My Post Game Recap - Pitt

Imo miami needs to find the rpo staple with a slant over the top of a lb. If miami starts attacking the middle of the field even if it's not successful u keep the defense honest. Miami right now is to predictable in the pass game. I would also love to see a fake bubble where the blocker runs a quick slant
 
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Imo miami needs to find the rpo staple with a slant over the top of a lb. If miami starts attacking the middle of the field even if it's not successful u keep the defense honest. Miami right now is to predictable in the pass game. I would also love to see a fake bubble where the blocker runs a quick slant

It was there a few times against Pitt - King was having a hard time seeing it. Mallory should have had about 7 total catches. He was open a lot. King had a really bad game. Missed throws and run option reads.
 
LCE, good write up. Thanks for doing those. You still think JC is worthy of the starting LT spot? That’s 2 games In a row he’s struggled in. Granted, he’s faced stiff comp but I still maintain that Zion might have been better off starting Clemson. JC really has to step it up a notch.
 
It was there a few times against Pitt - King was having a hard time seeing it. Mallory should have had about 7 total catches. He was open a lot. King had a really bad game. Missed throws and run option reads.
To me miami would be 10x better if we attacked the middle of the field alot more csz then those bubble screens are even harder to defend
 
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View attachment 133810

Offense:

D'Eriq King - 16/31 222yds 4TD's & 2INT's 11att & 32yds rushing
Cam'ron Harris - 12att 24yds rushing & 1rec 35yds 1TD
Jaylan Knighton - 7att 25yds rushing & 5rec 27yds
Don Chaney Jr - 5att 18yds
Mark Pope - 5rec 46yds
Will Mallory - 2rec 51yds 2TD's
Mike Harely - 2rec 47yds 1TD

Gained 331yds of total offense, ran 73 plays with 21 first downs, 4-13 on 3rd down at 4.5 yards per play with 29:27 in time of possession.

Great play call to bring Harris out of the backfield on that first TD, it was something that I highlighted in my preview for the game that would line up perfect playing against Pitt's Defense based on how they use their LB's.



King dropped a dime to Dee Wiggins on the Fade route to the sideline, but of course he dropped it & then dropped an easy WR screen at the start of the 2nd half because he's weak AF. Had one of his worst performances today, has completely come up short in every game we've played except for FSU.

Good job by King finding Harley on the busted coverage for a TD, it was a great play call by Lashlee, we have our most success in the passing game from Wide Trips formation.



King made a bad read throwing to Harley on that INT by Marquis Williams, in fact both of his INT's were intended passes to Harley. One thing King does is he locks in on his first read pre-snap & doesn't come off that read, he will stare down the WR & throw it to him no matter what & what DB's are starting to do is read his eyes & bait him. He needs to be more efficient with the ball & go through his progressions a lot quicker.

Pope played well, he caught 5 passes out of 6 targets & helped us move the chains on multiple drives, obviously the board is extremely down on him but he can play we just have to get him the ball more in similar situations like Bubble screens & quick routes.
But I think it it's time to go with the Youth movement at WR, bench Wiggs & go with Pope, Harley, Redding & Smith as the top 4.

Good play call on the TD to Mallory on the TE slip out of the backfield from wide stacked formation, it was the exact same play as the Cam Harris TD.



The biggest issue with this offense remains the lack of a vertical threat from WR's in the passing game & the OL. Until we can find a WR that can attack the secondary & stretch the field we're going to run into the same problem on a weekly basis.

Keyshawn Smith has shown multiple times this year that he can create separation in one on one coverage & has really really good speed, just need to build up that continuity in practice & start connecting on those Deep balls, because literally every time one has been thrown to hi, he's had his man beat by at a step & half.

We also have got to get the run game fixed, would love to see us try to create some cutback lanes upfront as opposed to constantly just running guys off inside zone into a wall of 8-9 man box defenders.

Offense played well enough to win obviously, but too many stalled drives, we did a good job on capitalizing off short fields with explosive plays which is our bread & butter, but there's a lot we need to cleanup as a whole, need a lot more consistency with the OL & WR play has to drastically improve down the line.

