Well, I waited my self-imposed 24 hours... Here's the good, the bad, and the oh-so-much ugly from the Herd's loss to VT.
The good -
• Our defensive line is legit – Those guys absolutely played their butts off. The defense as a whole kept us in the game for 3 quarters.
• Turner is going to be a very good back
• Metcalf and Fitzpatrick made some nice plays out of the WR group.
• VT's tailgate scene was fun as hell, and everyone I talked to (with the exception of one very drunk student) was super friendly/welcoming
The bad -
• Stone Earle – Thanks for coming to MU, but it's time for us to go another direction. I would put Earle out there against OSU (because we are going to get beat by 40 anyway) and then move on to Braxton for Western Michigan. Was the line perfect, no... Did he miss multiple wide open receivers, yep... 13/36, 1 TD, 1 INT
• Special teams – Every freaking year... Give up a punt return TD, miss a field goal, penalties, two shanked punts. (Hey we blocked a punt though!)
• 3rd down play calling – We made some "interesting" calls on 3rd down where we weren't even trying to make the line to gain (in fairness we were in way too many 3rd and longs because we couldn't complete a forward pass).
The ugly -
• Slow starts - I feel like I can just copy and paste this sentence every week from here on out... Thank god for the blocked punt or we would have had zero plays to cheer for in the first half.
• Clock management - I dont know if they keep this stat, but we use more timeouts at random times in the first and third quarters than any team in the country. We used two third quarter timeouts on defense when VT was on their own side of the 50.
• The "Air Raid" offense - We were told we were going to run an air raid offense... The only way our offense is "air raid" is if we are comparing to 1920's Ivy League offenses. In defense of Doege, twice we had guys running wide open and Earle flat missed them (one would have been a TD mid-way through the fourth quarter) Our "air raid" offense threw for 131 yards, 3.5 yards per pass attempt. Yikes.
• Lane Stadium logistics - It was almost like they had never hosted a sold out game before. Concession lines so long my folks missed almost the whole second quarter. College kids with no tickets (or upper deck end zone tickets) trying to cram in where we were at the 40 yard line (the cops had to come remove them because they were standing in the aisle). No one directing traffic after the game (I guess they assume everyone has been there before).
Anyway, we are favored by 3 over "bye" on this week's schedule... Let's get the tailgate gear cleaned up before Ohio State. And buy enough alcohol to make Columbus not miserable.
The good -
• Our defensive line is legit – Those guys absolutely played their butts off. The defense as a whole kept us in the game for 3 quarters.
• Turner is going to be a very good back
• Metcalf and Fitzpatrick made some nice plays out of the WR group.
• VT's tailgate scene was fun as hell, and everyone I talked to (with the exception of one very drunk student) was super friendly/welcoming
The bad -
• Stone Earle – Thanks for coming to MU, but it's time for us to go another direction. I would put Earle out there against OSU (because we are going to get beat by 40 anyway) and then move on to Braxton for Western Michigan. Was the line perfect, no... Did he miss multiple wide open receivers, yep... 13/36, 1 TD, 1 INT
• Special teams – Every freaking year... Give up a punt return TD, miss a field goal, penalties, two shanked punts. (Hey we blocked a punt though!)
• 3rd down play calling – We made some "interesting" calls on 3rd down where we weren't even trying to make the line to gain (in fairness we were in way too many 3rd and longs because we couldn't complete a forward pass).
The ugly -
• Slow starts - I feel like I can just copy and paste this sentence every week from here on out... Thank god for the blocked punt or we would have had zero plays to cheer for in the first half.
• Clock management - I dont know if they keep this stat, but we use more timeouts at random times in the first and third quarters than any team in the country. We used two third quarter timeouts on defense when VT was on their own side of the 50.
• The "Air Raid" offense - We were told we were going to run an air raid offense... The only way our offense is "air raid" is if we are comparing to 1920's Ivy League offenses. In defense of Doege, twice we had guys running wide open and Earle flat missed them (one would have been a TD mid-way through the fourth quarter) Our "air raid" offense threw for 131 yards, 3.5 yards per pass attempt. Yikes.
• Lane Stadium logistics - It was almost like they had never hosted a sold out game before. Concession lines so long my folks missed almost the whole second quarter. College kids with no tickets (or upper deck end zone tickets) trying to cram in where we were at the 40 yard line (the cops had to come remove them because they were standing in the aisle). No one directing traffic after the game (I guess they assume everyone has been there before).
Anyway, we are favored by 3 over "bye" on this week's schedule... Let's get the tailgate gear cleaned up before Ohio State. And buy enough alcohol to make Columbus not miserable.
