UMD Thoughts

[ZOOCONN]

After driving 2.5 hours from home to attend my first game in almost 7 years I am left disappointed.... I was a season ticket holder for many years before moving to the mid-Atlantic. After driving home, seeing my wife off to her night shift at the hospital and watching todays broadcast I have some thoughts.

First and foremost, Tackling. My goodness, as many have pointed out it was terrible; after watching a few plays I whipped out the pen and paper and had to keep track because it was egregious.
There were 63 plays on defense where a tackle was attempted, of those 63 plays 25 times a DB "attempted" a tackle where there was zero effort to breakdown and wrap up the ball carrier, think a scud missile, just launching themselves with little to no effectiveness. By far and away the highest count of the position groups (DL 1, LB 2). The biggest offenders? #3 Brinson who did it 10 times and Wright, who prior to being ejected with 2:30 left in the first half, had been guilty of the same action 5 times. I'm not sure what's going on in the DB room but that needs to be addressed asap. On the opposite side of that was when our players actually wrapped up and tackled the ball carrier, LB lead the way with 22 tackles, DL with 19 and DB with 12. The one play where this poor tackling was in the spotlight was the 49 yard rushing TD where Brinson and Wright both had the ball carrier in front of them and both chose that questionable tackling technique resulting in bouncing off the RB and him taking it to the house for 6. I do wanna give a shout out to a few guys who seemed to have great games on defense, firstly Dal'mont Gourdine had a great game, great motor, tremendous form on tackling, consistently making plays for the defense. Next Jayden Mcdonald always seemed to be in on the play and showed the ability to make in game adjustments keying on plays to put himself in a good position to make the stop and finally Cam Chadwick, Great pose for a freshman, put himself in a position to almost secure an interception and also showed good tackling ability that others in the DB room could learn from.

After tackling another big bone of contention was the offensive play calling. I'll be the first to admit by the time the game was coming to a close I found myself yelling at Sammis on the sideline asking what the hell he was doing down there. After watching the broadcast, I found myself asking the same question. Zone read left, Zone read right, short to midrange pass with varying results. Zero creativity in the play calling and no "creativity" isn't a flea flicker Gordon..... our play makers on offense are Cam Edwards and Skyler Bell. They need to be the focal point of the offense with supporting cast mixed in, leaning on these two will also take the pressure of Evers who is still very green, but I'll touch more on that in a min. There were long stretches of the game where Cam was not involved in the offense at all. Another point I'd like to make sitting right behind the UConn bench Skyler Bell is a leader on this team, he was the only guy on the team that seemed to give damn about how poorly the offense was performing.

Next the offensive line needs to play better, while on passing plays they weren't necessarily bad (qbs were under pressure mult times) the run blocking is where I want improvement. I know our entire interior line is new, but my complaint isn't cohesion which will take time. Its effort, I cant say how many times on a run play someone on the OL didn't hold their block for long and their blocking assignment either made a TFL or kept the run to a minimal gain. That has nothing to do with playing together or missed assignments that is just straight effort. Sustain your blocks and give the ball carriers a chance to make a move and get positive yardage, Ryan Reynolds said it best, "maximum effort!"

Finally, QB play, after watching the QBs warm up in person, Welliver appears to have the best arm talent by a comfortable margin. Followed by Evers with Fagnano and Mcdonald bringing up the rear. Evers is green, that I think is obvious. From my perspective he lacks confidence in not necessarily his ability but maybe in his grasp of the offense. If he is healthy next week, I think you stick with him as his floor might not be as high as Fagnano, but his ceiling is exponentially higher. Fagnano is exactly what we thought he was. He is a SR with much more game experience than the rest of the QB room and that shows. He appears to command the offense which on its face might seem good, but he is just too inconsistent. Some of his throws are great and some leave you wondering if he is in desperate need of Lasik.....

Next week will be the new start of the season, show the fanbase that this team is worth rooting for. Give us more effort than what was shown today and go out AT HOME and bury Merrimack.

 

[History Geek]

Yes they have to bury Merrimack. Based on what I saw yesterday (both us and Merrimack) idk if that is going to happen. As always, I forever hopeful. But this feels just like the Sunday after the Fresno St debacle, which was followed by the Holy Cross debacle. Heavy sigh.

