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Message: [QUOTE="ScottVib, post: 5356836, member: 694"] Tackling is horrid at every level in football, taking contact out of practice, while great for safety, has caused issues, tackling a foam wheel is much, much different than tackling someone moving at you, generating their own force. The secondary spent half the game diving at ankles, head down so you can't adjust, plus once you leave your feet, you've ended any chance for you to produce your own force. The defensive philosophy is hyper-aggressive, the positives are things like the sack counts. What hasn't followed with a hyper-aggressive defense is getting turnovers. For a team with the number of sacks as UConn has and the pressure it generates, they just don't get turnovers. The team's aggression lends itself to over-penetration and failure to maintain gap controls (and as a result getting gashed on runs) and over-pursuit failing to maintain contain (and as a result getting beaten on misdirections, reverses and the naked bootlegs Rice used). When they back off the aggression you start to see the confusion creep into the defenders and they get stuck flat-footed as linemen make it to the second level on blocks or (worse) the rusher makes it to the second level. I do think the ease of the first stop and the ensuing score did get guys starting to feel good and try to make big/highlight plays rather than staying focused on the task at hand. Then they realized they were in a game and things started to tighten. Offensively, just too many missed passes, none bigger than the wide-open shot to Murphy in the second OT. It also felt like Fagnano was far less willing to pull the ball and run in this game, which led to Rice being able to key the running back the whole game long. Overall the game went from fun for about 5 minutes, the first two stops and the Bell pass, but (as was mentioned earlier) with the stop of Edwards on 3rd & 1 (where it looks like Fagnano collided with Edwards, perhaps he was trying to pull the ball to take the open outside run (the end crashed)) and Rice's ensuing score. UConn then punts after an ok drive and Rice scores the long run. The long scores gave Rice the confidence that they'd be able to hang with UConn and keep up with the Huskie offense (which then disappeared in the second half) and instead of UConn being able crush the Owl confidence with a 21-3 lead; it's 21-17 at the half.. and well we saw the disaster from there. [/QUOTE]

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