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Just 4 plays and what they mean for later.
Since it's only game 1, let's start with the "bad." For context, most know I'm not on either extreme of the Blake Baker debate. I don't think he sucks. I don't think he's the head coach candidate some claim him to be. So far, I think he's a dude whose evidence is closer to what Manny Diaz showed us in 2016.
Play that scared me: In the second half, on a critical play, our defense ended up in a 3rd and 12. UAB was toward the top end of the TV screen and on a hash with the short side of the field being their sideline. I immediately looked over to my friends and fam watching with me and said "****, last year Baker unnecessarily sent DB blitzes from the short side of the field in this scenario. Hope that tendency is gone." Play begins and slot WR on the short side motions to the bottom of the screen. Frierson stays frozen in the slot, giving a strong tell he's blitzing. Ball is snapped and he blitzes.
Unless this is some chess game trick by the defensive coaching staff to show an old tendency during the first game against a "lesser" opponent, this should be a cause for concern. Why? Because we have to stop this **** immediately. I'm a dopey message board poster who charts plays. Any legitimate team we will face has a non-dopey QA guy charting plays getting analyzed by a near million dollar OC.
This is ONE tendency that popped up multiple times last season. There are other examples of gratuitous blitzing. Sometimes a blitz is needed. Often times, it's not! Against Louisville and beyond, our 3rd down conversion stop % (which was 20% last night) will not be aided by QBs missing open WRs or lesser talent. It could track up (hopefully not) closer to last year's numbers if we continue to play with Miami talent the way Conference USA D-Coordinators have to use their lesser talent.
Play that excited me: The results, especially in these games, are always less important to me than how they translate for future games. King scores a TD on 1st and 10 from the 12 yard line. "Hey, that's what he's supposed to do!" Well, we struggled like **** in these scenarios last year. Our RZ offense was trash because we were so rigid in our playcalling and didn't have a dynamic player.
If I remember correctly, we were in a 2X2 set with 2 WRs on each side of the formation. UAB blitzed (again, IIRC, i haven't re-watched the game and taken notes yet). Our OL/RB combined to be 6 players vs 5 UAB defenders. The route combinations were fairly vanilla and UAB had 3 defenders on 2 receivers (one being Jordan) on both sides. John Campbell had a defender slip inside and disrupt King's pocket. Last year, this is a sack, a forced ball to Jordan, or at best an incomplete pass.
This year, as you can guess, our dynamic QB tucked the ball and easily picked up a chunk (which resulted in a TD). We saw another glimpse of that on another 3rd down conversion as well. This is a big f'in deal, even if we do somehow suck this year. We have been so awful at 3rd down conversion % because we continuously get ourselves into 3rd and unmanageable. We all expected this, but it was good to see against a disciplined, well-coached defense.
Play that scared me: On a 20+ yard run by UAB, we got gashed up front for poor gap control. We know this happens with Diaz/Baker front 7 schemes. We rely on Safeties to clean up. Perhaps this play goes unnoticed because there was a bigger pass play on the drive and we also somehow allowed an 11 yard run on 3rd and 15, but it's important for our season. Amari Carter whiffed in the open field on that 20+ yard chunk play.
I'm not anti-Amari, I promise. I've had some long debates with some of the more respected posters on this board over his abilities. He has some great attributes that can help us. However, this was another example of his issues in the open field. He also got blown by on a pass play, though thankfully the QB had a junior high throw that fell short. If you're not concerned about one of our key Safeties (who will play a lot) missing tackles in the open field, then I guess expect a lot chunk plays. We can't afford them. We're not good enough at LB yet.
Play(s) that excited me: I'm lumping two plays together. YO! You see Knighton's 18 yard run from midfield? Oh, man. Everything I hoped for from him in one play. The balance, the cutbacks, the pop. YO! You see Chaney's 33 yard run to get us in scoring position in the 2nd half? That's not a garbage time run. That's a run made in a 17-14 game against, again, a well-coached defense. Later in the season, I'm sure there'll be an instance where Chaney bounces outside too quickly, but this was very nicely done and the subsequent cutback inside showed me exactly what I hoped for: this is a kid who's not close to his ceiling yet. Great balance and ran with a forward lean yesterday.
