Game thoughts - Long

herdcpa · Sep 11, 2016

Just some observations I thought I would share:

QB – I thought Litton’s play met my expectations. Morgan St’s defense is very bad, so it’s hard to glean much how much Litton improved from last year. With that said, I definitely was not disappointed in his play today.
RB – Against significantly inferior teams, I expect to run for 7- 8 yards a carry. We should be able to blow teams like Morgan State off the ball and gash them for big gains late in the game. I know we averaged 5.4 yards a carry, I just expect more dominance against such a weak opponent. I thought Pittman ran the best of the group and Anderson didn’t play up to his preseason billing.
WR – I didn’t see any drops outside of the one by Foster on the opening drive (I thought it was an incomplete pass and not a fumble). Clark and McManus made some very tough catches. Was the lack of long runs the result of poor blocking by this group? I don’t know, maybe someone else watched that part of the game a little more and can opine. Overall, though, a good day from this group.
OL – See the “RB” section. With all the weight room praise by Brett Romberg (beIN sports analyst) during the telecast, I expected our OL to create truck sized holes for the RBs. Maybe our RB’s missed some cuts or possibly the down field blocking by the WR’s was lacking? I don’t know, maybe someone who watches the tape can tell us if that was the case. All I know is that our run game needs to be a bit crisper next week. There were also a few holds and false starts that are concerning as well. Pass protection was very good.
DL – The DL played the way I expected our OL to play – supremely dominant. Keller and Bee looked strong. We showed a lot of depth with guys like Tyler and Hames making plays. Morgan St couldn’t run the ball at all (I think about 1.3 yards per carry) and the QB was under pressure all day (8 sacks).
LB – This unit looked strong as well. Durant looks fierce. Cobb played a lot more than I ever thought. How long are Petty and Hernandez going to be out?
DB – I thought Neely played well and lived up to his preseason hype. Jackson was picked on a bit by Martin (4 catches for 72 yards). Allen looks to be 1st or 2nd team all-conference type player. I can’t complain about how this group played.
Punting – Vidveek looked fined. Carter is a missile.
Kicking – Yes, I know it was raining, but that FG try was pretty miserable. We missed an XP as well. At least 2 kickoffs went out of bounds. Ouch! Against a good team today, we probably lose 5-7 points because of poor special teams play. Curraj performance was by far the most alarming and stark performance of an otherwise strong showing by the Herd. We need to “to get this fixed”.
Coaching – Morgan St was just so over matched it’s hard to tell how good coaching was today. I will gladly point out several other big favorites (Georgia, Arizona, WVU, Northwestern, ect) really struggled against their FCS foes. While I think Morgan St is a cut below the opposing teams the aforementioned group played against, our coaches definitely had our team ready to play today and no one can really be disappointed with a 62 point win.

Four things I found to be curious:
1). With our kicking game a hot mess, does Doc go for it more on 4th down this year? It sure looked like he had more confidence in the offense than Curraj today since we went for it on 4th 3 times (converted all 3 times). Increased aggression on 4th down might be a good development for this team since the offense looks solid and because one of Doc’s criticisms is that he is too conservative.
2). It appeared Romberg was miffed with our passing late in the 4th quarter. Normally I would be too, but I think Doc did the right thing by getting Morrell some reps.
3). I saw starting defensive players (most notably the occasionally injured Gary Thompson) covering punts late in the 4th quarter. I’m not sure why those guys were in when the game’s outcome was already decided. I am not sure I would risk some guys to injury by playing them late in a blow out against an opponent that took some cheap shots. However, I do recognize some guys need the reps before we hit the meat of our schedule.
4). I’m not sure why we felt we needed to run a fake punt against Morgan St. Why did we toss that trick out of the bag against a team that was so over matched? The impact that the fake punt had in the Morgan St game was zero. However, a fake punt executed for a first down against Louisville could have huge ramifications. The only thought I had as to why we showed that trick is that maybe teams will slow their punt rush since we have proven we can run successful punt fakes.

Overall – A strong performance dampened by poor special teams play. Nothing happened in today’s game that changes my preseason prediction of 9-3 and C-USA East Champions.

EDIT: Attendance looked good from a TV perspective. An announced crowd of 26k+ is good for a FCS foe, especially considering we play 3 consecutive home games and impact of the KISS concert. beIN sports was OK. The all Spanish commercial breaks and the wrinkled plastic "beIN" tarps behind the announcers in the media box definitely gave the telecast an amateurish feel. I didn't find Romberg or is partner to be enlightening, though they did shower Marshall and Huntington with praise. At least beIN gives our program a national showcase, even if it seemed a bit low budget. I have confidence the network can improve.

Sean Hammond · Sep 11, 2016