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- May 14, 2016
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Offense:
First drive was a methodical death by a thousand papercuts March down the field for a 7 minute 14 play 92yd drive resulting in a TD off an easy quick Slant to Josh Moore.
12 personnel, Twin left X & Z, Lofton goes into motion to run a Swing/Wheel to pull the outside Defender wide, Toney runs an underneath Slant, with Ruskavich running a Crossing pattern & Moore running the Dig route.
2nd TD 12 personnel, Play action TE drag route causes a busted coverage & leads to an easy pitch & catch TD. Restrepo scored a TD vs UF back in 2024 on the same concept, just from a different formation.
Mensah was absolutely dialed in hitting his first 24 targets. He may be the most accurate intermediate passer I've seen in College Football, since Teddy Bridgewater. He's been on an absolute tear the first 3 games of the season, with a grand total of just 8 incompletions to 11TD's.
Here was one of the main issues tonight despite throwing nearly a perfect game.
In the 3rd & 4th quarter, the ball stopped going down field. Everything was a screen, a dump-off & a 5yd slant, or a crossing route. Mensah completed 30 passes for 220yds, that's game manager work & as you all saw, once Wake's Defense were able to figure out our gap scheme Blocking, those short route passes accumulated for pretty much nothing. The Offenss stalled & essentially crashed against a brick wall, because we weren't playing to our strengths, which is VERTICAL passing.
The Offense is at its best when the ball is being pushed down the field with Toney & Barkate attacking the seams & Josh Moore with Upshaw pressuring the Boundary sides. The passing game got too horizontal & there became too much focus on trying to force-feed Lofton. The way to maximize our passing attack is going Tempo with Smash, Flood, Stick, Dagger & Post concepts from Bunch-Trips, or 2×2 X stacks.
The ball also needs to be spread around. Toney is undoubtedly the best WR in the Nation & will be a Heisman candidate come December, but chasing awards can come at a cost. The over-usage of Toney can cause him to get dinged up & also leaves the Offense vulnerable on film. Eventually, a DC will map out our sequences & set a trap knowing how often we go to Toney on specific downs & play calls. I get that he's uncoverable, but it's only a matter of time before someone figures it out.
We have Barkate, Upshaw, Moore & the young guns behind them, put them on the field & let'em play. 3 guys can't play 50+ snaps every game. Especially in the Portal era, put'em in the game & let's see what they got.
Elijah Lofton's best play/game as a Cane.
ChaMar Brown goes down after a 32yd run with what looks like was a knee or ankle pull on the tackle. No inside info, but my guess is he's done for the year.
Mensah gets sacked.
Interior OL didn't play well at all. SJ isn't a P4 OG. Yes, everyone loves an underdog feel good Rudy story, but there is a such thing as industry standard. There is a reason why it's uncommon for OL's to be that small. Sure, there are outliers & guys who have proven to play well inspite of their physical limitations, but most of the time, exceptions don't make the rule. SJ isn't an exceptional enough player to overcome the lack of size. It's showing up on film regularly.
I'll have to rewatch tomorrow, but I thought Samson & McCoy were the 2 best OL's tonight. Samson had one play where he got bulldozed spiked into the ground, but other than that, I think he pass protected pretty well.
McCoy had the best game among the OL IMO.
Rodriguez had some solid pass protection, but his run blocking looks like a kid struggling to replace the jugs in the water cooler. For him to be a shorter Center, he let's DT's get up underneath his pads quite a bit.
The left side of the line had a rough 2nd half. Buchanan wasn't too great either at RG.
The need for Ruskavich, Lofton & the RB to have to Chip Block on every single play is interesting. I understand their reasoning, but I believe it can detract from the overall ability of the Offense when we need essentially 7 blockers per play on snap by snap basis.
Questionable personnel decision having Lofton running a Fade route on a 3rd & backed up against our End Zone. We have a whole room full of fast WR's that need to be on the field when we go 4-Wide. Lofton is a Short-Intermediate area player, not a Deep depth route runner like Arroyo was. He's also on the shorter side, so I would imagine it'd be more advantageous to run that route on that down & distance with a taller WR.
The Offense was riding Ferrari smooth in the first half, then the brakes went out & completely slid off the side of the mountain. It was a bad 2nd half; partially due to the absence of the running game, but mainly due to interior Blocking struggles & the ball not being pushed down the field.
Defense:
On the 1st TD, Toure got caught bitting down on a Wheel route. He got too flat not expecting for the H to turn up field, once the H-back he was even with him it was a wrap. He is just far too slow to ever catch up.
The #1 weakness of the Defense is the LB corps in coverage.
As I highlighted in the Stanford recap:
Offense:
Gained 544yds total Offense (423 passing, 121 rushing), gaing 27 first downs, going 8-11 on 3rd down, at 8.2 yards per play, with 32:26 in time of possession.
First pass of the season Mensah connects to Toney on Whip/Corner route for a 48yd gain.
2 plays later Mensah hits Toney for the first TD of the season on a Out & Up route.
The Offense moves so effortlessly with Mensah at the helm. Executing with lethality when going Tempo. Quick hitting targets horizontally when the Defense sits back in 2-High & then Deep...