Defense:

Gurvan Hall - 8tcks
Bubba Bolden - 6tcks 1TFL & 1PBU
Quincy Roche - 7ckts 4TFL's 1 sack & 1FR
Jaelan Phillips - 3tcks 1TFL 1 sack & 1FF
Jared Harrison-Hunte - 4tcks 2TFL's 1 sack & 1FF
Amari Carter - 6tcks
DJ Ivey - 4tcks
Sam Brooks - 3tcks
Bradley Jennings Jr - 3tcks
Gilbert Frierson - 2tcks
Jahfari Harvey - 2tcks 1TFL 1 sack
Jordan Miller - 2tcks 1TFL 1 sack
Corey Flagg Jr - 2tcks
Jason Blissett Jr - 1tck 1TFL
Al Blades Jr - 1tck 2PBU's
Isaiah Dunson - 1tck
Te'Cory Couch - 1tck & 3PBU's
Zach McCloud - 1tck 1TFL

Gave up to 300yds total offense, had 9TFL's, 3 sacks, forced a turnover & held Pitt to just 22yds rushing.



The Run Defense was absolutely STOUT! Now obviously, Pitt doesn't have a great rushing offense to begin with lol but 22 yards rushing is **** good by this Defense considering how we usually perform against the run.

Great job getting in the backfield on the sack by Miller, Phillips, JHH & Nesta were in the backfield all day as well.
DLine was disruptive & great job by Roche recognizing the quick misdirection in the red zone & sniffing it out & getting the TFL.

Defense did a great job stopping the run & keeping them contained. Red zone Defense was good, (aside from the TD on the 1 yard line that came off the INT by Williams) we kept them from scoring TD's on most of their Red zone trips. 3rd down Defense was very good too holding the, to just 3-17 on 3rd downs.

Two dumb penalties by the Defense that kept a drive extended, BJJ roughing the passer & lining up offsides on a 4th down Punt. Another dumb roughing the passer penalty by Phillips that extended a drive.

Terrific tackle by Isaiah Dunson on the fake punt, that was great field awareness.

The Defense completely fell asleep on the drive in the 2nd quarter that lead to a FG, leaving the Slot uncovered & putting Amari Carter one on one with Addison, dumb coverage call, but the DLine saved us with JHH getting the sack.

Great open field tackling by Bolden in the Red zone before the half, he saved a TD on that 2nd down pass to the RB out of the backfield. But in down field coverage open his hips too much on that 3rd down pass.

Very good coverage by Al Jr vs Wayne, he did a good job with his eyes & played through the hands to get the PBU.

Terrific coverage by Te'Cory Couch on the deep ball in the 3rd quarter, won the inside leverage battle & completely got inside the hip pocket of the WR. Had great coverage again on Addison in the 4th quarter on another deep route where he had inside leverage & was able to get his head around to get the PBU, he's really coming on as the season progresses, he was excellent in coverage today. I would put him at Field & move Al Jr to Boundary for the rest of the season. Couch has the speed, feet & hips to lockdown the #1 WR & Blades can cover the big body Wideout, let Frierson cover the slot as a Nickel & just use Ivey close to the line of scrimmage in run support.

The same thing we did vs LVille we did vs Pitt in terms of leaving the slot completely open, Addison got a free release on literally every single route he ran today, we left a Safety on him all day & just like Tutu Atwell did, Addison ate us up. I really really hate that about Baker's play calling. But otherwise, Couch & Blades were good in coverage.

Good kickoff coverage by Corey Flagg Jr, he's an active Backer with really high football IQ. Brooks, Flagg & Jennings are the best LB's, McCloud is horrendous with change of direction & despite being a 5th year Senior has absolutely no awareness at all, he's a straight forward rusher that should only be used as a situational backer on Blitz packages.

The unsung hero of the game was Lou Hedley, he had 6 Punts for 310yds averaging 51.7 yards per punt & even had a 60 yard punt on the day. He flipped the field & put Pitt in bad field position for most of the day, he's been a terrific upgrade from the Punter carousel we had a few years ago.

Overall, it was a good team win, I predicted we would win 37-20 & that's basically the game we played. It wasn't a pretty performance like we had vs FSU, we left lots of plays & yards in the field, but we scored & got the explosive TD plays when we needed to. There's still a lot to improve on offensively particularly in the passing game, there's also corrections that need to made on Defense in pass coverage as well, but overall was a good team win.

One of the best things about today was we cut our penalties in half from 10+ to just 5, if we continue to play smarter & more buttoned up we'll be a much more efficient team.

But next week, we should whoop UVA handily, we have 2 road games coming @ Va Tech & NC St that will define how bad this team wants to win, we are much improved from last year in many aspects & as long as we keep fighting & becoming more cohesive as a unit we'll firmly places ourselves as one of the top 3 teams in the ACC.

Great win, Go Canes! 🙌🏾

How do you think Ivey is playing since his horrible start of the season?
 
