I know everyone is focused on the storm and the Ark St cancellation, but hopefully this thread will be an outlet for those wishing to discuss football.
Had an opportunity to rewatch the BC game last night. I am not sure I watched the same game as many on this board.
Offense
-Rosier has serious accuracy issues. I am in disbelief that this hasn't been talked about more. I've seen the 4th Q miss to JT mentioned, but that is it. This guy cannot hit the wide side of a barn. Even the passes he completed were rarely put in a good spot to maximize YAC. He is not even close on deep balls. And he had time all day long.
He can also be a little quick to dump it to the check down guy. He had Cager for an easy TD on the last red zone 3rd down of 1st drive, but dumped it off to Walton and settled for a FG. Saw this happen several times.
Nice wheels though, and seemed to make the right decisions on the zone-reads.
-I thought the OL looked very good in pass protection, but struggled in run game. Some holes opened at times, but not like they should have against BC. Walton reversed field, cutback and juked people, and all that made it look better live and on the stat sheet than it actually was. Look at Walton's 1st TD as an example - OL got no push at all, and Walton made a play and scored.
-Boy can Donaldson pull. Does a great job of blocking in space. Gauthier I am not sold on. I will be keeping an eye on him.
-Cager has nice hands. A few nice snatches, including a few over the middle (he was the only WR I saw make plays over the middle). Broadcast mentioned he is a high jump champion. Looks like he could be a real weapon.
-I wasn't a fan of our route combos in the 1st half. Seemed like we often had too many guys in a small area. As usual, barely any slants, drags, etc.
-Mike Harley goes from stopped to top speed real fast. I'd like to see him get more dig routes.
-I'd like to see more Deejay Dallas too, maybe in 2 back sets if we are going to run primarily shotgun.
DEFENSE
-Talk about an over reaction to Delaney. The whole board has been in meltdown mode over the secondary, and especially Delaney. The defensive scheme and a lack of help from the safety over the top made it look like Delaney, when it was the scheme that sucked. There was one play where Quan was in the game and caused an incompletion when Delaney forced the WR inside - I thought he should have had more help like this all day. Blitz after blitz that didn't get there left him exposed. Was he stellar? No. But for what he was asked to do, he played a decent game. He did lose his footing at least 3 times I counted, wondering it it was an equipment issue. Speaking of scheme/blitzes...
-Didn't like all the DB blitzes against the offensive game BC was calling. Coming from the nickel was ok, but the safeties or edge guys never really got there. Too slow developing. How are they supposed to get to the QB when he is getting it out so fast? Not sure what Diaz was thinking. Michael Jackson got there once and destroyed the QB when he kept it on a zone read.
-Why we're our safeties playing so deep? Again, it was quick hitting passes. Didn't see BC throw down field once.
-Knowles will take Redwines spot. Maybe as soon as Tallahassee. Redwine has zero instincts. He is never around the ball. Playing down hill does not seem natural to him. Knowles was creating havoc blitzing (even if he didn't get the sack), and always seemed to be around the ball. He looked like Jon Lynch when he popped the dude at the goal line.
-Darion Owens is slow, slow to react, and not a UM quality LB. Whiffed on a blitz in 2nd Q that shouldve been an easy play, which led to the 4th down conversion. Gave up the 3rd and 7 near the goal line in the 3rd Q by not knowing his assignment. LB depth doesn't look great at this point.
-Our linebackers, esp mccloud, really bite on play action/rpo and get sucked inside too much. This was mentioned elsewhere so won't get into it more here.
-The slot was uncovered lots of times, as mentioned in the other thread. On the Bandy pick that got called back, you can see the difference his speed makes when dropping back into coverage to cover the slot. Bandy is by far our most dynamic and best guy at nickel. I don't know which of the 3 LBs you sit, but we can't run that base 4-3 when teams go 3 wide. Our LBs just arent suited for it.
-Our DEs stunt sometimes and I can't figure out wtf they are trying to do. I marked :58 in 3rd Q as an example, but I saw this same thing a few times. There is no blitz coming behind it, but they take this strange angle anyways. Zero awareness of where the ball is.
All and all, this game was never close and was treated as a scrimmage. Lots of overreacting on this board. Wish we had another tune-up before going to Talahassee, though.
