I missed it, did something happen to Bell?I need good Bell news asap.
Good write up. I observed and noticed the same things.Positives:
-OL play. After a shaky first drive, they dominated in the run and pass game against an overmatched opponent. We also seem deep, judging by how well the backups played.
-WR depth. We have several guys who can get open downfield and make plays. Bell is obviously our #1, and we added a bunch of secondary and tertiary players in the portal who should be able to take advantage of the attention he draws.
-Juice. He's a weapon. We have 3 very good tight ends, all with different playstyles.
-Evers. He looked sharp, even on his incompletions. Joe was fine and put up a nice statline, but he did miss some open guys & left some meat on the bone as a result
-Playcalling. We were aggressive on both sides of the ball without showing Syracuse too much.
-Coverage from the back 7. Chadwick got beat once but otherwise we had them locked up. Their QB made some legitimate throws and still couldn't crack a 50% completion rate, despite the lack of pressure. Mills and Parham were terrific portal adds.
Negatives:
-Defensive line. This was our biggest concern coming into the year, against against a CCSU OL with 3 freshman starters, they did nothing to alleviate those concerns. They put very little pressure on their QB and we were not stopping the run well until their (impressive) starting RB got injured. We missed a few tackles in the LB corp, but not an unusual number for the first game of the year. If we fall short of our goals this year, the DL will be the #1 culprit in all likelihood.
-WR perimeter blocking. Porter and Brown were egregiously bad at this, although the latter had a good game otherwise. With the number of short passes we like to run to our talented receivers and tight ends, we have got to block better against good competition to turn 3 yard gains into 8 yard gains.
-Special teams. Missed FG and a bad snap on a punt give this unit a poor grade. I don't think this is an area of concern going forward, however. I'd like to see Harper return kicks over Brown.
Looked fine to me, but they didn’t let me run out there.How was the field condition? I know there were concerns after concert.
Maybe next gameLooked fine to me, but they didn’t let me run out there.
Not even close. That HC went 10-2 and made the FCS playoffs.Look at the pathetic loss to Holy Cross that finally got Edsall ousted. That Holy Cross team is on par with this year's CCSU team.
Pros: we won easily after a shaky start
Cons: I couldn't post in the game chat
What's next: let's win at the fruit and hopefully I can post in the chat
Convincingly. To do otherwise would be a cause for concern. This game check the box and should leave us all thinking "so far so good". I will join those who said Evers looked very impressive. I'm happy for him. Joe looked good, but I'm curious to see how he does against FBS defenders where the windows are more narrow. Add to that that the game had 37,500 in announced attendance. Tough to find much to complain about.Won a game they should win
Worked for me. Not sure why.Game chat is weird. Everyone had to manually refresh their device to see posts as they were added to the chat.
Yeah, I forgot they had that concert. No clods of turf coming up that I saw, no loss of footing.Looked fine to me, but they didn’t let me run out there.
Both to Murphy who was a pleasant surprise to me.A good sign for me for Fagnano was when he missed an easy 6 early in the 3rd, then came back with the same play and he nailed it.
Ok fair enough. I was using CCSU's team from last year as a proxy for this year's team, and this year's team might not be as good. However, CCSU still made the FCS playoffs last year just like Holy Cross's 2021 team even if the 2021 Holy Cross team is better. Holy Cross is still FCS at the end of the day just like CCSU.Not even close. That HC went 10-2 and made the FCS playoffs.
CCSU stinks.
But in previous years this would've been a 13-10 win.