How do you think Ivey is playing since his horrible start of the season?
Solid.

He's playing less snaps & he's not really being challenged much, but he's been solid.

He made one big mental error today on a 3rd down & long where it was Quarters coverage, he was playing bail technique & the WR Shocky Jacques-Louis was running a Curl route, he got depth at at about 8yds & came back towards the sideline & Ivey for whatever reason just kept running up field, mind you he had eyes on the QB so it's not like he couldn't see him or had his back turned, Jacques-Louis peeled off & had the ball thrown right to him but luckily for us he dropped it, but it was a total mental lapse by Ivey because he saw SJL make his break & actually had enough to time reshuffle his feet & T-step break to get back to the ball, but he literally kept pedaling back for like 9 yards lol.

I'm not nitpicking or criticizing him, he played well, it's just little stuff like that I notice because CB is my position, I played & coached it so I recognize immediately when stuff goes wrong even if the outcome of the play results in our favor.

But overall, he's been better, he's a really good tackler & that's a plus for us in the run game, I actually wouldn't mind seeing him sent on a CB Blitz when we have the advantage on the short side of the field, his length is a weapon near the LOS.
 
I think King's height is a major disadvantage and contributes to his struggles
aziz ansari snl GIF by Saturday Night Live
 
Very well said.

Especially on the last part, we played the 2 best Defenses we'll face in Clemson & Pitt, UVA, Va Tech, NC St, GTech, Wake & UNC are all pure trash Defensively, as long as we come prepared to play every week & keep capitalizing off explosive plays for TD's we should win out, not saying we will, but we should.

All we really have to do Offensively is find a Deep vertical threat to take the top off of Defenses & we'll be a very hard team to beat the rest of the way. Gotta hope KeySmith gets his shot in that role. Wiggins has been such a disappointment this year.
keyshawn smith has been getting open deep multiple times a game since he's started seeing the field more and we just haven't quite gotten the ball to him so far. gut feeling is there's a breakout game coming around the corner. i hope i'm right because it would really help us out to have just one WR that makes the defense think twice a little bit.
 
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keyshawn smith has been getting open deep multiple times a game since he's started seeing the field more and we just haven't quite gotten the ball to him so far. gut feeling is there's a breakout game coming around the corner. i hope i'm right because it would really help us out to have just one WR that makes the defense think twice a little bit.
Agree, UVA next Saturday is the perfect game to get it going because UVA 's Defense is trash...

I would start Smith over Wiggins & let him work.

Going forward to me the WR group should be:

XWR - Mark Pope/ Michael Redding
ZWR - Keyshawn Smith/ Jeremiah Payton/ Dee Wiggins
SWR - Mike Harley/ Xavier Restrepo

Now my reasoning for not putting Pope in the Slot like many have suggested is, if Harely wasn't in the slot, he would never get a chance to catch a ball, he simply can't matchup with the either side of the Corners, so keeping him the Slot is where he's most effective.

Pope doesn't necessarily do great against the Defenses best CB either, however, my logic is if the opposing #1 CB doesn't respect Pope much he'll basically just play him straight up, which means Pope can be an effective decoy in pulling that Defender up the field to clear out a zone on the Field side of the hashes in which the Slot or the Flanker can come underneath against & get more favorable matchups.

The main reason I would put Keyshawn at Flanker is because there's not a single Boundary Corner on our schedule fast enough to keep up with him & it would be the best way to get him the ball down the field. It's what my Ravens do with Hollywood Brown, they line him up in the Slot at times & as the WR2 to get him the ball on Deep routes because DC's don't wanna move their #1 Corner over to the Boundary side.
 
I think King's height is a major disadvantage and contributes to his struggles

The play calling is a big part of it.

King is who he is. Lashlee can do more to help him. Like Liberty City El said, height doesn’t prevent the middle throws and those throws will help him.

I like the heavy use of run fakes and throwing quick but we do it to the sideline too often. Pitt’s talented defensive ends got their hands on a few. We need to hit more slants, drags, and crosses off the fake and of straight 3 step drop as well. King can do it but we need more plays with multiple short routes attacking the middle.

When he tries to step up in the pocket, interior line men are getting pushed into his face too often. Having the tight ends, Pope , and maybe some of the younger guys flashing across his face gives him a target to hit before the pocket collapses. Having more than one route crossing the middle defenders helps prevent the defense from reading his eyes and jumping the lone route over the short middle. Think about the pick 6 vs LSU.

