Tough to see it end that way

[BugsyCT]

We competed hard - hung with them all game. Wheels fell off after we finally tied it. No way is the final score indicative of how this game went down, but our margin for error is always paper-thin.

Frustrating. But we'll be back. We'll continue to get better. Watching this offense gives me hope again and the games are actually fun to watch.

 

[Huskygamble19]

Only 1 problem I saw..the game is not 3 quarters.

 

[Exit 4]

I was out and about today, only able to listen to the first 3qtrs, but did see the tie up and then crash landing in the 4th qtr.

Looking at the stats some things jump out.

• For defense, we allowed 218 rushing yards and 280 receiving yards. From what I saw in the fourth quarter our D really fell apart setting the edge. Totally destroyed by SMU in the running game in Q4. Again, 3-3-5 seems vulnerable to this type of attack.
• Yes, we lost some one on one battles on the pass defense, but Cortland Sutton is a NFL player, so I'm more disappointed in our run defense.
• We had 8 tackles for a loss. Thats a serious improvement....but I dont think we had any such TFLs in Q4 (could be wrong).
• On offense, 408 yards in the air for Sherriffs? Tremendous.
• Sherriffs sacked 8 times today. 8! I dont think its possible to win a game when sacked 8 times.
• There may have been more, I haven't watched the game in full yet, but two WTF moments really hurt our chances, i) the Coney roughing the kicker penalty which lead directly to an SMU TD and ii) the Dan Oak bad snapped which killed the Q4 momentum.

Sherriffs took some shots today. Hopefully he'll be fully ready to play on Friday.

Edit - one more notable, we punted just twice, SMU punted 5 times. How do we lose punting just twice and committing just 1 turnover. What I am missing?

 

[TheDrifter75]

Edit - one more notable, we punted just twice, SMU punted 5 times. How do we lose punting just twice and committing just 1 turnover. What I am missing?

I'm seeing 3 punts. Also we had 2 turnover on downs. They scored td's where we were attempting fg's. Those fg attempts were the main diff.

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

We made the mistakes that young teams that aren't used to winning make.

Roughing the punter, 14 yard bad snap, blocked punt. Each was more harmful than the last.

Shame, because we looked decent for a couple quarters.

 

[BugsyCT]

Because of our defensive weaknesses, look at the difference in formations & pass pressure between these 2 teams on a 3rd & long. BS is almost always under duress.

 

[TitleTown]

I was out and about today, only able to listen to the first 3qtrs, but did see the tie up and then crash landing in the 4th qtr.

Looking at the stats some things jump out.

• For defense, we allowed 218 rushing yards and 280 receiving yards. From what I saw in the fourth quarter our D really fell apart setting the edge. Totally destroyed by SMU in the running game in Q4. Again, 3-3-5 seems vulnerable to this type of attack.
• Yes, we lost some one on one battles on the pass defense, but Cortland Sutton is a NFL player, so I'm more disappointed in our run defense.
• We had 8 tackles for a loss. Thats a serious improvement....but I dont think we had any such TFLs in Q4 (could be wrong).
• On offense, 408 yards in the air for Sherriffs? Tremendous.
• Sherriffs sacked 8 times today. 8! I dont think its possible to win a game when sacked 8 times.
• There may have been more, I haven't watched the game in full yet, but two WTF moments really hurt our chances, i) the Coney roughing the kicker penalty which lead directly to an SMU TD and ii) the Dan Oak bad snapped which killed the Q4 momentum.

Sherriffs took some shots today. Hopefully he'll be fully ready to play on Friday.

Edit - one more notable, we punted just twice, SMU punted 5 times. How do we lose punting just twice and committing just 1 turnover. What I am missing?

The 3-3-5 is not working for UConn right now simply because they don't have the athletes needed to run it. In order for a 3-3-5 to work the 3 down linemen need to be big enough to effectively control their gaps as well as provide a pass rush. The 2 outside Sam linebackers have to be fast but strong enough to set the edge and the Mike linebacker has to be a tackling machine cleaning up anything from TE to TE. The corners have to be sure tacklers and solid in coverage. The most important position may be the Safeties. The Safety will be called on to do EVERYTHING. He will have to blitz the QB, come up and attack in run support, drop back and play a traditional Safety, as well as pick up a TE or RB and play man to man. The bottom line is that Diaco left this team with virtually nothing. It is going to take them 3-4 years to recruit and coach the right players for this defense. UConn will NEVER be able to recruit the same players the P5 teams get, but the 3-3-5 will allow them to compete with those teams because they have a scheme advantage. It just takes time.

 

[Exit 4]

The 3-3-5 is not working for UConn right now simply because they don't have the athletes needed to run it. In order for a 3-3-5 to work the 3 down linemen need to be big enough to effectively control their gaps as well as provide a pass rush. The 2 outside Sam linebackers have to be fast but strong enough to set the edge and the Mike linebacker has to be a tackling machine cleaning up anything from TE to TE. The corners have to be sure tacklers and solid in coverage. The most important position may be the Safeties. The Safety will be called on to do EVERYTHING. He will have to blitz the QB, come up and attack in run support, drop back and play a traditional Safety, as well as pick up a TE or RB and play man to man. The bottom line is that Diaco left this team with virtually nothing. It is going to take them 3-4 years to recruit and coach the right players for this defense. UConn will NEVER be able to recruit the same players the P5 teams get, but the 3-3-5 will allow them to compete with those teams because they have a scheme advantage. It just takes time.

I'm in the middle. I'm willing to spend the next few years making the transition, but four games in I remain skeptical that no matter how good our LBs and DBs are, in short yardage the 3-3-5 has a distinct disadvantage.

And 3-3-5 by nature should be attractive to recruiting DBs, but conversely I would think its far less attractive to recruiting the Dline. Recruiting thus far for Crocker has supported this hypothesis. Only one Dline recruit last winter and just one landed so far this cycle.

 

[BugsyCT]

 

[BugsyCT]

Found this just posted online. Still ticked at SMU for this. I remember the game was televised locally in CT - you never saw that for UConn football back in the 1-AA days.

 

[uconnphil2016]

We're just really good at being really bad. Even when we win, we're hanging on by a thread and are close to blowing up and ruining things. We have a really hard time with simple execution, and it seems like those things get even harder for us when we meet some kind of success and are in a close game. It'll change. We really do have a culture of losing to overcome

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

We're just really good at being really bad. Even when we win, we're hanging on by a thread and are close to blowing up and ruining things. We have a really hard time with simple execution, and it seems like those things get even harder for us when we meet some kind of success and are in a close game. It'll change. We really do have a culture of losing to overcome

Where’s the replay!? That onside kick went like 6 yards lol