Position group observations

[Guru13]

QB: I couldn't watch the game live but recorded it Joe. F did not look too bad nor did he look too great. I never got the sense he was frantic in the pocket or anything. What I did observe is the play calling shifted from the first quarter from the quick game/checkdowns to gadget plays and Joe. F forcing some throws. . I believe if he had tuck and run he would have been a lot dangerous throughout the game. He has a nice solid arm, but he gotta know when to take some heat off the ball. I believe we just have an inexperience qb/wr/te room that has not fully built tons of chemistry yet due to how our fall camp consisted of qbs rotating till the last week.

RB: Rosa is a baller and his vision has improved from year 1 to year 2. Here is my take.. we should have ran the ball down NC State throat... screw the passing game. Rosa had 9 carries for 99 yards, Houston 7 for 24 yards and Brewton 3 for 19. NC State did not really load the box on us..so why abandon the running game? Our strength is in the running game, lets run the ball and when teams load up the box we can pass the ball around when we have favorable 1 on 1 matchups,

TE: All I will say is we need better play calling from Charlton to utilize our TEs to be in a favorable position.

WRS: We need to have better play in this position group. I do not like the drop passes and what not, but it seems we have no true #1 receiver and the offense is going to be lacking if we do not solve the chemistry between our wideouts and Joe.F. Our TE and Rb had more receiving yards/catches than our receivers which is sad.

O-Line: Let me just say Walker held his own. I think him having Noel and Christian right besides him helps him tremendously. I am impressed with group, they were pushing around a good NC State D-line so I will not be surprised if they dominate most teams d-line easily.

Defense: My only observations from every position group on defense is..... wrapping up and making the tackle.. Yes I get that there were some position field advantage for NC State.. but goodness gracious the amount of missed tackles really hurt the team. I saw there were lots of moments where the Dline collapsed the pocket on him but were not able to bring him down. The longs runs NC State had really hurt the team. I felt our Dbs locked up on their wr's really good and have come a long way and improved. Keeping the qb under 160 yards passing is promising that we can shutdown the passing game, but gotta improve on run defense.

 

[uconnfan68]

QB: I couldn't watch the game live but recorded it Joe. F did not look too bad nor did he look too great. I never got the sense he was frantic in the pocket or anything. What I did observe is the play calling shifted from the first quarter from the quick game/checkdowns to gadget plays and Joe. F forcing some throws. . I believe if he had tuck and run he would have been a lot dangerous throughout the game. He has a nice solid arm, but he gotta know when to take some heat off the ball. I believe we just have an inexperience qb/wr/te room that has not fully built tons of chemistry yet due to how our fall camp consisted of qbs rotating till the last week.

RB: Rosa is a baller and his vision has improved from year 1 to year 2. Here is my take.. we should have ran the ball down NC State throat... screw the passing game. Rosa had 9 carries for 99 yards, Houston 7 for 24 yards and Brewton 3 for 19. NC State did not really load the box on us..so why abandon the running game? Our strength is in the running game, lets run the ball and when teams load up the box we can pass the ball around when we have favorable 1 on 1 matchups,

TE: All I will say is we need better play calling from Charlton to utilize our TEs to be in a favorable position.

WRS: We need to have better play in this position group. I do not like the drop passes and what not, but it seems we have no true #1 receiver and the offense is going to be lacking if we do not solve the chemistry between our wideouts and Joe.F. Our TE and Rb had more receiving yards/catches than our receivers which is sad.

O-Line: Let me just say Walker held his own. I think him having Noel and Christian right besides him helps him tremendously. I am impressed with group, they were pushing around a good NC State D-line so I will not be surprised if they dominate most teams d-line easily.

Defense: My only observations from every position group on defense is..... wrapping up and making the tackle.. Yes I get that there were some position field advantage for NC State.. but goodness gracious the amount of missed tackles really hurt the team. I saw there were lots of moments where the Dline collapsed the pocket on him but were not able to bring him down. The longs runs NC State had really hurt the team. I felt our Dbs locked up on their wr's really good and have come a long way and improved. Keeping the qb under 160 yards passing is promising that we can shutdown the passing game, but gotta improve on run defense.