Since it's only game 1, let's start with the "bad." For context, most know I'm not on either extreme of the Blake Baker debate. I don't think he sucks. I don't think he's the head coach candidate some claim him to be. So far, I think he's a dude whose evidence is closer to what Manny Diaz showed us in 2016.
Play that scared me: In the second half, on a critical play, our defense ended up in a 3rd and 12. UAB was toward the top end of the TV screen and on a hash with the short side of the field being their sideline. I immediately looked over to my friends and fam watching with me and said "****, last year Baker unnecessarily sent DB blitzes from the short side of the field in this scenario. Hope that tendency is gone." Play begins and slot WR on the short side motions to the bottom of the screen. Frierson stays frozen in the slot, giving a strong tell he's blitzing. Ball is snapped and he blitzes.
Unless this is some chess game trick by the defensive coaching staff to show an old tendency during the first game against a "lesser" opponent, this should be a cause for concern. Why? Because we have to stop this **** immediately. I'm a dopey message board poster who charts plays. Any legitimate team we will face has a non-dopey QA guy charting plays getting analyzed by a near million dollar OC.
This is ONE tendency that popped up multiple times last season. There are other examples of gratuitous blitzing. Sometimes a blitz is needed. Often times, it's not! Against Louisville and beyond, our 3rd down conversion stop % (which was 20% last night) will not be aided by QBs missing open WRs or lesser talent. It could track up (hopefully not) closer to last year's numbers if we continue to play with Miami talent the way Conference USA D-Coordinators have to use their lesser talent.
Play that excited me: The results, especially in these games, are always less important to me than how they translate for future games. King scores a TD on 1st and 10 from the 12 yard line. "Hey, that's what he's supposed to do!" Well, we struggled like **** in these scenarios last year. Our RZ offense was trash because we were so rigid in our playcalling and didn't have a dynamic player.
If I remember correctly, we were in a 2X2 set with 2 WRs on each side of the formation. UAB blitzed (again, IIRC, i haven't re-watched the game and taken notes yet). Our OL/RB combined to be 6 players vs 5 UAB defenders. The route combinations were fairly vanilla and UAB had 3 defenders on 2 receivers (one being Jordan) on both sides. John Campbell had a defender slip inside and disrupt King's pocket. Last year, this is a sack, a forced ball to Jordan, or at best an incomplete pass.
This year, as you can guess, our dynamic QB tucked the ball and easily picked up a chunk (which resulted in a TD). We saw another glimpse of that on another 3rd down conversion as well. This is a big f'in deal, even if we do somehow suck this year. We have been so awful at 3rd down conversion % because we continuously get ourselves into 3rd and unmanageable. We all expected this, but it was good to see against a disciplined, well-coached defense.
Play that scared me: On a 20+ yard run by UAB, we got gashed up front for poor gap control. We know this happens with Diaz/Baker front 7 schemes. We rely on Safeties to clean up. Perhaps this play goes unnoticed because there was a bigger pass play on the drive and we also somehow allowed an 11 yard run on 3rd and 15, but it's important for our season. Amari Carter whiffed in the open field on that 20+ yard chunk play.
I'm not anti-Amari, I promise. I've had some long debates with some of the more respected posters on this board over his abilities. He has some great attributes that can help us. However, this was another example of his issues in the open field. He also got blown by on a pass play, though thankfully the QB had a junior high throw that fell short. If you're not concerned about one of our key Safeties (who will play a lot) missing tackles in the open field, then I guess expect a lot chunk plays. We can't afford them. We're not good enough at LB yet.
Play(s) that excited me: I'm lumping two plays together. YO! You see Knighton's 18 yard run from midfield? Oh, man. Everything I hoped for from him in one play. The balance, the cutbacks, the pop. YO! You see Chaney's 33 yard run to get us in scoring position in the 2nd half? That's not a garbage time run. That's a run made in a 17-14 game against, again, a well-coached defense. Later in the season, I'm sure there'll be an instance where Chaney bounces outside too quickly, but this was very nicely done and the subsequent cutback inside showed me exactly what I hoped for: this is a kid who's not close to his ceiling yet. Great balance and ran with a forward lean yesterday.