Did UMass really hold our offense to 13 pts for 3 quarters?

[UConnDan97]

If the UMass defender didn't whiff on the trick play catch by Griffin it may have only been 16 total points for the game.

As we all saw our OL could not move the UMass DL down the field like they should have. Pass blocking was OK but if we can't run on UMass.....?

I sure hope the intention was to keep the play calling so simple UMass was able to keep us from gaining yards on the ground.

Retire the wildcat. Never ever use it again. Whitmer looks nimble enough if you are looking for the option type play. I think PP is hooked on it though and it will never go away......unfortunately.

Geremy Davis....who knew?

You found a way to say everything that I was thinking last night. Well said. I'm obviously ecstatic that our defense took care of business and that the final score was a blowout-shutout, but you hit on everything that concerned me last night. That daggone wildcat....I have a feeling that Pasqualoni did it so much last night so that he can use that one down where he has McCummings throw the ball against NCState (as HFD alluded to). But my God, you are working this hard to set up exactly 1 trick play???

Let Whitmer play and stay in that rhythym. Let the receivers and the tight ends get comfortable with the new QB. And let Geremy Davis tear that $#it up!!!

 

[sportsart]

After watching the game again it was obvious PP was giving the OL time at different positions so there is no doubt that affected their performance.

By the way...there is no suck thing as a fluke turn over. But if there were I'd like to know what the second one was last night.

 

[Excalibur]

Look at it this way -- this game looked much like the Fordham game last year. Some negatives to call out, a few struggles on offense, but a dominant victory nonetheless (the final scores were similar). UMass may not be very good, but they are surely MUCH better than Fordham was last year.

 

[UConnDan97]

After watching the game again it was obvious PP was giving the OL time at different positions so there is no doubt that affected their performance.

By the way...there is no suck thing as a fluke turn over. But if there were I'd like to know what the second one was last night.

That's true. I saw a healthy dose of Cruz and some of Samra as well. I have to say that the best "guard-pulls" that I saw last night to open up holes for McCombs happened to be from Cruz, for what it's worth. We definitely worked on some different things, and you're right that it likely affected the overall production. Still.....the wildcat...

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Before last night's game, if you had told me that the game would play out exactly like it did I would've signed for that in a heartbeat.

Yes, we had issues running the ball and the OL struggled in that regard.

Yes, we turned the ball over way too much for my liking. Against better teams we simply cannot do that.

Yes, I thought we ran way too much wildcat last night.

We won the game 37-0. Our defense and specials were lights out. I have to believe the offense will get better. There are certainly areas to improve upon, but last night went about as well as we could have reasonably expected.

My biggest concerns this morning are the health of Teddy Jennings and Casey Cochran's mustache.

 

[UConnDan97]

My biggest concerns this morning are the health of Teddy Jennings and Casey Cochran's mustache.

So true! Hopefully Teddy is okay. And that mustache....WOW! It screams "Apprentice pedophile."

 

[Brochacho]

Was it me or was Ryan Griffin only targeted twice? Griffin is the same size as Gronk, -10 pounds. Do work with him in the redzone.

 

[kcc1442]

Sample Size People..........should we really be concerned of certain things like run blocking, when they stacked the box against vanilla play calling (you have to be a student of the game to understand that one and some of you are not understanding that), or Whitmer's deep ball incompletions (none were picked and they were attempts to stretch the defense at least, last year JM either never had time to throw that ball or never choose to).....and the same goes for Geremy Davis...kid had a great game but is he a BEAST because he gained separation against UMASS CB's??? Whitmer was very effective in the intermediate game.....he had a few different 12 yard+ passes completed to Davis and Phillips.....He threw tight spirals on those passes and he looked good in stepping up in the pocket and keeping his eyes downfield......He looks good minus the one interception...but he's gotta do it week in and week out.......Every Week is a new season.......Lets not draw these season long conclusions yet (JAYRU09 looking at you) I'm not going to worry and until there is something to worry about....mainly a 1 in the right hand column...........

 

[ZooCougar]

I don't care if we were vanilla. The offense didn't give anyone a warm and fuzzy last night. We won't be able to run outside against teams with more team speed for the rest of the season.

 

[JayRU09]

All in all, hard to tell what your season will be like based off this game.

Yep, that sure is me saying your problems will be season long.

