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Despite the huge win…What are your areas of concern?

Ironmanfootball said:
no7 had a rough 'welcome to the bigs' game. Hope they can teach him how to track and finish
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He also plays recklessly. Reminds me of Taylor Rapp. Just throws himself into piles of players. He's gonna get someone injured if he keeps doing that. Almost took out Mes.
 
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Brooklyndee said:
Jet sweep isn't a concept we'd wanna employ for multiple reasons. Tosses, sweeps, naked bootlegs etc those would be great. Things to keep the defense attention pre snap. Otherwise we just see pre snap where the defense is loading up exactly where were gonna run the ball too. I'm hoping Carson will get a lil more hands on with some of this with his pre snap reads. Offensive line wasn't an issue at all. Makes it a lot more difficult when they have 90% certainty where the play is going. They would sell out there all game.
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From my observation, it does appear the busted running plays head straight into the teeth of the stacked D with little design to take another lane.

Obviously my in-stands/watching on TV viewpoint makes me omnipotent in this and clearly the RB who has to make a split second decision on where to go, with very large men wanting to rip his head off, really oughtta be reading my porsts more.
 
We are small at WR. Really small.

There were several plays where we had 10, 7, 9, and 0 on the field at the same time. All 6'1 or smaller, to me.

I get it was game 1, and I get we were playing a tough team/defense. But the offense needs to be much more efficient, and it needs to start with getting Beck more live reps with the receivers. I think it was obvious how much the staff trusted the passing game versus what we saw last year. The difference is Cam was throwing to his group in January, Beck not well into the summer. That's a BIG deal. The next 2 games need to be fully focused on the passing game.
 
JG13 said:
Lack of Lofton

3 pts off 2 turnovers
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Playcalling after the 2nd turnover was really repulsive. Just zero killer instinct from this staff, which was disheartening.

I did like how Mario went for it on 4th and 1 from the 15 after the fumble in the first quarter. With how conservatively they clearly played the entire game, at least it was good to see he made the right call there. Of course we wound up bungling the snap on the FG and still got nothing, but I praised Mario a lot for these types of decisions last year, he was way better in this aspect than he had been previously in his career, and he picked up right where he left off. That was the right call and I love to see the aggressiveness.

But **** the 2nd turnover was depressing. 12 minutes left, you're up 21-14, your defense is playing well, you're facing a first-time QB on the road who, to that point, had literally thrown ONE pass longer than 10 yards....you go up two touchdowns, they're ******* cooked.

Place is going insane, you're set-up on their 28 yard line.....and you run the ball into the A-gap 3 times and are good with a 10 point lead. ******* pathetic, man. Teams like that don't usually make mistakes. When they do, you HAVE TO step on throats. Take their **** souls. You know how insane that place goes if you push the gas and get up 28-14 on them? Now their offense for the rest of the game looks a lot like it did on the last drive, and we saw how it went the only time they were forced to have Carr sit in a pocket and wait for receivers to get into deep routes. He got ******* swallowed.
 
Safety play then WRs. Thomas busted on long pass; Poyser had some struggles. Cautiously optimistic on WRs, but important to see growth there next couple of games. Would rather our best personnel group on offense not be 12, with Lofton and Bauman at TE, so we don't have a phonebooth offense.
 
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Gables Canes said:
A lot of this has already been said I’m sure, but without fully reading the thread:

1. Safety play
2. LB’s in pass coverage
3. Offensive play calling - too conservative and predictable
4. Lack of TE usage. Get them more involved especially on the 3rd and 4 type situations
5. RB rotations - when Fletcher is hot, keep him in the game
6. Markel bell against quick athletic DE’s
7. This should be #1 but I put it on the bottom so as not to beat a dead horse - in-game coaching and clock management aren’t below average, they’re bottom of the barrel
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Safety play before jakobe pulled his quad was excellent. Not worried about safety play. Lbers in coverage is definitely an issue. We already knew how lost Wes is now factor in toure who atleast in this game was even worse than Wes and I'd say we got a noticeable issue on our hands. I think a lot of what we saw was a result of the multiples that Notre Dame presented on both sides of the field. Guess we'll see a more accurate depection of us once we play USF.
 
