UMD Thoughts

[B1GEast]

Honestly, to me it's Ground Hog Day. I hope that Merrimack is not a repeat of Holy Cross a few years back after the loss a Fresno State.

Something's got to give.

 

[AllHusky]

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.

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!

Track coaches have been doing that for years.

 

[ZOOCONN]

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,

Honestly the team speed did not look bad but I will say, size wise we did look smaller… I was surprised how slender Evers looked in person

 

[ZOOCONN]

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... )

I believe somewhere I saw MD had almost 250 after contact

 

[Tdaley]

Maryland linebackers were big and very fast. We have some fast linebackers ( Faumunina- Brown ) and some beefy linebackers ( McDonald ) but none that beefy and fast on the same level as Maryland. I think that has a lot to do with our missed tackles and yards after the missed tackle. Of course this has nothing to do with Maryland's touchdown after our only touchdown that took one play. Brinson and Fauunina-Brown both whiffed on their tackle attempts and the Maryland player ran 80 yards for the touchdown.

 

[ScottVib]

Tackling is atrocious across (college) football, it's better for athlete safety, but the lack of contact and live tackling in practices, coupled with terrible teaching of fundamentals setting bad habits and the absence of practice time to fix it after that's settled in.

 

[gopher2]

Tackling is atrocious across (college) football, it's better for athlete safety, but the lack of contact and live tackling in practices, coupled with terrible teaching of fundamentals setting bad habits and the absence of practice time to fix it after that's settled in.

I agree that tackling has fallen off across the board but it just seems that ours is a whole other level of bad. Hopefully it gets better this week and continues to improve throughout the season.

 

[RSTuthill]

Tackling is a friggin' physics problem. Guessing it is the most challenging aspect of the game.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Tackling is a friggin' physics problem. Guessing it is the most challenging aspect of the game.

It's a friggin' "want to" problem. Run tacling drills: two players 7 yds apart between 3 foot wide corridor between blocking dummies. Two trains running into each other at top speed. And run this drill every day for long sessions. Smash or be smashed. Guessing they need a refresher in tackling.

 

[uconnfan68]

Tackling is a friggin' physics problem. Guessing it is the most challenging aspect of the game.

Now you're making seem like rocket science... no wonder we can't do it!

 

[cttxus]

It's a friggin' "want to" problem. Run tacling drills: two players 7 yds apart between 3 foot wide corridor between blocking dummies. Two trains running into each other at top speed. And run this drill every day for long sessions. Smash or be smashed. Guessing they need a refresher in tackling.

That was known as the suicide drill on my HS team. We did it every practice. Did not like it, as I was a skinny, 2nd string DB. Another one was known as the kahuna drill. DBs lined up 7 yds apart from ends/RBs running towards each other, looking at coach who threw a jump ball between us. Did not like that one either. Both had me looking forward to the games.

 

[Patman]

Honestly the team speed did not look bad but I will say, size wise we did look smaller… I was surprised how slender Evers looked in person

Our wr core weren't clearly open but in the past we've been outclassed by g5 players. This is why I have some hope about things.

 

[jdb50]

Watched most of the BC game and their secondary tackled very well. It was a big reason they did not lose their lead. We should have a board in our locker room showing where each position group is ranked nationally in regards to missed tackles. There needs to be way more accountability for this long running problem.

 

[AllHusky]

Accountability. A culture of accountability. Did you or didn’t you. Too much talk about what and who we do and don’t have.

 

[UCan3]

One thing I take solace in is that this game no matter how bad it was - it was only 1 game. Even if we had pulled massive upset - it’s onto the next game.

I agree with missed tackles (#15 worst in that category) and poor play calling.

On the bright side I though our OL did a good job against a massive DL to protect QB.

What the offense didn’t do well was hold blocks - looked terrible blocking. We can’t run the ball if the RBs don’t have a path to run the ball.

The receivers also dropped a lot of balls. If a ball is a foot off the mark, yes if you’re open you need to catch that ball for the QB.

I think the fundamentals were lacking last Sat and these are one of the only parts of the game that are within your control - D-

I do think as much as I didn’t think I would say this - Start Fagnano -the dude looks comfortable in the pocket. Please give Welliver some snaps. Save Nick for games 3/4 and let this QB situation sort itself out.

 

[Bongo Fury]

Thought the backs looked good running the ball early. Maybe went more passing because they fell behind? Gotta make catches.

 

[RSTuthill]

I do think as much as I didn’t think I would say this - Start Fagnano -the dude looks comfortable in the pocket. Please give Welliver some snaps. Save Nick for games 3/4 and let this QB situation sort itself out.

Please. Save Nick? This is exactly the kind of game he should use to shake the cobwebs out. I say play all three although I recognize that if they want to sharpen Nick up he will likely get almost all of the snaps. What he needs right now is game snaps, pure and simple. Some miles under the belt so the game slows down for him and an extra option is considered before each decision.

 

[huskidork]

I was physically hurt by the offensive play calling, I swear I saw like 7 roll out passes in a row

 

[Tdaley]

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!

Looked like we were doing the same thing with Brown when he Brinson whiffed on tackle that lead to a Maryland touchdown!

 

[VAHuskyFan]

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 think a good OC gives you the biggest bang for your buck in college football. We saw with Lashlee how a competent and innovative OC can take an offense from listless to dynamic in a single season. And how quickly that same offense will regress once the play-calling reverts back to being stale and predictable.

But it’s like UConn learned nothing at all from that experience.

If there’s been one relative constant in UConn’s decade-plus of futility, it’s been our string of below-replacement-level OCs (Lashlee excluded). We just insist on this 1980s run-first, short-pass offense that requires guys to execute 20 plays in a row to generate a score. Sure, each individual play is “low risk,” but the point is to actually score - a distinction that every other college program seems to have grasped, but that continuously eludes our OCs.

Not going to get on our OC too much because it’s his first time doing a job he has absolutely no experience with. But it’s an institutional failure to put a guy like that in charge of playcalling. How does that even happen? Who thought that was a better idea than hiring someone who’s actually done the job successfully before?

 

[Patman]

man, lashlee, if we could have held onto that guy forever...

 

[TouchdownHusky]

That was known as the suicide drill on my HS team. We did it every practice. Did not like it, as I was a skinny, 2nd string DB. Another one was known as the kahuna drill. DBs lined up 7 yds apart from ends/RBs running towards each other, looking at coach who threw a jump ball between us. Did not like that one either. Both had me looking forward to the games.

That's what I'm talking about. Two locomotives running in opposite direction down a 3 foot alley. Number to number contact, smash or be smashed football. "Only the strong survive".

 

[Nostical]

Track coaches have been doing that for years.

My track coach kept things simple. Before each meet he’d gather us together and say. “Don’t forget to stretch in the blocks, breathe deep, then stay to the left and get back as quick as you can.“