Agree they should have run more inside, but showing the stats for Rosa is very misleading. 88 of his 99 came on 2 carries. The other 6 carries netted 11.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Agree they should have run more inside, but showing the stats for Rosa is very misleading. 88 of his 99 came on 2 carries. The other 6 carries netted 11.

And I'm okay with that. Not every back is a 3-4 yard gain on every play.

Besides the 88 yards on those two carries those were also TD runs.

Kinda rough to say if you take away the two best runs which accounted for all the points, he was average at best.

Nine carries and two TD's is a very productive game.

From today's presser Mora straight up said Houston and Brewton are smaller backs and not the type of backs you can lean on all game. He said he's going to keep rotating all three. While I don't think it's going to be an even split every game, it's going to be rare for any one of them to get 20 carries.

 

[Husky68]

How do you run power inside with guys so small. Seems like with offensive scheme and Fagnano at QB will have several big runs and lot of very small runs which make it hard to keep moving the chains. UConn had only 9 possessions and 53 offensive plays. Here are yardage for 3 running backs and QB from longest to shortest.
VR 71,18,4,3,3,2,1,0,-3
DH 8,8,3,2,2,2,-1
BB 8,6,5
JF 13,10,2,2,1,-3,-7

Of 19 running plays not by QB(not many for a running team without running QB) 12 were for 4 yards or less (only one @ 4 yards) and 2 at more than 10 yards.

Seems small running backs allow opponent to use smaller more agile defenders which makes short passes even harder, answer pound them with big backs or spread them out, UConn does neither.

 

[SuperHuski]

Agree with most things said here.

Our biggest strength on offense is our o-line. Whereas NC State's biggest question mark was their d-line. Really thought we went a bit too pass happy before establishing the run. I say this because State never really adjusted their defense before we adjusted our offense.

Also thinking we should try out the Sun Belt-type offense with six linemen. They love playing jumbo packages with an extra OT and just punishing defenses with lightweight LBs and DBs. Jumbo + hurry up with no substitutions and it's really unfair when well executed. We seem to have the personnel for this.

 

[McLovin]

QB: I couldn't watch the game live but recorded it Joe. F did not look too bad nor did he look too great. I never got the sense he was frantic in the pocket or anything. What I did observe is the play calling shifted from the first quarter from the quick game/checkdowns to gadget plays and Joe. F forcing some throws. . I believe if he had tuck and run he would have been a lot dangerous throughout the game. He has a nice solid arm, but he gotta know when to take some heat off the ball. I believe we just have an inexperience qb/wr/te room that has not fully built tons of chemistry yet due to how our fall camp consisted of qbs rotating till the last week.

RB: Rosa is a baller and his vision has improved from year 1 to year 2. Here is my take.. we should have ran the ball down NC State throat... screw the passing game. Rosa had 9 carries for 99 yards, Houston 7 for 24 yards and Brewton 3 for 19. NC State did not really load the box on us..so why abandon the running game? Our strength is in the running game, lets run the ball and when teams load up the box we can pass the ball around when we have favorable 1 on 1 matchups,

TE: All I will say is we need better play calling from Charlton to utilize our TEs to be in a favorable position.

WRS: We need to have better play in this position group. I do not like the drop passes and what not, but it seems we have no true #1 receiver and the offense is going to be lacking if we do not solve the chemistry between our wideouts and Joe.F. Our TE and Rb had more receiving yards/catches than our receivers which is sad.

O-Line: Let me just say Walker held his own. I think him having Noel and Christian right besides him helps him tremendously. I am impressed with group, they were pushing around a good NC State D-line so I will not be surprised if they dominate most teams d-line easily.

Defense: My only observations from every position group on defense is..... wrapping up and making the tackle.. Yes I get that there were some position field advantage for NC State.. but goodness gracious the amount of missed tackles really hurt the team. I saw there were lots of moments where the Dline collapsed the pocket on him but were not able to bring him down. The longs runs NC State had really hurt the team. I felt our Dbs locked up on their wr's really good and have come a long way and improved. Keeping the qb under 160 yards passing is promising that we can shutdown the passing game, but gotta improve on run defense.

