arkansas its crazy how many we are about to run into the NFL with our current brand of offense.
Grade: A+
Oline: This group continues to get better and they are finally run blocking like they are suppose to. However they did surrender 1 sack yesterday although it was as much on BA as it was on them.
Grade: B+
Dline: Continues to disappoint as they have as many 4 stars as any group that we have and yet we can't get pressure on an FCS school. Also yesterday we surrendered 139 yards against a team that was dominated by the only other SEC school they played this year. Couple that with zero sacks and you have a lackluster performance.
Grade: F
LB: Simple as this against the run Brooks and Dre are actually having a great year. In Pass coverage they are not great. Although yesterday it was nice to see Brooks undercut a route in the redzone and get a pick. Dre is like a fish out of water in pass coverage and teams pick on him badly.
Grade D+
DB: You could see the frustration yesterday by Gaines as I think they are lost right now. Seemingly no continuity on the back end, and people are shredding us right now. I mean the fact that we have the worst pass rush in the SEC it doesn't make their job any easier, they still tackle bad and have bad technique as a whole. I did see us go bump and run the series after we hit the long one to Reed and go figure we got a three and out.
If this was the first time that this had happened this year I would brush it off, but we are 4-4 and its happened in all games including Toldeo, UTEP, and now UT-Martin. Its becoming embarrassing, teams have figured us out and we rarely change looks. I do wonder if our pass rush is so bad that Robb Smith is afraid to bring the corners up more, because of the threat of the deep ball when their guy is getting all day long? But of our 7 sacks 4 this year have come when we played press coverage. Still no excuse to get shredded by UT Martin to the tune of 380 yards passing.
Grades: F
Special Teams: Might be the first time in BB's tenure that we dominated this area.
Grades: B
Looking ahead:
My percentage of chances to remaining games based on what they are doing verses what we are doing.
Ole Miss: 15% chance as they will likely throw for over 400 maybe close to 500 with the way we are playing. Will likely be our worst loss of the year!
LSU: 20% likely going to lose this at LSU, I think this will be a close game until the 4th. What scares me is Brandon Harris is playing better and because of the threat to pass now we will likely lose this one by two touchdowns (very similar to the way we lost to Bama) We can and will score some on them though.
Miss State: 50% Dak will go crazy on us, but because its home and we are completing nearly 70% of passes at home this year I think we are able to possibly outscore them.
Missouri: 80% this will depend on if we beat Miss State coming off of two losses against LSU and Ole Miss. If we are 5-6 with a chance to go bowling with a win against Missouri we will blow them up. If we don't have anything to play for this game will be very ugly.
Conclusion:
Our defense is not getting any better and this was about the time last year when we watched it start heading in the right direction. I hope that we slip up and pull a pretty major upset in the next two weeks that would be awesome. Also, I love the players we are getting in recruiting right now, i personally know McTelvin and he will be our intimidate impact as a pass rusher. I like what we are seemingly doing at Linebacker adding much more speed (which we desperately need). Have a great weekend and I will talk to you guys next weekend post Ole Miss (hopefully I won't be talking about a record setting day passing on our defense)!
Offensive Player of the game: Alex Collins
Defensive Player of the game: (really I don't think we deserve one) I would go with Brooks Ellis since I have to pick one.
The Good:
Alex Collins continues to have a monster season and he was 1 touchdown away from tying Madre Hill's (6 against South Carolina) all time record for touchdowns in a single game. I don't care that it was against UT Martin or not he has been playing well all season, and without a doubt is our offensive MVP and it isn't even close. Also continue to be impressed with how we use 12 personnel (2 tight ends, and 1 back) the way Enos uses Sprinkle and Henry is a thing of beauty. Then continually find ways to use our best personnel package and show multiple looks out of it, and he does a great job of creating match up problems out of it.
The Bad:
Our pass rush is just bad anyway to slice it. Coming into the season many of us believed the hype that this dline was just going to be insane this year. With the exception of a few plays that make every once in a while against the run, this Dline has NO play makers. I honestly have spent most of this year saying, "I think we will be fine with our Dline." I am not nearly as confident now as I was earlier, we continue to get dominated up front especially in pass rush situations. We have only 7 sacks and that is pretty bad, but to make things worse we didn't affect UT-Martin team on all but 4 times. We barely even changed their QB's launching pad. Now I don't solely judge pass rush by sacks, but we rarely this WHOLE season (not just today) get pressure on the QB. Yesterday was pathetic to be honest and as soft as our scheme is in the secondary without a pass rush it gets magnified.