 

[geordi]

Merrimack may well be a key moment in the season. After getting hammered by Maryland yesterday, I checked on Merrimack's day. They only lost to Air Force by 21-6. It appeared to be a pretty close game (at least by our standards) throughout. Air Force went 10-3 last year, so they should have been no pushover. Air Force was ranked (Sagarin) 46 last year. It may be a long season after watching yesterday.

 

[Go Dogs!!]

After driving 2.5 hours from home to attend my first game in almost 7 years I am left disappointed.... I was a season ticket holder for many years before moving to the mid-Atlantic. After driving home, seeing my wife off to her night shift at the hospital and watching todays broadcast I have some thoughts.

First and foremost, Tackling. My goodness, as many have pointed out it was terrible; after watching a few plays I whipped out the pen and paper and had to keep track because it was egregious.
There were 63 plays on defense where a tackle was attempted, of those 63 plays 25 times a DB "attempted" a tackle where there was zero effort to breakdown and wrap up the ball carrier, think a scud missile, just launching themselves with little to no effectiveness. By far and away the highest count of the position groups (DL 1, LB 2). The biggest offenders? #3 Brinson who did it 10 times and Wright, who prior to being ejected with 2:30 left in the first half, had been guilty of the same action 5 times. I'm not sure what's going on in the DB room but that needs to be addressed asap. On the opposite side of that was when our players actually wrapped up and tackled the ball carrier, LB lead the way with 22 tackles, DL with 19 and DB with 12. The one play where this poor tackling was in the spotlight was the 49 yard rushing TD where Brinson and Wright both had the ball carrier in front of them and both chose that questionable tackling technique resulting in bouncing off the RB and him taking it to the house for 6. I do wanna give a shout out to a few guys who seemed to have great games on defense, firstly Dal'mont Gourdine had a great game, great motor, tremendous form on tackling, consistently making plays for the defense. Next Jayden Mcdonald always seemed to be in on the play and showed the ability to make in game adjustments keying on plays to put himself in a good position to make the stop and finally Cam Chadwick, Great pose for a freshman, put himself in a position to almost secure an interception and also showed good tackling ability that others in the DB room could learn from.

After tackling another big bone of contention was the offensive play calling. I'll be the first to admit by the time the game was coming to a close I found myself yelling at Sammis on the sideline asking what the hell he was doing down there. After watching the broadcast, I found myself asking the same question. Zone read left, Zone read right, short to midrange pass with varying results. Zero creativity in the play calling and no "creativity" isn't a flea flicker Gordon..... our play makers on offense are Cam Edwards and Skyler Bell. They need to be the focal point of the offense with supporting cast mixed in, leaning on these two will also take the pressure of Evers who is still very green, but I'll touch more on that in a min. There were long stretches of the game where Cam was not involved in the offense at all. Another point I'd like to make sitting right behind the UConn bench Skyler Bell is a leader on this team, he was the only guy on the team that seemed to give damn about how poorly the offense was performing.

Next the offensive line needs to play better, while on passing plays they weren't necessarily bad (qbs were under pressure mult times) the run blocking is where I want improvement. I know our entire interior line is new, but my complaint isn't cohesion which will take time. Its effort, I cant say how many times on a run play someone on the OL didn't hold their block for long and their blocking assignment either made a TFL or kept the run to a minimal gain. That has nothing to do with playing together or missed assignments that is just straight effort. Sustain your blocks and give the ball carriers a chance to make a move and get positive yardage, Ryan Reynolds said it best, "maximum effort!"

Finally, QB play, after watching the QBs warm up in person, Welliver appears to have the best arm talent by a comfortable margin. Followed by Evers with Fagnano and Mcdonald bringing up the rear. Evers is green, that I think is obvious. From my perspective he lacks confidence in not necessarily his ability but maybe in his grasp of the offense. If he is healthy next week, I think you stick with him as his floor might not be as high as Fagnano, but his ceiling is exponentially higher. Fagnano is exactly what we thought he was. He is a SR with much more game experience than the rest of the QB room and that shows. He appears to command the offense which on its face might seem good, but he is just too inconsistent. Some of his throws are great and some leave you wondering if he is in desperate need of Lasik.....

