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Well, that one hurt. We hadn't lost a game as a favorite this year. We hadn't lost to a team that wasn't at least good this year. We never -- never -- lose games where we have that kind of total yardage. And that's the first game we lost this year that was a "have to" game if we hoped to get to .500 and a bowl. Why did we lose? Primarily two reasons. First, our inability to score more than 3 points in a first half in which we totally dominated them and then a second half where, after totally shutting them down for 30 minutes, we suddenly couldn't stop them. Let's take these in turn.
The first half was statistically impossible. Seriously, what happened couldn't statistically happen. We had seven possessions. EAch and every one of them ended in USF's territory. We only turned the ball over once, had almost no offensive penalties, put up 260 yards of total offense and scored 3 points. 3 points. Our drives stalled on USF's 8, 45, 37, 41, 2 (that was our FG), 37 and 6. How did that conceivably happen? Well, it is harder to move the ball inside the 20s than it is outside the 20s. That is a fact -- not a failure of our coaches. We were good enough to move freely up the field, but not to punch it over the goal line. Did our coaches do themselves proud? No -- we need them to come up with some plays there that work. But the general failure is one of still not being there as well as ridiculously bad luck that 4 drives stalled between midfield and FG range. Having said that, we still have the lead at the half if we kick FGs on the first and last possessions. Last week, someone posted a computer analysis that showed that, in the NFL, going on 4th down at the 1 or 2 is worth about 1 point a possession. Putting aside that I don't know that an NFL study is accurate in college, I will accept that it wasn't dumb to go on 4th and short on the first series. But it wasn't the right call, statistics or not. When an offensively challenged team puts together a nice drive to start a game and take a lead, and where they failed on 4th and short a week ago against a weaker defensive team, take the points. Period. The last drive of the half should have had more plays avaIable, but for (i) blowing two times out on an earlier series inside the ten where we didn't score anyway, and (ii) taking way, way too much time during the two minute drill to change personnel packages and get plays in. I said after the blow out of UCF last week that this kind of thing would cost us if it didn't stop. But putting all that aside, with the ball spiked and 8 seconds left, even with one time out left, the smart play was to kick. It was far more likely that something would go wrong on that last play than we'd score a TD. That having been said, once the play started Shirreffs brain froze. You throw into the end zone to a receiver or throw it away. There was no play that Newsome was going to make that wouldn't end the half. So all this combined, and a half we totally dominated and saw us cross midfield seven times ended in 3 points and a 4 point deficit. Statistically impossible.
But while you could argue we lost the game in the first half (and I think we did), it was the other side of the ball in the second half that contributed too. For 30 minutes, we totally shut them down but for one blown coverage out of the blue after our one turnover. Their start TB was 6 carries for 9 yards. Graham Stewart played his best half of football ever. Jhavon Williams was great. Both on top of a total team effort. But then they made an adjustment, and played the second half with what looked like a right angle wishbone with 3 RBs surrounding the QB. And we couldn't stop it and couldn't make a counter adjustment to deal with it. Suddently, neither Stewart nor anyone else could tackle or set an edge or pressure the QB or cover a receiver. Just horrific team tackling, angle taking, everything. Did the players give up because we couldn't handle the scheme? Did they know what to do and suck? Who knows. But I don't know that I've ever seen a D go from so terrific in a first half to so horrific in the second half. If we played half the D in the second half we played in the first, we win. We didn't. And while the season isn't over, and I still think there's a good shot we can beat a non-terrible team before it's over, six seems almost totally out of reach.
So offense, defense, specials and coaching. Let's start with coaching. This was not their best moment. Continuing problems at times getting plays off. Inability to have play calls to help the players finish drives. Continuing to fail on 4th down and time management decisions. All of which pale in comparison to having nothing to help when USF changed its offensive game plan. Having said all of that, I don't get why people believe that everything bad that happens is on the coaches and everything good that happens is on the players. I'm sorry, but that's idiotic. The players are also responsible for the bad that happened (like the OL just not being able to knock people back for a 1 yard QB sneak or throw a ball away with 8 seconds on the clock, or make an open field tackle), and the coaches are also responsible for putting a team in a position to gain over 550 yards of total offense and shut another team down for the first 30 minutes. I'm not saying the staff had a good game -- I think they had a lousy game -- but they are responsible for the overall upward direction of the team as well, and not just everything everyone doesn't like. One lousy decision that we didn't discuss yet because it occured in the second half -- the decision to kick the long FG into the wind down 8 on 4th and 1 in the 4th Q was just dreadful.