The Ugly:
Our Secondary and overall defensive play surrendered 519 yards against our defense.380 through the air, and that a very bad 139 on the ground. Our scheme continues to get abused over the middle and the play action quick hitter to the slot verses our Linebackers continues to get exposed at least once a game. I don't care who UT Martin is in their little league, there are zero excuses and I mean zero for those number against our defense. The Middle of our defense is open to whomever wants to abuse it, because we have no pass rush and our linebackers aren't not good in pass coverage underneath. We also are so bad at tackling in the secondary this season our scheme is working against us as we are suppose to let them catch underneath then finish with a tackle, but that rarely happens.
Grades:
QB: Brandon Allen was good yesterday again. He threw the deep ball as well as I have seen him through it maybe in his career. Another good game by him will result in another good grade. Also little brother Austin looked good on his one throw.
Grade: A+
RB: Alex Collins, Kody Walker had very good games. However, this day belongs to AC as he continues to impress me by fighting through a heavy work load and the punishment he continues to take. He is showing me a lot of durability, really love watching him play hate that this will likely be his last year (or it should be ) He is set to make money and he doesn't need to take this kind of beating again next year.
Grade: A+
WR: Man once again Kudos needs to go out to Michael Smith and this group. This group has faced more adversity this year than any group on the team and they continue to thrive. Dominique Reed is slowly becoming a freak and I love that. I have always thought Jared is our best overall guy, love watching this guy play. Drew is turning into a stud, and continues to play through injuries and make plays.
Grade: A+
TE: These guys are the focal point of our offense and since they have became accustomed to their roles in this new offense our offense has continued to improve daily. We do more with Tight Ends than anyone in the nation, and if you are a 5 star tight end or whatever it wouldn't even be a decision to come to Arkansas its crazy how many we are about to run into the NFL with our current brand of offense.
Grade: A+
Oline: This group continues to get better and they are finally run blocking like they are suppose to. However they did surrender 1 sack yesterday although it was as much on BA as it was on them.
Grade: B+
Dline: Continues to disappoint as they have as many 4 stars as any group that we have and yet we can't get pressure on an FCS school. Also yesterday we surrendered 139 yards against a team that was dominated by the only other SEC school they played this year. Couple that with zero sacks and you have a lackluster performance.
Grade: F
LB: Simple as this against the run Brooks and Dre are actually having a great year. In Pass coverage they are not great. Although yesterday it was nice to see Brooks undercut a route in the redzone and get a pick. Dre is like a fish out of water in pass coverage and teams pick on him badly.
Grade D+
DB: You could see the frustration yesterday by Gaines as I think they are lost right now. Seemingly no continuity on the back end, and people are shredding us right now. I mean the fact that we have the worst pass rush in the SEC it doesn't make their job any easier, they still tackle bad and have bad technique as a whole. I did see us go bump and run the series after we hit the long one to Reed and go figure we got a three and out.
If this was the first time that this had happened this year I would brush it off, but we are 4-4 and its happened in all games including Toldeo, UTEP, and now UT-Martin. Its becoming embarrassing, teams have figured us out and we rarely change looks. I do wonder if our pass rush is so bad that Robb Smith is afraid to bring the corners up more, because of the threat of the deep ball when their guy is getting all day long? But of our 7 sacks 4 this year have come when we played press coverage. Still no excuse to get shredded by UT Martin to the tune of 380 yards passing.
Grades: F
Special Teams: Might be the first time in BB's tenure that we dominated this area.
Grades: B
Looking ahead:
My percentage of chances to remaining games based on what they are doing verses what we are doing.
Ole Miss: 15% chance as they will likely throw for over 400 maybe close to 500 with the way we are playing. Will likely be our worst loss of the year!
LSU: 20% likely going to lose this at LSU, I think this will be a close game until the 4th. What scares me is Brandon Harris is playing better and because of the threat to pass now we will likely lose this one by two touchdowns (very similar to the way we lost to Bama) We can and will score some on them though.
Miss State: 50% Dak will go crazy on us, but because its home and we are completing nearly 70% of passes at home this year I think we are able to possibly outscore them.
Missouri: 80% this will depend on if we beat Miss State coming off of two losses against LSU and Ole Miss. If we are 5-6 with a chance to go bowling with a win against Missouri we will blow them up. If we don't have anything to play for this game will be very ugly.
Conclusion:
Our defense is not getting any better and this was about the time last year when we watched it start heading in the right direction. I hope that we slip up and pull a pretty major upset in the next two weeks that would be awesome. Also, I love the players we are getting in recruiting right now, i personally know McTelvin and he will be our intimidate impact as a pass rusher. I like what we are seemingly doing at Linebacker adding much more speed (which we desperately need). Have a great weekend and I will talk to you guys next weekend post Ole Miss (hopefully I won't be talking about a record setting day passing on our defense)!