Next week will be the new start of the season, show the fanbase that this team is worth rooting for. Give us more effort than what was shown today and go out AT HOME and bury Merrimack.

Awesome Job! Tackling was horrible yesterday, it amazes me how other teams don't seem to have the problem. I agree with you on the offensive line also, they need to keep blocking til they hear the whistle blow. The stop way to soon, and it makes it impossible for the backs to get in the hole and get some yardage. They need to have get mean and be a big ugly man. I know it was the first game so hopefully the film work will highlight the problems.

 

[RSTuthill]

Tackling deficiency has been a hallmark of Mora's teams but also going back to at least 2014. So a decade at least. Is this a calculation by the coaching staff that practices with real tackling rather than drills is too much of a risk. Are there rules about how much full contact can be engaged in during the week? Because, once identified as a deficiency I don't think we have EVER seen it improve. There is something structural standing in the way of improvement. I would like to see a rigorous root cause analysis done.

 

[cttxus]

After driving 2.5 hours from home to attend my first game in almost 7 years I am left disappointed.... I was a season ticket holder for many years before moving to the mid-Atlantic. After driving home, seeing my wife off to her night shift at the hospital and watching todays broadcast I have some thoughts.

First and foremost, Tackling. My goodness, as many have pointed out it was terrible; after watching a few plays I whipped out the pen and paper and had to keep track because it was egregious.
There were 63 plays on defense where a tackle was attempted, of those 63 plays 25 times a DB "attempted" a tackle where there was zero effort to breakdown and wrap up the ball carrier, think a scud missile, just launching themselves with little to no effectiveness. By far and away the highest count of the position groups (DL 1, LB 2). The biggest offenders? #3 Brinson who did it 10 times and Wright, who prior to being ejected with 2:30 left in the first half, had been guilty of the same action 5 times. I'm not sure what's going on in the DB room but that needs to be addressed asap. On the opposite side of that was when our players actually wrapped up and tackled the ball carrier, LB lead the way with 22 tackles, DL with 19 and DB with 12. The one play where this poor tackling was in the spotlight was the 49 yard rushing TD where Brinson and Wright both had the ball carrier in front of them and both chose that questionable tackling technique resulting in bouncing off the RB and him taking it to the house for 6. I do wanna give a shout out to a few guys who seemed to have great games on defense, firstly Dal'mont Gourdine had a great game, great motor, tremendous form on tackling, consistently making plays for the defense. Next Jayden Mcdonald always seemed to be in on the play and showed the ability to make in game adjustments keying on plays to put himself in a good position to make the stop and finally Cam Chadwick, Great pose for a freshman, put himself in a position to almost secure an interception and also showed good tackling ability that others in the DB room could learn from.

After tackling another big bone of contention was the offensive play calling. I'll be the first to admit by the time the game was coming to a close I found myself yelling at Sammis on the sideline asking what the hell he was doing down there. After watching the broadcast, I found myself asking the same question. Zone read left, Zone read right, short to midrange pass with varying results. Zero creativity in the play calling and no "creativity" isn't a flea flicker Gordon..... our play makers on offense are Cam Edwards and Skyler Bell. They need to be the focal point of the offense with supporting cast mixed in, leaning on these two will also take the pressure of Evers who is still very green, but I'll touch more on that in a min. There were long stretches of the game where Cam was not involved in the offense at all. Another point I'd like to make sitting right behind the UConn bench Skyler Bell is a leader on this team, he was the only guy on the team that seemed to give damn about how poorly the offense was performing.

Next the offensive line needs to play better, while on passing plays they weren't necessarily bad (qbs were under pressure mult times) the run blocking is where I want improvement. I know our entire interior line is new, but my complaint isn't cohesion which will take time. Its effort, I cant say how many times on a run play someone on the OL didn't hold their block for long and their blocking assignment either made a TFL or kept the run to a minimal gain. That has nothing to do with playing together or missed assignments that is just straight effort. Sustain your blocks and give the ball carriers a chance to make a move and get positive yardage, Ryan Reynolds said it best, "maximum effort!"