Sabetta said:
Toure is completely lost in pass pro. I asked @DMoney and he said not to worry. Well I'm worried. We got lucky they didn't get Love 1-1.
I thought PoPo did a good job. Better than expected.
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He did make an ok play on a wheel route early on. It was overthrown, and the timing was off, but he showed ok makeup speed (although not the optimal angle). It was up the ND sideline on our side of the field.
 
1. Left side of OL + Brockermeyer in run game, Bell in pass pro. Run scheme overall is vanilla and ineffective, essentially handicaps the offense and telegraphs the play. If you’re going to run inside zone 20 times with no threat of Carson pulling it, at least spread them out and run against 5 or 6 man boxes, not condensed formations and 9 in the box. We’re motioning WRs to bunch up tight and declaring extra OL as TE’s. It’s a dead giveaway.

2. Tackling on defense (early in the season thing, hopefully)
3. WR separation
4. Safety play, specifically Poyser.

Think a lot of these will improve week over week.
 
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Sabetta said:
Toure is completely lost in pass pro. I asked @DMoney and he said not to worry. Well I'm worried. We got lucky they didn't get Love 1-1.
I thought PoPo did a good job. Better than expected.
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LB was a lot of our #1 concerns heading into the season. This game against what ND does could have been a disaster

They played good enough though but we still need a major talent infusion there
 
JHallCanes said:
LB was a lot of our #1 concerns heading into the season. This game against what ND does could have been a disaster

They played good enough though but we still need a major talent infusion there
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I watched a film review and I think that the broken coverage on that big play to the TE was on Thomas.
Toure passed him off after 10 yards and Thomas was nowhere to be found.
Regardless, like you said, we have to be better at LB.
 
Sabetta said:
I watched a film review and I think that the broken coverage on that big play to the TE was on Thomas.
Toure passed him off after 10 yards and Thomas was nowhere to be found.
Regardless, like you said, we have to be better at LB.
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Yeah and that’s the type of stuff I expected more of in this game with a new DC and so many new faces

But all in all we did well. Should get better. We just don’t really have the talent at LB at the moment so they’ve gotta play with discipline something we did basically none of last year
 
Angry Ibis said:
I keep seeing Dawson, Dawson, Dawson... and while I agree the play calling needs variety, I have a bit of a hard timing buying that Dawson went from "end this ************ right now" guy to milk the clock up 2 scores while dominating guy. Alternatively, we have a head coach who is built that way. And the offense and defense went play not to lose at the same time. Unlikely the head coach had nothing to do with it.
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I'm overjoyed about this win and Mario has done a fantastic job building this rooster to what we have now. I also support Mario because of the above and because of all the other reasons that we all know so well. That does not mean however that we cannot address the elephant in the room. That is that up 21-7 in the 4th quarter Mario/Dawson or the tooth fairy made the decision to take the air out of the football and went and hid under the bleachers curled up in fetal position with their eyes closed hoping against all hope that the game clock would just magically tick away. It was cowardly and gutless and it could have easily cost us the game. I just don't understand what the philosophy is. As if going three and out and giving them the ball back was some sort of 5D Chess strategy. Even if you sell me on the necessity of keeping the ball on the ground, why does everything have to be up the middle. On that 3rd and 4 ND was sitting on the inside run. Why not run a jet sweep or a WR reverse or anything to play off of our established inside running game.
 
Brooklyndee said:
Safety play before jakobe pulled his quad was excellent. Not worried about safety play. Lbers in coverage is definitely an issue. We already knew how lost Wes is now factor in toure who atleast in this game was even worse than Wes and I'd say we got a noticeable issue on our hands. I think a lot of what we saw was a result of the multiples that Notre Dame presented on both sides of the field. Guess we'll see a more accurate depection of us once we play USF.
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Hopefully just a situational issue based on being Game 1 and going against a run-oriented system with a new QB. Chase Smith used to be a DB, he should be fast enough. Bobby Pruitt can cover. Wiley has gotten huge but covered well in his HS highlights.
 