They are shorter easier throws than trying to sling it way outside the hashes. We can move the pocket. I think using the blocking tight ends for a six man line would help the protection on the rollout side.

Using those routes as first reads is key. Too often our coaches want those routes to be check downs, but it is hard to come back to those reads with no rhythm and poor blocking.
 
Very well said.

Especially on the last part, we played the 2 best Defenses we'll face in Clemson & Pitt, UVA, Va Tech, NC St, GTech, Wake & UNC are all pure trash Defensively, as long as we come prepared to play every week & keep capitalizing off explosive plays for TD's we should win out, not saying we will, but we should.

All we really have to do Offensively is find a Deep vertical threat to take the top off of Defenses & we'll be a very hard team to beat the rest of the way. Gotta hope KeySmith gets his shot in that role. Wiggins has been such a disappointment this year.

I was straight caping for Wiggins in the offseason. The speed is there. The strength, balance, and mental toughness is not. It’s disheartening watching a guy with his potential drop passes and flail in the dirt.

Hightower saw the same thing and was probably highly ****ed he had to sit behind Wiggins’ big play potential but lackluster consistency. I wish he could have touched it out. We could have used his strength and experience.
 
Yes, we need to get Keyshawn Smith and Reeding on the field much more. I did notice that Brooks and Flagg are getting more snap counts.
OP pretty much hit all the points. Good win against a tough defensive team in a spot where Miami has shown a propensity for flopping after an early season loss.

The youth movement a lot of people have been asking for is now in effect. 11 and 6 are the best linebackers we have. Flagg, in particular has been impressive. He’s around the ball every time he’s in the game and he makes the sure play instead of chasing (and missing) the highlight reel play. Couch looked very solid and made some nice PBUs . Our corners as a whole looked solid in man coverage but he have issues with zone and not matching up correctly. Not sure if that’s on the players or the coaches or both. Dee Wiggins, thanks for participating. Here’s your diploma. Now kindly take a seat on the bench. I don’t know what the record for worst catch/drop ratio in UM history is but he’s got to be near the top. Pope had a quietly solid game. I think he’s a decent #2 receiver. We don’t have a WR1. Maybe it can be Keyshawn Smith? We’re going to have to continue to attack the outside in the passing game because our quarterback is a midget and our interior line gets shoved into the backfield on ever play. We can’t create throwing lanes to throw over the middle. The tackles do a generally great job in protection. They ride their guys outside and upfield but King can’t step up in the pocket because our interior is horrible. Scaife is the most disappointing player for me so far this year.

But yeah, it’s going to get easier for our offense into the coming weeks. We survived the storm of facing the two best defensive fronts on the schedule in back to back games and hopefully we can continue to make progress. It could be much worse than being 4-1 right now.a
 
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Yes I do.

Justice knows best, if he's starting Campbell at LT it's because he gives us our best shot at protecting the blind side.

They already benched Traore for Clark, if Campbell was really that bad they would've already made the Zion switch permanent. Zion played well against a weak FSU pass rush, you can't project he would've been better against literally the 2 best Defensive Lines in the country.

In my Pitt Preview thread from earlier this week, I highlighted just how great Pitt's DL is, if I knew it then trust me, Justice & Lashlee knew it too.

The fact is, you can't name a single OT that has had a good day against Pitt's Edge rushers, they've literally whooped everyone they've lined up against. Aside from really a couple of plays JC actually didn't do that bad considering the challenge.
I noticed Zion started at RT over J. Williams. What’s up?
 
Excellent job @Liberty City El, even though not pretty, the Canes got the job done. I'm still not confident with the Defense and the WRers but this team are showing grit and toughness. That's a start.... We still need Defensive coaches that really teach and get the best out of their players
 
Great write up LCE..good commentary too from the peeps. King didn’t have his best day for all of the reasons stated here...and we still scored 31 on one of the best defenses we will play this year...I’ll take that every day and twice on Saturday!!
On to UVA...let’s go Canes
 
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Good point on the defense stuffing the run. That aspect of the game was definitely working for us, and I haven't seen it get much credit. Pitt may not be particularly great on the ground, but sometimes we do give up ground yards to average teams.
 
View attachment 133810

Offense:

D'Eriq King - 16/31 222yds 4TD's & 2INT's 11att & 32yds rushing
Cam'ron Harris - 12att 24yds rushing & 1rec 35yds 1TD
Jaylan Knighton - 7att 25yds rushing & 5rec 27yds
Don Chaney Jr - 5att 18yds
Mark Pope - 5rec 46yds
Will Mallory - 2rec 51yds 2TD's
Mike Harely - 2rec 47yds 1TD

Gained 331yds of total offense, ran 73 plays with 21 first downs, 4-13 on 3rd down at 4.5 yards per play with 29:27 in time of possession.