Finally, QB play, after watching the QBs warm up in person, Welliver appears to have the best arm talent by a comfortable margin. Followed by Evers with Fagnano and Mcdonald bringing up the rear. Evers is green, that I think is obvious. From my perspective he lacks confidence in not necessarily his ability but maybe in his grasp of the offense. If he is healthy next week, I think you stick with him as his floor might not be as high as Fagnano, but his ceiling is exponentially higher. Fagnano is exactly what we thought he was. He is a SR with much more game experience than the rest of the QB room and that shows. He appears to command the offense which on its face might seem good, but he is just too inconsistent. Some of his throws are great and some leave you wondering if he is in desperate need of Lasik.....

Next week will be the new start of the season, show the fanbase that this team is worth rooting for. Give us more effort than what was shown today and go out AT HOME and bury Merrimack.

Great post. All the same takeaways I had watching on TV. Hopefully, some of the most glaring issues can be fixed with the right kind of focus and "motivation". Literally, start with basic blocking and tackling. Bringing in someone like Malzone for some OC lessons wouldn't be a bad idea either.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Awesome Job! Tackling was horrible yesterday, it amazes me how other teams don't seem to have the problem. I agree with you on the offensive line also, they need to keep blocking til they hear the whistle blow. The stop way to soon, and it makes it impossible for the backs to get in the hole and get some yardage. They need to have get mean and be a big ugly man. I know it was the first game so hopefully the film work will highlight the problems.

I guarantee if Mora immediately yanked the culprit (a poor tackle attempt of which we see plenty) in front of the entire stadium, the problem begins to go away. Make the player sit on a designated section of the bench for the rest of game. Problem will get solved. The desired goal of tackling is to blow up the ball carrier, not to strip the ball or trip him up without much contact.

 

[noeynox]

At some point, everything about UConn football can't be about hoping total unknowns work out. We paid NIL to a transfer college QB that had thrown exactly 1 incomplete pass in college. How is that any different than bringing in a true freshman and rolling the dice with him? Yeah, he's older, probably more mature, but in terms of how he would perform when it matters, you had less than zero to go on.

You also promote an OL coach who has never called plays to OC. So from a team that has struggled to score points for years, you go with a 1st time OC and pair him up with a QB seeing his 1st real action and the results the 1st game were nothing short of disastrous.

I hope going forward you can get a guy like the kid who played for New Mexico State that went Vanderbilt to play QB, if your gonna be paying. If not, just go with a high school kid. Its 1 game and things can get better, but that sorta sucked the life out of everyone to start the season.

 

[ShakyTheMohel]

After driving 2.5 hours from home to attend my first game in almost 7 years I am left disappointed.... I was a season ticket holder for many years before moving to the mid-Atlantic. After driving home, seeing my wife off to her night shift at the hospital and watching todays broadcast I have some thoughts.

First and foremost, Tackling. My goodness, as many have pointed out it was terrible; after watching a few plays I whipped out the pen and paper and had to keep track because it was egregious.
There were 63 plays on defense where a tackle was attempted, of those 63 plays 25 times a DB "attempted" a tackle where there was zero effort to breakdown and wrap up the ball carrier, think a scud missile, just launching themselves with little to no effectiveness. By far and away the highest count of the position groups (DL 1, LB 2). The biggest offenders? #3 Brinson who did it 10 times and Wright, who prior to being ejected with 2:30 left in the first half, had been guilty of the same action 5 times. I'm not sure what's going on in the DB room but that needs to be addressed asap. On the opposite side of that was when our players actually wrapped up and tackled the ball carrier, LB lead the way with 22 tackles, DL with 19 and DB with 12. The one play where this poor tackling was in the spotlight was the 49 yard rushing TD where Brinson and Wright both had the ball carrier in front of them and both chose that questionable tackling technique resulting in bouncing off the RB and him taking it to the house for 6. I do wanna give a shout out to a few guys who seemed to have great games on defense, firstly Dal'mont Gourdine had a great game, great motor, tremendous form on tackling, consistently making plays for the defense. Next Jayden Mcdonald always seemed to be in on the play and showed the ability to make in game adjustments keying on plays to put himself in a good position to make the stop and finally Cam Chadwick, Great pose for a freshman, put himself in a position to almost secure an interception and also showed good tackling ability that others in the DB room could learn from.

