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So in 2006, my law firm had a weekend retreat that I had to miss a home game for. The game I missed was against Navy. So when my firm scheduled a weekend retreat for this weekend at the same location (the first time we've been there since '06), and then when the schedule came out again and Navy, at home, was scheduled for that weekend, I knew a bad omen when I saw one. Unfortunately, I was powerless to stop it from happening. So I didn't get to watch the game until today when I got home, after following play by play on my cell yesterday, and know that, deep down, I'm at fault for this one. My bad.
So what did I think of the game? A fairly classic half empty, half full dichotomy. If you want to see a glass half full, all you have to do is look at the stats. This is a quality team that we played, that is going to do a lot of damage this season, and the stats were largely even. Neither team made a lot of mistakes. Both teams moved the ball crisply, without running up huge amounts of total yardage. From the stats, it looked like the kind of game that would come down to about a dozen plays, and the team that made more of them would win. If you want to look at the glass as half empty, however, we never stopped them until they had the game in hand, and very simply they finished all 4 of their drives and we finished 2 of our 4, settling for one FG and one turnover on downs. Add that to their incredible third down conversion percentage (which they show every sign of doing against everyone by the way) and you have a game we struggled to stay in. The truth is, of course, in between. They were, and are, the better team, and that showed. In part, total yards is part of the game, but the other part is finishing drives. Bad offenses don't move the ball at all, o.k. offenses move it between the 20s and good offenses score TDs. We were an o.k. offense against their D. They didn't carve our D up -- they weren't busting big play after big play -- but they finished drives. On the other hand, there were plays and breaks there that didn't go our way. Thomas not grabbing the flea flicker thrown. The quick whistle on the fumbled kick off return (I don't know what happened under the pile, but I know the whistle and the call were too quick). Our drive that stalled on a call that Newsome's catch wasn't made, when it looks like it was. A missed tackle by Matt Walsh that could have stopped their last TD drive on third down. Give me a handful of plays back, and I could potentially give you a different result. But, as I've said many times, that can be said about most games that aren't blowouts. So the bottome line is we showed enough improvement that we can play the "what if" game (and the whiners can say "if the coaches had done this ..."), but we have a ways to go before we're as good a football team as Navy is. Would have liked to have won this one at home. It would have been a huge step towards a bowl game. But losing it isn't a set back to the direction of our rebuild in any way.
O.K., offense, defense and specials. It was a good game by Arkeel, and I thought he looked better than Ron Jon had by a good amount. I'd still like to see both of them used. This was the first real test for the OL, in terms of a D that was not ferocious but not pushover level either. I thought it was o.k. Some good pulls, and not constantly overpowered, but still too many sacks allowed and missed assignments on stunts. I think we now know that the OL is better than it was the last two years, but is still maybe the weakest unit on the team and will need to be improved next year when 9 of 10 on the two deep return along with Crozier. Love Beals. Lucas can't drop that ball, but wasn't targeted enough to learn much about. Thomas can't be left out of the game plan for such large stretches of the game -- it's too reminiscent of Davis last year. Finally, while he continues to really limit mistakes and ran well I thought Shirreffs does lock in to receivers and doesn't always find the right one. Yes, he's in his first year as a starter and will get better, but our offense isn't so good as to allow real opportunities for a big play to be missed. The O needed to be better.
On specials, good for Puyol shaking off everything, and the protections for being fine. Finally, Arkeel got some returns, but not enough blocking to give him a chance. Kick coverage was inconsistent. Good job by Thomas grabbing the on side kick, but a real lost opportunity on the fumbled punt (I think it was Floyd who had the shot at it but couldn't bring it in). But this game wasn't decided on specials.
On D, the effort wasn't as terrible as it seemed. We didn't do a bad job of keeping them contained -- just couldn't get off the field when we needed to. They execute the option very well, and our conservative play off it just didn't get it done. I don't know that anyone is going to stop them without having superior athletes on D who are just able to blow up some plays. I had hoped that we might be able to do that up front, but it didn't happen. I didn't think Walsh had a particularly good game, and Summers making a play on their TD throw could have changed everything (but he was one on one with half a field to cover -- it wasn't like he did something terrible).
As for coaching, some of the moaning about not stopping the option is just silly. No one without superior athletes is going to stop that option. Kicking the FG on 4th and 1 on the opening drive was fine, trying to play from ahead, although it would have been rational to go for it as well. The second call I really don't think was right or rational. We shouldn't have given up on stopping them ever after just one drive -- especially one that required third down conversions. So on 4th and 5, you take the 3. Had nothing else changed, those 3 points would have really kept us in the game the whole way. I would like to see us stop giving away points every game chasing long shots against the odds. But yesterday, they won not because of play decisions, but because we couldn't stop them and they stopped 2 of our 4 drives. That simple.
So its on to BYU which, between the opponent, the time, the short week with the long flight and time zone shift, and the altitude, adds up to maybe our toughest game of the year. I want to continue to play good, competitive football, but I think this will be a very hard game to win. And then, we get to week 6 and a stretch of conference games that will tell us how far we've come and how far we have left to go. I'm still ten toes in, and I will be even if the trip to Provo proves difficult. If you want me to start complaining about our play, you will have to wait until our trip to Orlando.