Great play call to bring Harris out of the backfield on that first TD, it was something that I highlighted in my preview for the game that would line up perfect playing against Pitt's Defense based on how they use their LB's.



King dropped a dime to Dee Wiggins on the Fade route to the sideline, but of course he dropped it & then dropped an easy WR screen at the start of the 2nd half because he's weak AF. Had one of his worst performances today, has completely come up short in every game we've played except for FSU.

Good job by King finding Harley on the busted coverage for a TD, it was a great play call by Lashlee, we have our most success in the passing game from Wide Trips formation.



King made a bad read throwing to Harley on that INT by Marquis Williams, in fact both of his INT's were intended passes to Harley. One thing King does is he locks in on his first read pre-snap & doesn't come off that read, he will stare down the WR & throw it to him no matter what & what DB's are starting to do is read his eyes & bait him. He needs to be more efficient with the ball & go through his progressions a lot quicker.

Pope played well, he caught 5 passes out of 6 targets & helped us move the chains on multiple drives, obviously the board is extremely down on him but he can play we just have to get him the ball more in similar situations like Bubble screens & quick routes. But I think it it's time to go with the Youth movement at WR, bench Wiggs & go with Pope, Harley, Redding & Smith as the top 4.

Good play call on the TD to Mallory on the TE slip out of the backfield from wide stacked formation, it was the exact same play as the Cam Harris TD.



The biggest issue with this offense remains the lack of a vertical threat from WR's in the passing game & the OL. Until we can find a WR that can attack the secondary & stretch the field we're going to run into the same problem on a weekly basis.

Keyshawn Smith has shown multiple times this year that he can create separation in one on one coverage & has really really good speed, just need to build up that continuity in practice & start connecting on those Deep balls, because literally every time one has been thrown to him he's had his man beat by a step & a half.

We also have got to get the run game fixed, would love to see us try to create some cutback lanes upfront as opposed to constantly just running guys off inside zone into a wall of 8-9 man box defenders.

Offense played well enough to win obviously, but too many stalled drives, we did a good job on capitalizing off short fields with explosive plays which is our bread & butter, but there's a lot we need to cleanup as a whole, need a lot more consistency with the OL & WR play has to drastically improve down the line.

Defense:

Gurvan Hall - 8tcks
Bubba Bolden - 6tcks 1TFL & 1PBU
Quincy Roche - 7ckts 4TFL's 1 sack & 1FR
Jaelan Phillips - 3tcks 1TFL 1 sack & 1FF
Jared Harrison-Hunte - 4tcks 2TFL's 1 sack & 1FF
Amari Carter - 6tcks
DJ Ivey - 4tcks
Sam Brooks - 3tcks
Bradley Jennings Jr - 3tcks
Gilbert Frierson - 2tcks
Jahfari Harvey - 2tcks 1TFL 1 sack
Jordan Miller - 2tcks 1TFL 1 sack
Corey Flagg Jr - 2tcks
Jason Blissett Jr - 1tck 1TFL
Al Blades Jr - 1tck 2PBU's
Isaiah Dunson - 1tck
Te'Cory Couch - 1tck & 3PBU's
Zach McCloud - 1tck 1TFL

Gave up to 300yds total offense, had 9TFL's, 3 sacks, forced a turnover & held Pitt to just 22yds rushing.



The Run Defense was absolutely STOUT! Now obviously, Pitt doesn't have a great rushing offense to begin with lol but 22 yards rushing is **** good by this Defense considering how we usually perform against the run.

Great job getting in the backfield on the sack by Miller, Phillips, JHH & Nesta were in the backfield all day as well.
DLine was disruptive & great job by Roche recognizing the quick misdirection in the red zone & sniffing it out & getting the TFL.

Defense did a great job stopping the run & keeping them contained. Red zone Defense was good, (aside from the TD on the 1 yard line that came off the INT by Williams) we kept them from scoring TD's on most of their Red zone trips. 3rd down Defense was very good too holding them to just 3-17 on 3rd downs.

Two dumb penalties by the Defense that kept a drive extended, BJJ roughing the passer & lining up offsides on a 4th down Punt. Another dumb roughing the passer penalty by Phillips that extended a drive.

Terrific tackle by Isaiah Dunson on the fake punt, that was great field awareness.

