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(10-05-2022 08:57 AM)ODUDrunkard13 Wrote:  

(10-05-2022 08:54 AM)The Flagship Wrote:  

(10-05-2022 08:43 AM)Stat Geek Wrote:  

(10-04-2022 05:08 PM)ODU2017 Wrote:  

(10-04-2022 02:38 PM)Stat Geek Wrote:  I think we are all excited that we finally saw a little bit of offense....and Liberty has a decent defense, but we still only had 415 yards on 80 plays or 5.18 yards per play (Liberty had 7.1).

We have to be better than that on offense, particularly passing. That was the one decent rushing offense we have had.

My big gripe about the offense against the Big L was:

1) receivers not named Jennings made route running mistakes and dropped catchable passes.

2) Kuntz not being available really exposed our lack of capable receiving depth.

WR Peter Kikwata recruited last year was our highest rated recruit ever but I don’t believe he’s seen the field this year. I’d like to see us try him out and see what he can do. At the least, Coastal won’t have any film on him.

There were certainly a couple drops (Spencer comes to mind) but in general, our WRs were having to make hero catches on passes thrown. I'm not sure if they made route running mistakes or not, thats probably not known by any of us.

We had 9 different receivers catch passes. Maybe we suffer from a lack of depth but we have a lot of guys that seem capable but when you have a 1-2 like Jennings/Kuntz that are significantly better than the rest (and 2 of the best in the conference), they are going to get the majority of looks.

Kikwata had a big 20 yard catch in the game. I woudn't expect much from true freshman WRs though, it is a difficult position to adjust to college football. We have a couple good freshman that will be developing this year that may get more time by the end of the year or be more of a focus next year.

What does not having film on Kikwata mean? The outside WRs generally run the same route tree.

The one benefit of having so much attention put on 0 and 80 is that the defense's weaker defenders are covering the other receivers. Now that we are solidly in the G5 portion of our schedule, it will be interesting to see if we can take advantage of any significant drop-off of secondary talent within any of the defenses.

Javon Harvey was pretty darn good against Liberty. 7 targets, 7 catches for 64 yards.

And that was without Kuntz for all but 3 plays.

Yes. But I wonder who LU thought was the second best threat after Jennings. Probably focused on the TEs or Bly. But that is the sort of thing we may see going forward.

BTW, thrilled for Harvey. His drop vs. ECU was bad. Hoping the LU game will boost his confidence.

(10-05-2022 08:54 AM)The Flagship Wrote:  

(10-05-2022 08:43 AM)Stat Geek Wrote:  

(10-04-2022 05:08 PM)ODU2017 Wrote:  

(10-04-2022 02:38 PM)Stat Geek Wrote:  I think we are all excited that we finally saw a little bit of offense....and Liberty has a decent defense, but we still only had 415 yards on 80 plays or 5.18 yards per play (Liberty had 7.1).

We have to be better than that on offense, particularly passing. That was the one decent rushing offense we have had.

My big gripe about the offense against the Big L was:

1) receivers not named Jennings made route running mistakes and dropped catchable passes.

2) Kuntz not being available really exposed our lack of capable receiving depth.

WR Peter Kikwata recruited last year was our highest rated recruit ever but I don’t believe he’s seen the field this year. I’d like to see us try him out and see what he can do. At the least, Coastal won’t have any film on him.

There were certainly a couple drops (Spencer comes to mind) but in general, our WRs were having to make hero catches on passes thrown. I'm not sure if they made route running mistakes or not, thats probably not known by any of us.

We had 9 different receivers catch passes. Maybe we suffer from a lack of depth but we have a lot of guys that seem capable but when you have a 1-2 like Jennings/Kuntz that are significantly better than the rest (and 2 of the best in the conference), they are going to get the majority of looks.

Kikwata had a big 20 yard catch in the game. I woudn't expect much from true freshman WRs though, it is a difficult position to adjust to college football. We have a couple good freshman that will be developing this year that may get more time by the end of the year or be more of a focus next year.

What does not having film on Kikwata mean? The outside WRs generally run the same route tree.

The one benefit of having so much attention put on 0 and 80 is that the defense's weaker defenders are covering the other receivers. Now that we are solidly in the G5 portion of our schedule, it will be interesting to see if we can take advantage of any significant drop-off of secondary talent within any of the defenses.

Thats possible but I think we also saw more of a jump from Jennings when we played weaker teams. So it may be harder for weaker teams to focus so much attention on 1 or 2 players.

People make some good points about Harvey, he had an outstanding game and probably benefited in some respect from Kuntz being out.

(10-05-2022 09:06 AM)The Flagship Wrote:  

(10-05-2022 08:57 AM)ODUDrunkard13 Wrote:  

(10-05-2022 08:54 AM)The Flagship Wrote:  

(10-05-2022 08:43 AM)Stat Geek Wrote:  

(10-04-2022 05:08 PM)ODU2017 Wrote:  My big gripe about the offense against the Big L was:

1) receivers not named Jennings made route running mistakes and dropped catchable passes.

2) Kuntz not being available really exposed our lack of capable receiving depth.

WR Peter Kikwata recruited last year was our highest rated recruit ever but I don’t believe he’s seen the field this year. I’d like to see us try him out and see what he can do. At the least, Coastal won’t have any film on him.