After tackling another big bone of contention was the offensive play calling. I'll be the first to admit by the time the game was coming to a close I found myself yelling at Sammis on the sideline asking what the hell he was doing down there. After watching the broadcast, I found myself asking the same question. Zone read left, Zone read right, short to midrange pass with varying results. Zero creativity in the play calling and no "creativity" isn't a flea flicker Gordon..... our play makers on offense are Cam Edwards and Skyler Bell. They need to be the focal point of the offense with supporting cast mixed in, leaning on these two will also take the pressure of Evers who is still very green, but I'll touch more on that in a min. There were long stretches of the game where Cam was not involved in the offense at all. Another point I'd like to make sitting right behind the UConn bench Skyler Bell is a leader on this team, he was the only guy on the team that seemed to give damn about how poorly the offense was performing.

Next the offensive line needs to play better, while on passing plays they weren't necessarily bad (qbs were under pressure mult times) the run blocking is where I want improvement. I know our entire interior line is new, but my complaint isn't cohesion which will take time. Its effort, I cant say how many times on a run play someone on the OL didn't hold their block for long and their blocking assignment either made a TFL or kept the run to a minimal gain. That has nothing to do with playing together or missed assignments that is just straight effort. Sustain your blocks and give the ball carriers a chance to make a move and get positive yardage, Ryan Reynolds said it best, "maximum effort!"

Finally, QB play, after watching the QBs warm up in person, Welliver appears to have the best arm talent by a comfortable margin. Followed by Evers with Fagnano and Mcdonald bringing up the rear. Evers is green, that I think is obvious. From my perspective he lacks confidence in not necessarily his ability but maybe in his grasp of the offense. If he is healthy next week, I think you stick with him as his floor might not be as high as Fagnano, but his ceiling is exponentially higher. Fagnano is exactly what we thought he was. He is a SR with much more game experience than the rest of the QB room and that shows. He appears to command the offense which on its face might seem good, but he is just too inconsistent. Some of his throws are great and some leave you wondering if he is in desperate need of Lasik.....

Next week will be the new start of the season, show the fanbase that this team is worth rooting for. Give us more effort than what was shown today and go out AT HOME and bury Merrimack.

great summary…thanks for putting this together.

Question….in person….how did UConn‘s speed look versus Md? On TV..I thought UConn looked fairly equivalent from a speed perspective…but I was curious how it looked in person,

 

[ScottVib]

Keep in mind to get a high school kid recruited at the level of Evers it would’ve taken NIL. He was a 4-star ESPN 300 recruit.. with three years of eligibility remaining… you can argue about whether a freshman might be the better choice but you’re spending NIL dollars no matter what, particularly to attract them to UConn given the current situation.

 

[noeynox]

Keep in mind to get a high school kid recruited at the level of Evers it would’ve taken NIL. He was a 4-star ESPN 300 recruit.. with three years of eligibility remaining… you can argue about whether a freshman might be the better choice but you’re spending NIL dollars no matter what, particularly to attract them to UConn given the current situation.

True, but if you're gonna try and pay for a transfer, try to at least get someone with SOME game film. Otherwise, you can roll with a kid like Welliver. Redshirts are mostly a thing of the past because of the portal.

 

[ZooCougar]

 

[cttxus]

Keep in mind to get a high school kid recruited at the level of Evers it would’ve taken NIL. He was a 4-star ESPN 300 recruit.. with three years of eligibility remaining… you can argue about whether a freshman might be the better choice but you’re spending NIL dollars no matter what, particularly to attract them to UConn given the current situation.

FWIW, Cole was 4-star ESPN recruit as well. An interesting factoid; Cole and Nick both played HS football in Flower Mound, TX, which has two separate high schools. I think they may have played against each other in 2021 when Nick was a senior at Flower Mound HS and Cole was about to transfer in as a sophomore at Marcus HS in Flower Mound before Cole transferred to Liberty Christian under Jason Whitten. Regardless, there may still be a tiny bit of rivalry there.

Another fun fact, Quinn Ewers was our QB at Southlake Carroll HS at the same time Nick was getting more varsity reps at Flower Mound HS in 2020. The fact UConn scored both Nick and Cole from the DFW area is actually pretty incredible, and I think that speaks to JM's rep as much as anything else. I trust he will figure things out this year as best he can.