On specials, glad to see Puyol take over the kickoff duties, and he did at least as well as Tarbutt. Sorry we burned the kids redshirt, but maybe we'll use Puyol exclusively next year and save Tarbutt the year of eligibility. Nice to see Lemelle finally make a return. And also nice to see him be benched when the next one bounced thirty yards. A little more blocking for Arkeel on kickoffs and he's gaining some yardage now. Needed to do better on kickoff coverage. Jazz Clax can't take a penalty when he did, and at the 25 has to know Arkeel isn't going to get to that ball and catch it.
On D, it looked to me like we didn't (or barely) played Fatukasi, and played a quicker DL with only bit DT, (Campenni and Meyers rotating), Adeyami moving to DT and Ormsby and Luke/Stapleton flanking them. I think that's what I saw. John Green came in for one play for Williams in the 2d half and was burned on the HB option play. Reminded me of when Blidi sat for one play against NC State and they exploited his replacement for the game winning TD. It really is hard to beliee that the unit could be so, so good for 30 minutes and then so, so bad for the next 30. Sigh.
On offense, it was probably the best game the OL has played overall, given the offensive results and the almost total absence of penalties. Still can't get short yardage blocked, and still having way too much trouble with scheme on blitzes where the problem is no one picking up the blitzer while DLs are being double teamed (and, to be fair, the RBs and TEs are part of that problem). I thought Shirreffs was just great yesterday. Just great. Both reading the openings and taking the yards with scrambles and making more throws outside the pocket than he's done before. can't even remember the last time a UConn QB played a game better than that. I'm amazed that anyone sees it differently (and that's not saying he didn't make mistakes -- just that the expectations some have that mistakes shouldn't be made seems crazy). Arkeel is getting better and better. Ron Jon isn't. It looks like he bulked up a little too much, and now, because he's struggling, is just trying to hit a HR every play instead of taking what is there. Exactly like Donald Brown as a Soph (albeit on a much higher level). The TEs were great as receivers -- especially Bloom. Makes you wonder what would have happened if they just kept throwing to them play after play after play. The catch Noel Thomas made in the first half sandwiched between double coverage was maybe the best catch I've seen anyone not named Beckham Jr. make in a very long time. I'm sure Mayala won the job opposite Thomas fairly in practice, but he showed nothing yesterday. I'd like to see more of Lucas again, and certainly Beal. Finally, ironically because of the special teams misstakes, Jazz Clax returned as FB I think for the first time since 'Nova.
So that's it. Very, very disappointing in the result, but plenty to build off of. We've never won at Nippert, even with much better teams. We just have to go there and see if everything can be put together for 60 full minutes. Six wins seems impossible, but each game is an opportunity and there are improvements in areas so let' see what is.
The first half was statistically impossible. Seriously, what happened couldn't statistically happen. We had seven possessions. EAch and every one of them ended in USF's territory. We only turned the ball over once, had almost no offensive penalties, put up 260 yards of total offense and scored 3 points. 3 points. Our drives stalled on USF's 8, 45, 37, 41, 2 (that was our FG), 37 and 6. How did that conceivably happen? Well, it is harder to move the ball inside the 20s than it is outside the 20s. That is a fact -- not a failure of our coaches. We were good enough to move freely up the field, but not to punch it over the goal line. Did our coaches do themselves proud? No -- we need them to come up with some plays there that work. But the general failure is one of still not being there as well as ridiculously bad luck that 4 drives stalled between midfield and FG range. Having said that, we still have the lead at the half if we kick FGs on the first and last possessions. Last week, someone posted a computer analysis that showed that, in the NFL, going on 4th down at the 1 or 2 is worth about 1 point a possession. Putting aside that I don't know that an NFL study is accurate in college, I will accept that it wasn't dumb to go on 4th and short on the first series. But it wasn't the right call, statistics or not. When an offensively challenged team puts together a nice drive to start a game and take a lead, and where they failed on 4th and short a week ago against a weaker defensive team, take the points. Period. The last drive of the half should have had more plays avaIable, but for (i) blowing two times out on an earlier series inside the ten where we didn't score anyway, and (ii) taking way, way too much time during the two minute drill to change personnel packages and get plays in. I said after the blow out of UCF last week that this kind of thing would cost us if it didn't stop. But putting all that aside, with the ball spiked and 8 seconds left, even with one time out left, the smart play was to kick. It was far more likely that something would go wrong on that last play than we'd score a TD. That having been said, once the play started Shirreffs brain froze. You throw into the end zone to a receiver or throw it away. There was no play that Newsome was going to make that wouldn't end the half. So all this combined, and a half we totally dominated and saw us cross midfield seven times ended in 3 points and a 4 point deficit. Statistically impossible.