LuCane said:
The naked bootleg was pretty much there the entire 4th Q. I have a difficult time understanding when OCs get rigid with situational play calling. Anyone who has ever played defense at any level knows the last thing you want is to be out there guessing and feel anxious about multiple possibilities. You want to know the tendency and fly in to fill your gap. It’s the OC’s job to make defenders feel the bind. Doesn’t have to be ultra creative. Just put the possibility out there. People complained about the bomb to JoJo that didn’t connect early in the game. I thought that vertical route was a great threat.
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The pass to Jojo also was on 2nd and 2, literally probably the best down and distance to take a shot and not significantly negatively affect your odds of converting. It’s almost TOO predictable to take shots on 2nd and 1/2 lol, yet people were freaking out about it. At the end of the day if you have a bunch of 3rd and 2s, we gotta expect to pick them up in two tries (go for most 4th and <2 past your own 40)
 
Health - Need guys like Jojo and Lofton to get healthy and we can't have injuries

Fundamentals - Looks improved but we still had some techique / fundamentals breakdowns on defense especially that we need to get cleaned up to take the next step

Knocking off Rust - Beck looked elite to me, he just needs to get in sync with all of the WRs and then look out

Playcalling & Time Outs - We shouldn't have gone in to our shell, but hey it worked out OK.

Overall though, I have a lot less concerns after then game than I did before. One thing the game showed me is that we have the horses. We have all the talent we need to make a run. It's going to come down to how well everyone executes and how hard everyone is willing to work to improve every single day.
 
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OrangeBowlMagic said:
We are small at WR. Really small.

There were several plays where we had 10, 7, 9, and 0 on the field at the same time. All 6'1 or smaller, to me.

I get it was game 1, and I get we were playing a tough team/defense. But the offense needs to be much more efficient, and it needs to start with getting Beck more live reps with the receivers. I think it was obvious how much the staff trusted the passing game versus what we saw last year. The difference is Cam was throwing to his group in January, Beck not well into the summer. That's a BIG deal. The next 2 games need to be fully focused on the passing game.
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A 6’0 or 6’1 WR is not small lol. 5’8-5’10.5 can be considered small. 6’3” and larger is big.
 
WeBallinBoyz said:
1. Left side of OL + Brockermeyer in run game, Bell in pass pro. Run scheme overall is vanilla and ineffective, essentially handicaps the offense and telegraphs the play. If you’re going to run inside zone 20 times with no threat of Carson pulling it, at least spread them out and run against 5 or 6 man boxes, not condensed formations and 9 in the box. We’re motioning WRs to bunch up tight and declaring extra OL as TE’s. It’s a dead giveaway.

2. Tackling on defense (early in the season thing, hopefully)
3. WR separation
4. Safety play, specifically Poyser.

Think a lot of these will improve week over week.
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I am not quite as worried about #3, the separation, as ND is said to have the best DB's in college, mixed with the fact that they held on literally every pass play. I think that will work itself out.
 
Calinative said:
A 6’0 or 6’1 WR is not small lol. 5’8-5’10.5 can be considered small. 6’3” and larger is big.
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I'm not going to debate this. The kids are all tiny. I saw no one physically imposing out there. They're all literally small (Toney), or slight (all of the other kids). Moore is the only one who would classify as a "big" receiver.

Now, as usual around here, if you have any comment about anything, it's immediately construed as totally negative and whoever said it actually thinks we'll lose every game from now on.

No, I don't think that. We did pretty well last year with small receivers (Restrepo is a smurf, George is undersized). But Horton was 6'3, and the one I think we might miss most is Arroyo, who was a mutant at 6'5. it doesn't mean we're not going to be able to complete a forward pass. But I do think, in order to make this passing game as efficient as possible, we're going to need to click between the QB and WRs on timing routes and finding soft spots in coverage, because I don't see body types that are just going to Deebo corners for the football, a la what Fields did to OJ.

But much more importantly, whether the kids are all 4'8 or 6'10, what we need most is live reps. Beck literally started in a multi-month hole compared to almost every other QB in the country. I said it all summer long, it was by far my biggest concern on the offense. Not the talent, but the cohesion between QB and receiver. Our coaches clearly don't think we're there yet, because we threw the football 10 times in 6 possessions in the second half.
 
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