I will say though that I've heard all of these same exact things before (vanilla playcalling, their team's d-line was actually good/big!, etc.), both in 2010 and 2011. 2010, didn't work out so well. 2011 was pretty good to us.

So you never know with games like this, but seriously, the YPC should be troubling. Hope you get it fixed......just sometime after the first week of October.......

 

[SubbaBub]

Other than the lack of physicality from the OL, the only negative thing I took away from last night that could carry over was that Whitmer left the ball to far to the inside on the sideline passes often behind or on the inside shoulder of the receiver.

It's a recipe for an Int-TD if he's not more accurate, but he did look the part of a QB moreso than anyone last year.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Carl Spackler]

Look at it this way -- this game looked much like the Fordham game last year. Some negatives to call out, a few struggles on offense, but a dominant victory nonetheless (the final scores were similar). UMass may not be very good, but they are surely MUCH better than Fordham was last year.

according to the courant, UMass hasn't been shut out in 199 consecutive games until last night. I don't care what level you're at, that's impressive. UMass has played some bigger programs recently.

 

[UConnDan97]

according to the courant, UMass hasn't been shut out in 199 consecutive games until last night. I don't care what level you're at, that's impressive. UMass has played some bigger programs recently.

It's so sweet to take our old rival and put them over our knee, isn't it?

 

[Carl Spackler]

It's so sweet to take our old rival and put them over our knee, isn't it?

Don Brown is forgiven.

 

[CL82]

Whitmer seems to lock on to receivers and get greedy. He had Nick Williams open for a first down and threw to Mike Smith (I think) in the endzone who was double covered. He didn't throw it to a wide open Griffin and let him try and pick up the first down with YAC on the incredible INT by the UMass defender.

I was thinking that as well. The pick was a fluke, but why throw it out of bounds when you have a wide open TE in front of you.

 

[CL82]

It's so sweet to take our old rival and put them over our knee, isn't it?

Yes, yes it is.

 

[SHS72]

reading the MA media, you'd think this was a close game. UMass only a play or two away from victory. They have a long way to go, as we should know. thought our D was terrific, O line needs a lot of work. And it was great seeing a UConn quarterback throwing decent passes and UConn receivers catching them. That has not been the case in recent years.....

 

[pepband99]

I'm cautiously optimistic. Whitmer was starting his first college game, and the INTs showed some greenness. That said, he also showed he has the tools to build on.

Most encouraging sign, and something people seem to be missing, was the lack of drops from our WRs. Not only did they show good hands, but they got a couple of balls they maybe shouldn't have. Very encouraging, given play of recent past!

 

[Carl Spackler]

I'm cautiously optimistic. Whitmer was starting his first college game, and the INTs showed some greenness. That said, he also showed he has the tools to build on.

Most encouraging sign, and something people seem to be missing, was the lack of drops from our WRs. Not only did they show good hands, but they got a couple of balls they maybe shouldn't have. Very encouraging, given play of recent past!

All the receivers looked simply, like they belong. Mike Smith is a powerful runner after the catch, and solid X type receiver, and Philips looks like he has some competition from Davis for that Z role. Love to see that.

There's a ton to be happy about last night. WE've got a team that looked really good, and laid a pretty powerful ass beating down on a team that's really not as bad as we made them look.

You just can't win regularly, with the turnovers and penalties. Griffin's holding penalty and turnovers killed our offense, otherwise we would have hung 60 on them.

 

[businesslawyer]

reading the MA media, you'd think this was a close game. UMass only a play or two away from victory. They have a long way to go, as we should know. thought our D was terrific, O line needs a lot of work. And it was great seeing a UConn quarterback throwing decent passes and UConn receivers catching them. That has not been the case in recent years.....

By definition, when you give up 7 points on your first defensive drive and only have 3 first downs, and no long offensive plays, for a game, you weren't a play or two from winning.

 

[tduconn]

First taste of BCS competion for Whitmer. Did he make mistakes......yes. Will he improve as the season progresses.......YES!!!!

I don't know how much PP was playing with the OL.......but he has to determine what MAY work best......the time for him to experiment was last night.......with all positions as required to get a feel for his team outside of practice situations.

The wildcat is a waste. Why not say we have 3 downs to make 10 yards. McCummings may be an exceptional athlete......so find a position where his abilities and skills are more productive. We might as well hand the opposing team our play book.....most of the time it will be a running play.