I agree with all this.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed/ confused with the play calling on offense. We ran more trick plays than we took deep shots. Fagnano was supposed to be Charlton’s guy and it looked like he was babying him like they did with Zion last year.

Drops probably had a lot to do with that since they really weren’t able to get any momentum going in the passing game. But I’d really like to see a little more freedom for Joe in the pocket to take shots at chunk plays If he’s going to be our guy.

Tackling was an issue on defense and they still only allowed 24 points (7 came from gifted field position after 30 unsportsmanlike penalty yards). I think they’ll get that cleaned up.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I agree with all this.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed/ confused with the play calling on offense. We ran more trick plays than we took deep shots. Fagnano was supposed to be Charlton’s guy and it looked like he was babying him like they did with Zion last year.

Drops probably had a lot to do with that since they really weren’t able to get any momentum going in the passing game. But I’d really like to see a little more freedom for Joe in the pocket to take shots at chunk plays If he’s going to be our guy.

Tackling was an issue on defense and they still only allowed 24 points (7 came from gifted field position after 30 unsportsmanlike penalty yards). I think they’ll get that cleaned up.

Mora pulled no punches in his presser today. Said there were 5 dropped passes and that's not acceptable. Also said WR's have to win some 50/50 balls. Will be interesting to see if a dropped pass gets someone pushed back in the WR rotation. Actions speak louder than words.

 

[McLovin]

Mora pulled no punches in his presser today. Said there were 5 dropped passes and that's not acceptable. Also said WR's have to win some 50/50 balls. Will be interesting to see if a dropped pass gets someone pushed back in the WR rotation. Actions speak louder than words.

Drops were definitely big and probably why we couldn’t get to the point of taking shot further down the field. Just hope we get some more interesting play calling in the passing game going forward. Stretching the defense (or other teams having tape showing we successfully can stretch the defense) will only help improve our already very good rushing attack.

 

[huskymedic]

Mora pulled no punches in his presser today. Said there were 5 dropped passes and that's not acceptable. Also said WR's have to win some 50/50 balls.

-> "Five drops," Mora said. "You can't drop the ball. A receiver's job is to catch the ball. We had five drops and that's unacceptable. I expected better.

"We have to win 50-50 balls. We have to win contested throws. If we get a hand in there we have to find a way to make the catches. I thought they blocked well, but you can't drop the ball and think you're going to have success on offense." <-

-> "Overall from a receiver's standpoint we all believe we have to do better," UConn wide receiver Brett Buckman said. "Every play we need to be better with our technique, doing our job. We all have high standards at the receiver's position. We know we can do better and we will. "We could have done more for (Fagnano). We're trying to make that connection and that takes time to build. We're staying after practice with him, just trying to get on the same page." <-

 

[Tdaley]

How do you run power inside with guys so small. Seems like with offensive scheme and Fagnano at QB will have several big runs and lot of very small runs which make it hard to keep moving the chains. UConn had only 9 possessions and 53 offensive plays. Here are yardage for 3 running backs and QB from longest to shortest.
VR 71,18,4,3,3,2,1,0,-3
DH 8,8,3,2,2,2,-1
BB 8,6,5
JF 13,10,2,2,1,-3,-7

Of 19 running plays not by QB(not many for a running team without running QB) 12 were for 4 yards or less (only one @ 4 yards) and 2 at more than 10 yards.

Seems small running backs allow opponent to use smaller more agile defenders which makes short passes even harder, answer pound them with big backs or spread them out, UConn does neither.

I was a bit surprised that we didn't give Jalen Mitchell a few carries as a change of pace back. Really, our other 3 backs are essentially the same type the of runners.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I was a bit surprised that we didn't give Jalen Mitchell a few carries as a change of pace back. Really, our other 3 backs are essentially the same type the of runners.

Gotta disagree. Houston and Brewton are similar but Rosa is a much different size and style.

But yes, it would be nice to see what Mitchell can do.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

With our OL's presumable very nice advantage over GA State, I'd like to see Mitchell get some touches because I think we can run the ball down their throats getting 5 yards almost at will. If we control the clock and beat them up physically, we win by at least two TD's.