"The primary weakness of the Defense is the LB corps in pass coverage. OC's are going to put Toure & Chase Smith in one on one situations vs TE's up the seams & RB's in the Flats. Against more talented teams (especially Noter Lame), that's something opposing Offenses will look to exploit attacking the middle of field with the intermediate passing game."
And have discussed during the offseason:
- https://www.canesinsight.com/threads/are-“we”-overconfident.210373/post-8420706
Toure & Chase Smith are a huge liability in coverage. They're pretty good in run support & Torpedo Blitzing through the A&B gaps to collapse the pocket, but OC's have recognized that the two of them really struggle to move laterally in space. That's something that will be exploited on a weekly basis until a remedy is presented by Heatherman.
I liked what I saw from Kamal Bonner & Ezekiel Marcelin. They're much faster & more fluid movers than Toure & Chase. I don't see a scenario where Heatherman replaces the top 2, but at the very least, Bonner, Pruitt, Marcelin etc need to play quite a bit more.
The 3 & out stop we got on Wake's first drive in the 2nd quarter is what turned the game. Because the Defense got the Offense the ball back & we went up 21-7. The Offense operates at such an optimal level, that a 14 point lead basically puts thr game away, because it puts so much pressure on the opposing Offense to try to keep up with the scoring that it completely wrecks & discombobulates their gameplan. They can't stick with their prepared script because they have to chase the Tidal wave, which forces their playcalling to become more rushed.
Fitzgerald with a great tackle on 3rd & short, to force the 4th down.
OC's have found the 2 marks in the Secondary, Thornton & Damari Brown.
Thornton got completely frozen on the Pylon Up & Out route. His feet were too far apart to properly turn & get in phase to even make an attempt on getting in front of the WR. He had his shoulders out in front of his feet too far lunged over to rotate & flip his hips.
Thornton is an absolute heat-seeking missile as a Blitzer, however, he's in no-man's land & has real serious trouble in coverage beyond 10+ yards. As I said for months in the before the season started, the biggest drop-off from last year's Defense to this year's, will be replacing the Keionte Scott & Jakobe Thomas.
JJ Dunnigan on the other hand had a big growing up moment forcing the turnover on downs late in the 4th quarter. Clutch play on his part. He had a really bad night in coverage with a few lapses, but overall he played a very good game for a TF. I believe he's solidified himself as a legitimate starter at Rover.
I felt EOC & Fitzgerald played very well for the most part.
Fitz had some really nice plays in coverage & EOC had the game sealing pick.
I'll go into more details on the Island, but considering how decimated the CB group is with injuries, they're holding on the best they can as of now.
The Coaches have their philosophy with PT & it works, but I still think they could be a bit more flexible with snaps & playing some of the other Corners we have.
I felt the Edge rushers played a very good game.
Marquis Lightfoot IMO has established himself as the best DE on the team. He had an unmatched relentless motor. He's a long agile rusher who attacks the D-gap 7 hole with great angular ability & has stepped up against the run game as well.
Damon Wilson had a good game as well & showed good bend & dip on his Sack. He also caused the pressure that forced the throw away-Grounding in the End Zone giving us a Safety.
Up until the 3rd quarter it was looking like another dominant victory. Wake was able to score 3 more times & make it a little interesting, but the game was never in threat the way people will try to make it seem.
It was a poor showing to closing out the win. The theme of this week's practice needs to be FINISH. The team looked both tired & complacent on both sides of the ball. Obviously they're very beat up right now & there's a number if variables that could play into that, but has to be reiterated to the team is not playing with your food. When you get up a big lead on a weaker opponent, crush them, put them out of their misery, don't let them build any kinda confidence or momentum.
But other than that, I don't think it's as bad as many are portraying it. There's a ton of things to work on, but the overreaction as if the season is already over because we won in unpleasant fashion is an interesting one.
Mind you, this is the same team that won ugly a lot last year & had multiple bad losses as well. I get that it wasn't as pretty as expectations, but it's still early in the first quad of the season & ironing out kinks is apart of every championship team's journey to the big game.
Every team has weaknesses & because of the Portal era, everybody has good players, even bad teams. On any given Saturday (Thursday/Friday), anybody can get got. That's the nature of this new era of Football.
But with that said, we still won. I understand the panic mode, but I'm fully confident we'll play far better as the season progresses. This same type of game, Oregon just lost. Oh ST already has a loss, Cheatagain lost to Western Michigan until the B1G stole them a W, Bama had a bad half against Kentucky, Noter had a rough half against Wisconsin & are being played very close by Mich ST, Oklahoma already lost & TAMU got upset today. I could go on & on, but point being, even teams that are supposed to be loaded with talent & playoff contenders have bad halves or bad games. As long as it's a W at the end of it, that's all that matters. I'd much rather be Miami beating Wake Forrest, than TAMU losing to Kentucky.
Will we go undefeated this season? Probably not, but as long as we win when it counts most & make the playoffs, I'm not gonna jump off a ledge just yet.
The key is just getting healthy & maybe lighten the load in practice a little bit.
1-0