 

[RSTuthill]

Tackling deficiency has been a hallmark of Mora's teams but also going back to at least 2014. So a decade at least. Is this a calculation by the coaching staff that practices with real tackling rather than drills is too much of a risk. Are there rules about how much full contact can be engaged in during the week? Because, once identified as a deficiency I don't think we have EVER seen it improve. There is something structural standing in the way of improvement. I would like to see a rigorous root cause analysis done.

And I should add one thing. I do not remember this being a problem in 2010 or the 2.5 years after under HCPP.

 

[RSTuthill]

Someone said on the other thread that UConn should have called more rushing plays. The total rushing attempts were 30, total rushing yards 88, for an average of 2.9 per carry. That is an indictment of the OL.

Passing attempts were 33 of which only 14 were completed for a total of 222 yards and an average of 6.7 yards per attempt. I wasn't there, did not watch it on TV and listened to only 30 seconds on the radio during which UConn was intercepted. Had I been the OC I might have overweighted the passing attempts which might have helped the run game.

I don't see any problem with the rushing to passing ratio. UConn just stunk on the ground. Had they been able to establish the run, the passing game would have racked up bigger numbers too.

 

[Bomber36]

Merrimack may well be a key moment in the season. After getting hammered by Maryland yesterday, I checked on Merrimack's day. They only lost to Air Force by 21-6. It appeared to be a pretty close game (at least by our standards) throughout. Air Force went 10-3 last year, so they should have been no pushover. Air Force was ranked (Sagarin) 46 last year. It may be a long season after watching yesterday.

Air Force makes our passing game look competent. Their running game was not great either. I’m not particularly worried about next week. We probably won’t win 56-7, but I can see us putting up some points and keeping MC off the scoreboard for the most part.The other thing I noticed was that of the 2 QBs who played for MC, neither one was a very accurate passer. I will say I thought MC hit hard and tackled well. Just my 2 cents. Prediction…I’d say 35-10 UConn With the MC TD coming late in the game.

 

[JohnFSilver]

Someone said on the other thread that UConn should have called more rushing plays. The total rushing attempts were 30, total rushing yards 88, for an average of 2.9 per carry. That is an indictment of the OL.

Passing attempts were 33 of which only 14 were completed for a total of 222 yards and an average of 6.7 yards per attempt. I wasn't there, did not watch it on TV and listened to only 30 seconds on the radio during which UConn was intercepted. Had I been the OC I might have overweighted the passing attempts which might have helped the run game.

I don't see any problem with the rushing to passing ratio. UConn just stunk on the ground. Had they been able to establish the run, the passing game would have racked up bigger numbers too.

They got rear end kicked. Totally outmanned.

Maryland is a middle of pack big ten team, and the gap between that and other g5 conferences and teams is only accelerating.

 

[JohnFSilver]

Yes they have to bury Merrimack. Based on what I saw yesterday (both us and Merrimack) idk if that is going to happen. As always, I forever hopeful. But this feels just like the Sunday after the Fresno St debacle, which was followed by the Holy Cross debacle. Heavy sigh.

First off, win the game. Second off, whatever the spread is cover it.

 

[SwingDog]

I guarantee if Mora immediately yanked the culprit (a poor tackle attempt of which we see plenty) in front of the entire stadium, the problem begins to go away. Make the player sit on a designated section of the bench for the rest of game. Problem will get solved. The desired goal of tackling is to blow up the ball carrier, not to strip the ball or trip him up without much contact.

Locksley, Maryland's HC, said they have tablets on the sidelines and when a player makes a bad play they "rub their face in it" by showing them then and there where they messed up rather than waiting to watch film on Monday. I think that's not a bad idea!

 

[RSTuthill]

Gotta think that if UConn gained 222 in the air against UMD they could double that against MC. And if they are gaining 444 in the air, they should be able to gain 250 on the ground. Under normal circumstances that should spell a W. But the D is a big worry. That game against URI a decade ago comes to mind.

 

[Windham4th]

I picked a great day to travel. Could only watch bits and pieces.

Tackling issues are going to be our Achilles heel for a long time.

I wonder if anyone tracked how many additional yards were gained after the first missed tackle of each play. (Based on others posts, it is a safe bet to assume there was at least one on each play... )