 

[LIUCHusky]

With our OL's presumable very nice advantage over GA State, I'd like to see Mitchell get some touches because I think we can run the ball down their throats getting 5 yards almost at will. If we control the clock and beat them up physically, we win by at least two TD's.

Just curious. What gives you the feeling our OL will have a nice advantage over Georgia State? By the way, I hope we do.

 

[DawgEnjoyer]

Agree with most things said here.

Our biggest strength on offense is our o-line. Whereas NC State's biggest question mark was their d-line. Really thought we went a bit too pass happy before establishing the run. I say this because State never really adjusted their defense before we adjusted our offense.

Also thinking we should try out the Sun Belt-type offense with six linemen. They love playing jumbo packages with an extra OT and just punishing defenses with lightweight LBs and DBs. Jumbo + hurry up with no substitutions and it's really unfair when well executed. We seem to have the personnel for this.

I like this in theory, but it also bothers me that we have so many TEs and don't seem to have success going heavy with them while maintain the threat of PA passes.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

Just curious. What gives you the feeling our OL will have a nice advantage over Georgia State? By the way, I hope we do.

Basing it on our general OL performance/reputation from last year (little attrition) and last week against a bigger/better DL than GA State has as well as the size advantage we have against GA State.

 

[giddyup]

I like this in theory, but it also bothers me that we have so many TEs and don't seem to have success going heavy with them while maintain the threat of PA passes.

We were stuffed trying to take the edges and that accounts for many of the short yardage runs. They were too fast and it played to our disadvantage. Charlton simply exhibited no patience or discipline to let the inside power game work and didn’t play action with TEs. Pounding the middle would have worked quite well and running the TEs behind the LBs would have forced them to hold and not immediately crash down. I don’t know about this Charlton character. Big boy football dynamics appear to be above his pay grade. The more I see, the more convinced I am he isn’t going to cut it. Time will tell, but time is lost opportunity.

 

[Guru13]

We were stuffed trying to take the edges and that accounts for many of the short yardage runs. They were too fast and it played to our disadvantage. Charlton simply exhibited no patience or discipline to let the inside power game work and didn’t play action with TEs. Pounding the middle would have worked quite well and running the TEs behind the LBs would have forced them to hold and not immediately crash down. I don’t know about this Charlton character. Big boy football dynamics appear to be above his pay grade. The more I see, the more convinced I am he isn’t going to cut it. Time will tell, but time is lost opportunity.

I do not think NC State were too fast or anything. If you go back and watch our first TD drive, NC State loaded up the box giving JF opportunities to throw the ball and give us one on one match ups. I think Charlton just tried to force us into passing situations as soon as NC State were up and dropping 8 into coverage. If we just pound the middle like you said, we would have been fine and force NC State to load up the box again to open up the passing game.

 

[HCCForever]

Gotta disagree. Houston and Brewton are similar but Rosa is a much different size and style.

But yes, it would be nice to see what Mitchell can do.

View attachment 91241

I would like to see what Jalen can do as well. From the press conference, it sounded like he was in for some blocking assignments but no rushing chances yet.

 

[hardcorehusky]

How do you run power inside with guys so small. Seems like with offensive scheme and Fagnano at QB will have several big runs and lot of very small runs which make it hard to keep moving the chains. UConn had only 9 possessions and 53 offensive plays. Here are yardage for 3 running backs and QB from longest to shortest.
VR 71,18,4,3,3,2,1,0,-3
DH 8,8,3,2,2,2,-1
BB 8,6,5
JF 13,10,2,2,1,-3,-7

Of 19 running plays not by QB(not many for a running team without running QB) 12 were for 4 yards or less (only one @ 4 yards) and 2 at more than 10 yards.

Seems small running backs allow opponent to use smaller more agile defenders which makes short passes even harder, answer pound them with big backs or spread them out, UConn does neither.

Hard to find the small guys when they get into a seam in between the trees. Houston and Brewton can get though that small hole and then are gone. The key is creating the crease.