The Defense completely fell asleep on the drive in the 2nd quarter that lead to a FG, leaving the Slot uncovered & putting Amari Carter one on one with Addison, dumb coverage call, but the DLine saved us with JHH getting the sack.

Great open field tackling by Bolden in the Red zone before the half, he saved a TD on that 2nd down pass to the RB out of the backfield. But in down field coverage open his hips too much on that 3rd down pass.

Very good coverage by Al Jr vs Wayne, he did a good job with his eyes & played through the hands to get the PBU.

Terrific coverage by Te'Cory Couch on the deep ball in the 3rd quarter, won the inside leverage battle & completely got inside the hip pocket of the WR. Had great coverage again on Addison in the 4th quarter on another deep route where he had inside leverage & was able to get his head around to get the PBU, he's really coming on as the season progresses, he was excellent in coverage today. I would put him at Field & move Al Jr to Boundary for the rest of the season. Couch has the speed, feet & hips to lockdown the #1 WR & Blades can cover the big body Wideout, let Frierson cover the slot as a Nickel & just use Ivey close to the line of scrimmage in run support.

The same thing we did vs LVille we did vs Pitt in terms of leaving the slot completely open, Addison got a free release on literally every single route he ran today, we left a Safety on him all day & just like Tutu Atwell did, Addison ate us up. I really really hate that about Baker's play calling. But otherwise, Couch & Blades were good in coverage.

Good kickoff coverage by Corey Flagg Jr, he's an active Backer with really high football IQ. Brooks, Flagg & Jennings are the best LB's, McCloud is horrendous with change of direction & despite being a 5th year Senior has absolutely no awareness at all, he's a straight forward rusher that should only be used as a situational backer on Blitz packages.

The unsung hero of the game was Lou Hedley, he had 6 Punts for 310yds averaging 51.7 yards per punt & even had a 60 yard punt on the day. He flipped the field & put Pitt in bad field position for most of the day, he's been a terrific upgrade from the Punter carousel we had a few years ago.

Overall, it was a good team win, I predicted we would win 37-20 & that's basically the game we played. It wasn't a pretty performance like we had vs FSU, we left lots of plays & yards in the field, but we scored & got the explosive TD plays when we needed to. There's still a lot to improve on offensively particularly in the passing game, there's also corrections that need to made on Defense in pass coverage as well, but overall was a good team win.

One of the best things about today was we cut our penalties in half from 10+ to just 5, if we continue to play smarter & more buttoned up we'll be a much more efficient team.

But next week, we should whoop UVA handily, we have 2 road games coming @ Va Tech & NC St that will define how bad this team wants to win, we are much improved from last year in many aspects & as long as we keep fighting & becoming more cohesive as a unit we'll firmly places ourselves as one of the top 3 teams in the ACC.

Great win, Go Canes! 🙌🏾


awesome write up, El. Thanks.

agree with pretty much everything you said. time for the youth movement at WR. wiggins is an enigma. frustrating that a kid with that physical skill can't put it all together. payton needs more reps/targets. harley is what he is at this point.

loved mallory on the Y Seam route for the TD. he was open enough for at least a 10 catch game. that dude needs to be ON.THE.FIELD.

i thought our tackling was again a problem. way too many yards after first contact, and YAC. but the red zone D was rock solid.

amari is spooked by the targeting calls. saw at least one or two plays where he pulled and allowed a catch or YAC because he was afraid of laying the lumber.

WTF!?!? on giving free releases to the slots? someone needs to press (or at least be covered over) the slot and be shoving their forearm into the receiver's mouth. as a QB, one of my favorite things to see was a guy in the Able Slot (3-5 yd split), or Baker Slot (5-9 yd split) uncovered. that meant there was a 99% chance that guy was going to have a clean route and be where he was supposed to. because unlike the receivers on the boundaries, a defender can't use the sideline and body positioning alone to redirect a receiver. just don't understand some of the gaps in the fundamental defensive structure. D was good, but some of this is going to bite us in the *** at some point.

one thing i noticed is that king has trouble moving in the pocket to create passing lanes for his throws. i'm not saying he needs to be dan marino at shuffling in the pocket, but it's not a skill that he has mastered. and it's magnified by his small stature. true, you don't throw "over" DL, that's a myth. you throw "through" passing lanes. but those lanes shift and open and close rather quickly, and he needs to learn how to do a better job with his feet to help him with that aspect of his game.

either way, happy we won. it was definitely one of those al golden L's that manny avoided.

on to UVa.
 
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