But while you could argue we lost the game in the first half (and I think we did), it was the other side of the ball in the second half that contributed too. For 30 minutes, we totally shut them down but for one blown coverage out of the blue after our one turnover. Their start TB was 6 carries for 9 yards. Graham Stewart played his best half of football ever. Jhavon Williams was great. Both on top of a total team effort. But then they made an adjustment, and played the second half with what looked like a right angle wishbone with 3 RBs surrounding the QB. And we couldn't stop it and couldn't make a counter adjustment to deal with it. Suddently, neither Stewart nor anyone else could tackle or set an edge or pressure the QB or cover a receiver. Just horrific team tackling, angle taking, everything. Did the players give up because we couldn't handle the scheme? Did they know what to do and suck? Who knows. But I don't know that I've ever seen a D go from so terrific in a first half to so horrific in the second half. If we played half the D in the second half we played in the first, we win. We didn't. And while the season isn't over, and I still think there's a good shot we can beat a non-terrible team before it's over, six seems almost totally out of reach.
So offense, defense, specials and coaching. Let's start with coaching. This was not their best moment. Continuing problems at times getting plays off. Inability to have play calls to help the players finish drives. Continuing to fail on 4th down and time management decisions. All of which pale in comparison to having nothing to help when USF changed its offensive game plan. Having said all of that, I don't get why people believe that everything bad that happens is on the coaches and everything good that happens is on the players. I'm sorry, but that's idiotic. The players are also responsible for the bad that happened (like the OL just not being able to knock people back for a 1 yard QB sneak or throw a ball away with 8 seconds on the clock, or make an open field tackle), and the coaches are also responsible for putting a team in a position to gain over 550 yards of total offense and shut another team down for the first 30 minutes. I'm not saying the staff had a good game -- I think they had a lousy game -- but they are responsible for the overall upward direction of the team as well, and not just everything everyone doesn't like. One lousy decision that we didn't discuss yet because it occured in the second half -- the decision to kick the long FG into the wind down 8 on 4th and 1 in the 4th Q was just dreadful.
On specials, glad to see Puyol take over the kickoff duties, and he did at least as well as Tarbutt. Sorry we burned the kids redshirt, but maybe we'll use Puyol exclusively next year and save Tarbutt the year of eligibility. Nice to see Lemelle finally make a return. And also nice to see him be benched when the next one bounced thirty yards. A little more blocking for Arkeel on kickoffs and he's gaining some yardage now. Needed to do better on kickoff coverage. Jazz Clax can't take a penalty when he did, and at the 25 has to know Arkeel isn't going to get to that ball and catch it.
On D, it looked to me like we didn't (or barely) played Fatukasi, and played a quicker DL with only bit DT, (Campenni and Meyers rotating), Adeyami moving to DT and Ormsby and Luke/Stapleton flanking them. I think that's what I saw. John Green came in for one play for Williams in the 2d half and was burned on the HB option play. Reminded me of when Blidi sat for one play against NC State and they exploited his replacement for the game winning TD. It really is hard to beliee that the unit could be so, so good for 30 minutes and then so, so bad for the next 30. Sigh.
On offense, it was probably the best game the OL has played overall, given the offensive results and the almost total absence of penalties. Still can't get short yardage blocked, and still having way too much trouble with scheme on blitzes where the problem is no one picking up the blitzer while DLs are being double teamed (and, to be fair, the RBs and TEs are part of that problem). I thought Shirreffs was just great yesterday. Just great. Both reading the openings and taking the yards with scrambles and making more throws outside the pocket than he's done before. can't even remember the last time a UConn QB played a game better than that. I'm amazed that anyone sees it differently (and that's not saying he didn't make mistakes -- just that the expectations some have that mistakes shouldn't be made seems crazy). Arkeel is getting better and better. Ron Jon isn't. It looks like he bulked up a little too much, and now, because he's struggling, is just trying to hit a HR every play instead of taking what is there. Exactly like Donald Brown as a Soph (albeit on a much higher level). The TEs were great as receivers -- especially Bloom. Makes you wonder what would have happened if they just kept throwing to them play after play after play. The catch Noel Thomas made in the first half sandwiched between double coverage was maybe the best catch I've seen anyone not named Beckham Jr. make in a very long time. I'm sure Mayala won the job opposite Thomas fairly in practice, but he showed nothing yesterday. I'd like to see more of Lucas again, and certainly Beal. Finally, ironically because of the special teams misstakes, Jazz Clax returned as FB I think for the first time since 'Nova.
So that's it. Very, very disappointing in the result, but plenty to build off of. We've never won at Nippert, even with much better teams. We just have to go there and see if everything can be put together for 60 full minutes. Six wins seems impossible, but each game is an opportunity and there are improvements in areas so let' see what is.