So what did I think of the game? A fairly classic half empty, half full dichotomy. If you want to see a glass half full, all you have to do is look at the stats. This is a quality team that we played, that is going to do a lot of damage this season, and the stats were largely even. Neither team made a lot of mistakes. Both teams moved the ball crisply, without running up huge amounts of total yardage. From the stats, it looked like the kind of game that would come down to about a dozen plays, and the team that made more of them would win. If you want to look at the glass as half empty, however, we never stopped them until they had the game in hand, and very simply they finished all 4 of their drives and we finished 2 of our 4, settling for one FG and one turnover on downs. Add that to their incredible third down conversion percentage (which they show every sign of doing against everyone by the way) and you have a game we struggled to stay in. The truth is, of course, in between. They were, and are, the better team, and that showed. In part, total yards is part of the game, but the other part is finishing drives. Bad offenses don't move the ball at all, o.k. offenses move it between the 20s and good offenses score TDs. We were an o.k. offense against their D. They didn't carve our D up -- they weren't busting big play after big play -- but they finished drives. On the other hand, there were plays and breaks there that didn't go our way. Thomas not grabbing the flea flicker thrown. The quick whistle on the fumbled kick off return (I don't know what happened under the pile, but I know the whistle and the call were too quick). Our drive that stalled on a call that Newsome's catch wasn't made, when it looks like it was. A missed tackle by Matt Walsh that could have stopped their last TD drive on third down. Give me a handful of plays back, and I could potentially give you a different result. But, as I've said many times, that can be said about most games that aren't blowouts. So the bottome line is we showed enough improvement that we can play the "what if" game (and the whiners can say "if the coaches had done this ..."), but we have a ways to go before we're as good a football team as Navy is. Would have liked to have won this one at home. It would have been a huge step towards a bowl game. But losing it isn't a set back to the direction of our rebuild in any way.
O.K., offense, defense and specials. It was a good game by Arkeel, and I thought he looked better than Ron Jon had by a good amount. I'd still like to see both of them used. This was the first real test for the OL, in terms of a D that was not ferocious but not pushover level either. I thought it was o.k. Some good pulls, and not constantly overpowered, but still too many sacks allowed and missed assignments on stunts. I think we now know that the OL is better than it was the last two years, but is still maybe the weakest unit on the team and will need to be improved next year when 9 of 10 on the two deep return along with Crozier. Love Beals. Lucas can't drop that ball, but wasn't targeted enough to learn much about. Thomas can't be left out of the game plan for such large stretches of the game -- it's too reminiscent of Davis last year. Finally, while he continues to really limit mistakes and ran well I thought Shirreffs does lock in to receivers and doesn't always find the right one. Yes, he's in his first year as a starter and will get better, but our offense isn't so good as to allow real opportunities for a big play to be missed. The O needed to be better.
On specials, good for Puyol shaking off everything, and the protections for being fine. Finally, Arkeel got some returns, but not enough blocking to give him a chance. Kick coverage was inconsistent. Good job by Thomas grabbing the on side kick, but a real lost opportunity on the fumbled punt (I think it was Floyd who had the shot at it but couldn't bring it in). But this game wasn't decided on specials.
On D, the effort wasn't as terrible as it seemed. We didn't do a bad job of keeping them contained -- just couldn't get off the field when we needed to. They execute the option very well, and our conservative play off it just didn't get it done. I don't know that anyone is going to stop them without having superior athletes on D who are just able to blow up some plays. I had hoped that we might be able to do that up front, but it didn't happen. I didn't think Walsh had a particularly good game, and Summers making a play on their TD throw could have changed everything (but he was one on one with half a field to cover -- it wasn't like he did something terrible).
As for coaching, some of the moaning about not stopping the option is just silly. No one without superior athletes is going to stop that option. Kicking the FG on 4th and 1 on the opening drive was fine, trying to play from ahead, although it would have been rational to go for it as well. The second call I really don't think was right or rational. We shouldn't have given up on stopping them ever after just one drive -- especially one that required third down conversions. So on 4th and 5, you take the 3. Had nothing else changed, those 3 points would have really kept us in the game the whole way. I would like to see us stop giving away points every game chasing long shots against the odds. But yesterday, they won not because of play decisions, but because we couldn't stop them and they stopped 2 of our 4 drives. That simple.
So its on to BYU which, between the opponent, the time, the short week with the long flight and time zone shift, and the altitude, adds up to maybe our toughest game of the year. I want to continue to play good, competitive football, but I think this will be a very hard game to win. And then, we get to week 6 and a stretch of conference games that will tell us how far we've come and how far we have left to go. I'm still ten toes in, and I will be even if the trip to Provo proves difficult. If you want me to start complaining about our play, you will have to wait until our trip to Orlando.
I think we learned how bad Mizzou's offense was the week prior and gave a little too much credit to our defense. Unless Navy is really that good, which we will see after a few more games. Until we manhandle someone on O and put up 30+ points we will be in lots of close games. And as we know, close games come down to a handful of plays.
