This has been said and hinted at in several other posts, but I think it deserves its own thread. This team had an entire month to fix any issues they had during the regular season, and as far as I could tell, none of them were fixed. Jefferson did not look any more poised or prepared for this game than he did for any game we have played this year. The O-Line did not fix any of their run blocking woes, or pass-blocking for that matter. The receivers did not run any better routes, and still dropped more balls than the other team did. Richard Dickson was a non-factor. (Did he catch anything all game? Was he even in the game?) Ridley could not find any holes. Russell Shepard did not find the field enough. (Or at all) Too many 3 and outs. (This really took us out of the game early, as we kept giving Penn St. good field position) The D-Line could not pressure the QB enough or stop the run. The coaching staff still does not have a solid plan for clock management in the last two minutes of the game. We still gave up too many 3rd downs. (Why is Peterson lined up 15 yards off of his man on a 3rd and 10?) Also, some things that were going well during the season did not go well this game. Trindon Holliday was decent, but failed to provide spark when we needed it. Peterson got beat several times. The secondary as a whole (with the exception of C.Jones) was not the strength of our defense like it normally is. None of our linebackers had a great game. Seriously, how did we not lose by more? How can we remedy this situation? Why did we not look prepared after having an entire month to get ready for this game? Did we spend too much time at Disney world? Penn state was in Orlando a week before us! Seems to me if we were able to just fix a few of these issues we could have won the game. Yet, none of the issues were fixed in my opinion.
Very good points. We did not address our issues in December with the possible exception of kickoff returns (we were #111). Holiday had fine returns and the up men returned well when Penn State kicked away from Holiday.
Jefferson had a nice game today. Also, I do not think the o-line gave up any sacks. Not sure what game you were watching D.
Yes Yes he did He started off terribly on the first 5 throws when all three came out of his hand wrong (likely from the rain). After those first 5 throws (he went 1-5), he started to get use to the conditions and had a great day. After that brief, poor start, he was 13-20 for around 200 yards, a TD, and only had a pick b/c Tolliver couldn't catch today. Aside from that, Randle had a TD in his hands, but couldn't hold on and Tolliver dropped a huge play as well. In all, if his receivers could hold onto the ball when it hit their hands, JJ is 16-20 with 300 yards, 2 TDs, and 0 INTs. Thats a pretty damn good day in anyones book. Even if you don't omit the first 5, he should have still been 17-25, which is still nice
Yes, I also said during the game thread and others that the coaches had a month to prepare to beat one team, Penn St. I wonder what would have happened had we played them during the season instead. I also wondered all year why our offense was nowhere near as good after the Peach bowl last year, at that time I thought we would be better. The scary thing is that the coaches have 8 months to fine tune the offense this year like they did last year. They failed to get the job done last year.
Yes, Jefferson had an OKAY game. I never said he had a bad one, just he didn't look any more prepared. The O-line didn't allow any sacks, but we had almost no running game, and Jefferson was pressured pretty well.
What did you expect? Most of our problems in some way shape or form revolve around Stud and Crowt... and since they were both there coaching in the bowl game, did you think those issues with the offense would magically fix themselves?
I would say he had 1 bad quarter and 1 meh quarter and 2 good quarters, so a good game. He was pretty bad in the first but we only had the ball for a few plays and he was still figuring out his footing and working with the slippery ball. His stats in the second were meh but he had some very nicely thrown balls that simply weren't caught. And then in the 3rd and 4th I thought he looked very good. Made nice reads, hot routed Lafell on his touchdown pass, and made very good, catchable throws. Not to mention Tolliver had a couple more dropped passes, one of which would've been a very long gainer and put us close to field goal position. edit: He was pressured but he stepped up in the pocket and generally made good decisions on the run - which was a definite improvement to earlier in the season.
