No, just fair assessment of the situation at hand. The bottom line for me is still major disappointment, and it largely points toward the coaching staff. Any thoughts on what I said?
After rewatching, I really don't feel any different. Here is the problem, The PLAYERS, while not acheiving consistency, were winning most of the battles on the field in the first half. Only place I think you could disagree with this is the O line. I thought since we were facing the 2's they should have been blowing them off the ball, an it just wasn't happening. Then comes the second half. THe gameplan changes and all the sudden guys are getting beat all over the field. I think they just get deflated when they see the direction Miles wants to go with a lead. Once again, basic fundamentals kill us. Mental errors and turnovers. This has not changed in 3 years. I can't say I think it will this year either. We have some guys that are phenoms, but they are handicapped by gameplan. I really think after the JJ to RR TD, when they showed GC in the pressbox so animated, he was telling Les, "see, I told you so. Lets effin go and stop this slowed down BS you wanna go with." He was pumped.
as for the accuracy Jefferson completed 71% of his passes and had at least 3 drops. His first drop, the pass to Shepard on 3rd down on the first drive was a high pass so let's say 2 drops. As for the secondary they got almost 180 yards on 2 passes where Peterson wasn't in the game and we had a breakdown. I highly doubt we give up 2 big passes like that again. Plus we almost had to play off the WR's because of the 2 big plays - which is why the slants were working so well. I still think we should've had a LB or a DE drop back once or twice to make Yates think twice about throwing that short slant to the right over and over but i'll trust Chavis. O-line I can't really comment on as I was at the game and didn't really have a good view on their blocking schemes I did a lot of complaining about the playcalling during the game but I honestly don't think the offensive play calls were bad - aside from the zone reads which Jefferson just isn't very good at. As for overall coaching I think we did a decent job. UNC got a lot of momentum with that 97 yard TD pass when we had the backups in and when the starters came back in we just couldn't match the intensity or the sense of urgency that UNC had. Is that a coaching issue? Yes, but it's correctable. Overall I think we played a good game. The fumbles and the penalties killed us and kept UNC in the game. But since Miles has been here the RB's hardly ever fumble so i'll take this game as an aberration that will be corrected. I'm a little more concerned about the roughing penalties but not really. As it is we will beat Vandy by 30 or so and Peterson will start getting Heisman talk. edit: and the backups we were playing were still better than probably 8 of the teams that Boise St plays and were definitely better than the teams that other top teams struggled against. Even with the starters out those were still generally 3 and 4 star recruits who have talent.
Izzy, mainly I agree. I think the OL has improved more than you think. The problem with coaching I have is that 15 yards off the ball stuff that we saw...I'm down on Chavis right now for that, but I have confidence that he'll have the D playing a lot better as the season goes on. It's hard for me to make opinions based on one game. As far as the offense goes, I like the new coaches and the emphasis on the run...insofar as it'll open up the passing game more. I have no valid opinion on the playcalling because I don't know that part of the game very well. As far as how good is UNC really? I think we played their second unit mostly, but we played without 4 starters and all those first time freshmen and redshirt freshmen so it wasn't as mismatched as most people are thinking I usually measure discipline by penalties. I don't think we had too many, but the most glaring one that was caused by the coaches was the 12 man in the huddle. That one made me think impure thoughts and I'm pretty sure I uttered a discouraging word or two on that one...no excuse.
Spot on, but I'd add one more thing. LBs need to smarten up in coverage, and fast. UNC had one WR and one TE threat and they were unstoppable in short yardage. Since this is supposed to be Chavis' specialty this is one of the few coaching issues I have some confidence in that will be fixed.
Due to conflicting schedules, I missed the first half of your contest. Did look like they tried to take the air out of the ball. Kinda put me in mind of Bama's strategy in the Rose Bowl. Once you lose momentum, man it's tough to get it back. I understand things were clicking in the first half and special teams were special. I guess what was most disappointing, was the way the defense handled the added burden that came from offensive inconsistency. 30points and a 20 point halftime lead is all this LSU team should need. I was surprised the D-backs didn't step up more.
We're not playing power football the right way. We have JJ in the shotgun and a RB standing beside him. I don't care if we have 2 TE on the field. That's not the most effective way to do it. When we're going to run power, we should put JJ under center and a FB on the field. We did this some during the game, but not enough. Another thing, I'd like to see more play-action and/or WR screens. The O Line looked good in pass protection. JJ had plenty of time to make a decision, and still took too long, especially in the 2nd half. JJ has got to learn that after 3-4 seconds... TUCK IT AND RUN. I like the fact that a ton of young guys got to play. They'll learn from their mistakes and improve (we hope). We better find a RB that can hold on to the football. There's no excuse for Ridley's last fumble. I was pleased with our defense through 2 1/2 quarters. Our special teams looked like the best in the country. We'll be fine.
hey you know I love stats and I appreciate the numbers you present You can throw that stat line all you want, but his passes usually appear just a little bit off, making the receiver adjust in such a way that they can't achieve maximum yards after catch. I am not saying he is way off. I am saying he just has to get a little more accurate, especially with these fleet footed athletes. I'll watch the game again on the Shepard drop, but that was a poorly thrown ball that would have taken an acrobatic catch it appeared. No way you put the blame on Shepard for that one. JJ took too long to pull the trigger and when he did it forced him to lob it (not what you want to do as a QB) and overthrow it slightly. JJ needs to be crisper on that play.
I saw improvements. But I'm not sure our young talented depth is going to do us any good, if they never see the field. We were lucky not to suffer a major OL injury last season, but this year we already have. He is a bit better, but there has been no clear step-up in capability. At least Chavis is rotating a lot of young players and developing depth. I think we are fast and will get more sacks this year, but we are light, too. I'm not sure if we have a real run-stopper on the line when we face a serious SEC-caliber OL and running back that are determined to pound it.. The backs are very talented but many are green and it showed versus UNC. That's OK. They are going to get more experience and the speed and skills, they seem to have. Hard to judge in an opening game. Especially one on the road filled with 5 turnovers, a key injury, and playing lots of newcomers. Execution wasn't entirely there, yet, but I didn't really see any discipline problems.