Remember Orlovsky.....Keron Henry experiment (00-04?). Keron was not very good at the QB position.....but he became a decent receiver for Dan O.!

 

[uconNYC]

I agree with the general sentiment. Hate the Wildcat

 

[Mr.Phat]

It's more than fair to observe the fact that we failed to dominate the line of scrimmage against essentially a 1-AA defensive line. It's more than fair to observe that Whitmer made a few puzzling decisions and a few poor throws. It's more than fair to argue that the Wildcat was used too much.

It was a decent start. The defense looks like we thought it would. Special teams look solid. But there was a lot to not like about last night, and lots of room for improvement.

Absolutely. Offense is still not balanced. Need more throwing and the team seems to have two good receivers for the job - Smith and Davis. A team with a really good offense would have hanged 450 yards on UMass, easily. Oregon would have dropped 500 maybe 600 yards of total offense. Maybe we'll see improvements. If not, it is going to be a very long season on the Island of Misfit Toys again.

 

[mattp]

I agree with the general sentiment. Hate the Wildcat

i didn't like the way we used it last night, but it was great at times last season. I'm hoping we kept it simple just to warm up McCummings (keep in mind he was hurt all last summer) and also to not tip our hand too much to NCState. it'll get better

 

[blitz8ru]

i didn't like the way we used it last night, but it was great at times last season. I'm hoping we kept it simple just to warm up McCummings (keep in mind he was hurt all last summer) and also to not tip our hand too much to NCState. it'll get better

Having your 1st team offense in for most of the game vs a 1AA opponent while struggling to pass/run the ball also sends up a big red flag... Not to mention having to resort to trick plays and other gimmick plays to move the ball down the field against a 1AA team...

To the guy that said Oregon would have posted 600yds on UMass... yes they would have done so BUT they would have done so with the 3rd team in after the half...

 

[businesslawyer]

Having your 1st team offense in for most of the game vs a 1AA opponent while struggling to pass/run the ball also sends up a big red flag... Not to mention having to resort to trick plays and other gimmick plays to move the ball down the field against a 1AA team...

To the guy that said Oregon would have posted 600yds on UMass... yes they would have done so BUT they would have done so with the 3rd team in after the half...

Not to bug you with facts, but UMASS is in the MAC. Why are you here? I would think you would be worried on how to turn the tables on that superpower down in New Orleans that you're going to try to not lose to again.

 

[mattp]

Having your 1st team offense in for most of the game vs a 1AA opponent while struggling to pass/run the ball also sends up a big red flag... Not to mention having to resort to trick plays and other gimmick plays to move the ball down the field against a 1AA team..
To the guy that said Oregon would have posted 600yds on UMass... yes they would have done so BUT they would have done so with the 3rd team in after the half...

I guess the idea of using your 1AA game (against a MAC opponent mind you) to tune up some things on offense would seem foreign to a Rutgers fan, but you just keep staying classy as always

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Having your 1st team offense in for most of the game vs a 1AA opponent while struggling to pass/run the ball also sends up a big red flag... Not to mention having to resort to trick plays and other gimmick plays to move the ball down the field against a 1AA team...

To the guy that said Oregon would have posted 600yds on UMass... yes they would have done so BUT they would have done so with the 3rd team in after the half...

Pathetic trolling. If you're going to do it, at least do it right.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

I guess the idea of using your 1AA game (against a MAC opponent mind you) to tune up some things on offense would seem foreign to a Rutgers fan, but you just keep staying classy as always

Be fair to RU. They've beefed up their OOC. This year they only have one FCS team on the schedule.

 

[blitz8ru]

Be fair to RU. They've beefed up their OOC. This year they only have one FCS team on the schedule.

The only time we have ever had more then 1 FCS game on schedule was in 2009 when Navy canceled at the last minute... Ever since 2007 it's been 1 BCS OOC, 1 1aa, 1 academy, 1 academy/non-BCS ooc...

But I guess I should also include the other 1aa game played every year... this year it will be played in week 5 at our place...

BTW UMass is NOT a MAC team despite how many times you like to repeat it... This is their first year as an FBS, having played at the FCS level for decades... You were facing a team with FCS level talent and depth throughout the team... to think otherwise is delusional... UMass will likely be battling Akron for the MAC basement this year... You play like that vs Temple this year and you might actually lose... nevermind the rest of the Big East conference slate...