First, I'm shocked we were even that place as a team to begin with.
Here's my breakdown of sorts. This is not a complaining thread. There's a little more meat to it than that.
1.) If you were in the game thread either you argued with me or you seen me post it over and over. Their WR splits - their placements on the far side of the numbers, way away from the last man on the LOS spread out our D like no one else in the SEC does. Maybe Auburn at times, but only Baylor and maybe Oregon do what they did that I've seen. They take away their ability to throw out routes and turn it into a full-field game where slants, seam routes, post, etc are prevalent. This makes us 1v1 which is fine for a little while, but for what, 30+ pass plays, there's no college team in the country who wouldnt have a hard time stopping that. Mounted with the lack of safety help on anything less than 15 yards (hi Chris Ash) we had no chance at slowing them down.
The vanilla 4-2-5 man-to-man no blitzing is fine as a GAMEPLAN but when the plan isnt working, you have to adjust. We did none of the sorts. Zero. I remember two blitzes all game, and none were out of this base set. Our 4 DL had no push and no help to confuse the o-linemen. I dont even remember seeing stunts or twists. Just booty coverage schemes by a DC who should've changed things up.
2.)Our run on first down % had to have been north of 70% for the first 3 quarters. This makes us predictable and allows them to crowd the box with 7 or 8 guys. Since a lot of was with the 3 WR bunch look, we thought we were confusing them but we all seen that wasnt the case. AC was getting stuffed on first down literally every time. Play action on first down would've been a nice adjustment at half time or in general. And the bubble screens that were killing them that we went away from, those would've helped on 1st down, too. This put us in 2nd and long, 3rd and long situations and nobody got time for that.
3.)Im beginning to think that our OL are playing out of place at the reward of getting the "best 5" on the field. This apparently is not working. Im not an OL guy so dont know much about them but I'd bet we see some re-working heading into the third week.
4.) Our lack of discipline was mind bottling. Thats supposed to be our identity. A pillar of the team. It lost us the game on several occasions with penalties and mental lapses on blocking assignments.
5.) The play calling from inside the 10 yard line blew my mind (hi Cheney, I thought you were gone north)
We had a first and goal from the 3 or 4 and ran a draw. The mindset for a draw is for the LBs/Safeties to fall back into coverage a few steps and then allows our DL to engage then get downfield for blocking. How does that work from the 3 and they're in their own endzone? The next play we ran some sort of power O and had Tretola pulling to the right. Of course they're going to run blitz on 2 and goal from the 4 so where Tretola left from, 2 defenders run untouched to smash AC. Why not run a lead dive a stretch play, anything that allows the linemen to stay engaged with a man from snap to finish. Pulling guards when there's 10 guys in the box is just stupid.
On the last drive we had a first and goal from the 4 and maybe because of ^^^^ above we decided not to run the ball. At all. If memory serves me right we threw out the back of the endzone on 1st. 2nd play we threw a swing pass to AC I believe and it was stuffed. Then we had holding or offsides or something to make us go further backwards. Then we attempted two passes to round it out. WE ARE
. Run the ball four times until you get in. We only needed 4 yards.
If I had to order all of this IMO as to why we lost I'd say now looking back
1. Play calling inside their 10 yard line
2a. Lack of discipline on penalties
2b. Our D Scheme never changing from Snap 1 to whatever it was
3. Our OL playing either out of place, out of technique, or soft, or all the above.
4. Predictability
5. The sorry atmosphere/road game
I've NEVER in my 26 years said to pull games out of LR. But pull games out of LR. Period.
Give us a pep rally (I live in Cabot) at War Memorial with the team there and coaches with the band and cheerleaders, or something to continue the tailgating, "bringing together the whole state", etc. to keep the energy alive here. But the games gotta go.
So do I.
Here's my breakdown of sorts. This is not a complaining thread. There's a little more meat to it than that.
1.) If you were in the game thread either you argued with me or you seen me post it over and over. Their WR splits - their placements on the far side of the numbers, way away from the last man on the LOS spread out our D like no one else in the SEC does. Maybe Auburn at times, but only Baylor and maybe Oregon do what they did that I've seen. They take away their ability to throw out routes and turn it into a full-field game where slants, seam routes, post, etc are prevalent. This makes us 1v1 which is fine for a little while, but for what, 30+ pass plays, there's no college team in the country who wouldnt have a hard time stopping that. Mounted with the lack of safety help on anything less than 15 yards (hi Chris Ash) we had no chance at slowing them down.
The vanilla 4-2-5 man-to-man no blitzing is fine as a GAMEPLAN but when the plan isnt working, you have to adjust. We did none of the sorts. Zero. I remember two blitzes all game, and none were out of this base set. Our 4 DL had no push and no help to confuse the o-linemen. I dont even remember seeing stunts or twists. Just booty coverage schemes by a DC who should've changed things up.
2.)Our run on first down % had to have been north of 70% for the first 3 quarters. This makes us predictable and allows them to crowd the box with 7 or 8 guys. Since a lot of was with the 3 WR bunch look, we thought we were confusing them but we all seen that wasnt the case. AC was getting stuffed on first down literally every time. Play action on first down would've been a nice adjustment at half time or in general. And the bubble screens that were killing them that we went away from, those would've helped on 1st down, too. This put us in 2nd and long, 3rd and long situations and nobody got time for that.
3.)Im beginning to think that our OL are playing out of place at the reward of getting the "best 5" on the field. This apparently is not working. Im not an OL guy so dont know much about them but I'd bet we see some re-working heading into the third week.
4.) Our lack of discipline was mind bottling. Thats supposed to be our identity. A pillar of the team. It lost us the game on several occasions with penalties and mental lapses on blocking assignments.
5.) The play calling from inside the 10 yard line blew my mind (hi Cheney, I thought you were gone north)
We had a first and goal from the 3 or 4 and ran a draw. The mindset for a draw is for the LBs/Safeties to fall back into coverage a few steps and then allows our DL to engage then get downfield for blocking. How does that work from the 3 and they're in their own endzone? The next play we ran some sort of power O and had Tretola pulling to the right. Of course they're going to run blitz on 2 and goal from the 4 so where Tretola left from, 2 defenders run untouched to smash AC. Why not run a lead dive a stretch play, anything that allows the linemen to stay engaged with a man from snap to finish. Pulling guards when there's 10 guys in the box is just stupid.
On the last drive we had a first and goal from the 4 and maybe because of ^^^^ above we decided not to run the ball. At all. If memory serves me right we threw out the back of the endzone on 1st. 2nd play we threw a swing pass to AC I believe and it was stuffed. Then we had holding or offsides or something to make us go further backwards. Then we attempted two passes to round it out. WE ARE
. Run the ball four times until you get in. We only needed 4 yards. If I had to order all of this IMO as to why we lost I'd say now looking back
1. Play calling inside their 10 yard line
2a. Lack of discipline on penalties
2b. Our D Scheme never changing from Snap 1 to whatever it was
3. Our OL playing either out of place, out of technique, or soft, or all the above.
4. Predictability
5. The sorry atmosphere/road game
I've NEVER in my 26 years said to pull games out of LR. But pull games out of LR. Period.
Give us a pep rally (I live in Cabot) at War Memorial with the team there and coaches with the band and cheerleaders, or something to continue the tailgating, "bringing together the whole state", etc. to keep the energy alive here. But the games gotta go.
So do I.