There were certainly a couple drops (Spencer comes to mind) but in general, our WRs were having to make hero catches on passes thrown. I'm not sure if they made route running mistakes or not, thats probably not known by any of us.

We had 9 different receivers catch passes. Maybe we suffer from a lack of depth but we have a lot of guys that seem capable but when you have a 1-2 like Jennings/Kuntz that are significantly better than the rest (and 2 of the best in the conference), they are going to get the majority of looks.

Kikwata had a big 20 yard catch in the game. I woudn't expect much from true freshman WRs though, it is a difficult position to adjust to college football. We have a couple good freshman that will be developing this year that may get more time by the end of the year or be more of a focus next year.

What does not having film on Kikwata mean? The outside WRs generally run the same route tree.

The one benefit of having so much attention put on 0 and 80 is that the defense's weaker defenders are covering the other receivers. Now that we are solidly in the G5 portion of our schedule, it will be interesting to see if we can take advantage of any significant drop-off of secondary talent within any of the defenses.

Javon Harvey was pretty darn good against Liberty. 7 targets, 7 catches for 64 yards.

And that was without Kuntz for all but 3 plays.

Yes. But I wonder who LU thought was the second best threat after Jennings. Probably focused on the TEs or Bly. But that is the sort of thing we may see going forward.

BTW, thrilled for Harvey. His drop vs. ECU was bad. Hoping the LU game will boost his confidence.

Most of the time Liberty shaded a safety over to Jennings. When they didn't, Jennings ate them alive.

Im not sure if just 1 guy is going to step up to be honest. Last game it was Harvey, next game could be Bly, Paige, Kikwaka, Harvey, Bell, Granger...or Kuntz, if healthy

Opportunity!

(10-05-2022 11:29 AM)Stat Geek Wrote:  

(10-05-2022 09:06 AM)The Flagship Wrote:  

(10-05-2022 08:57 AM)ODUDrunkard13 Wrote:  

(10-05-2022 08:54 AM)The Flagship Wrote:  

(10-05-2022 08:43 AM)Stat Geek Wrote:  There were certainly a couple drops (Spencer comes to mind) but in general, our WRs were having to make hero catches on passes thrown. I'm not sure if they made route running mistakes or not, thats probably not known by any of us.

We had 9 different receivers catch passes. Maybe we suffer from a lack of depth but we have a lot of guys that seem capable but when you have a 1-2 like Jennings/Kuntz that are significantly better than the rest (and 2 of the best in the conference), they are going to get the majority of looks.

Kikwata had a big 20 yard catch in the game. I woudn't expect much from true freshman WRs though, it is a difficult position to adjust to college football. We have a couple good freshman that will be developing this year that may get more time by the end of the year or be more of a focus next year.

What does not having film on Kikwata mean? The outside WRs generally run the same route tree.

The one benefit of having so much attention put on 0 and 80 is that the defense's weaker defenders are covering the other receivers. Now that we are solidly in the G5 portion of our schedule, it will be interesting to see if we can take advantage of any significant drop-off of secondary talent within any of the defenses.

Javon Harvey was pretty darn good against Liberty. 7 targets, 7 catches for 64 yards.

And that was without Kuntz for all but 3 plays.

Yes. But I wonder who LU thought was the second best threat after Jennings. Probably focused on the TEs or Bly. But that is the sort of thing we may see going forward.

BTW, thrilled for Harvey. His drop vs. ECU was bad. Hoping the LU game will boost his confidence.

Most of the time Liberty shaded a safety over to Jennings. When they didn't, Jennings ate them alive.

Im not sure if just 1 guy is going to step up to be honest. Last game it was Harvey, next game could be Bly, Paige, Kikwaka, Harvey, Bell, Granger...or Kuntz, if healthy

UVA, on our final drive, did not shade the safety over to Jennings and Kuntz. They relied on their best defenders to go one on one. That's how big of a drop-off they probably felt they had with the other defenders vs. our unproven WR's on the other side. I'm thinking the remaining schedule will have either similar drop-offs or the top defenders will not be as good as UVA's top defenders. Either way, a 4 wide set with only 1 safety should be able to be exploited if the line can provide enough time.

For those expecting a drop off in opponent talent, I seriously think ECU and LU are better than VT and UVA this year. I also expect that App and CCU probably are as well. Marshall and JMU might be too. It’s not getting much easier, if at all.

(10-05-2022 12:16 PM)monarx Wrote:  For those expecting a drop off in opponent talent, I seriously think ECU and LU are better than VT and UVA this year. I also expect that App and CCU probably are as well. Marshall and JMU might be too. It’s not getting much easier, if at all.

In the secondary? I doubt it. Now the defensive schemes might be better as the teams have better game film to prepare from and their defenses have more experience as the season goes on. But I doubt that the individual players in the secondary will be better.

Here are how the defenses rank in F +/-

JMU- 29
VT- 38
Marshall- 40
Liberty- 50
ECU- 71
Georgia State- 78
UVA- 83
Coastal- 88
Georgia Southern- 110
Ark State- 118
App State- 66
South Alabama-35

EPA/Play:
Marshall- 8
Liberty - 10
VT- 11
UVA-16
Georgia Sate- 37
ECU- 42
Coastal- 50
App State- 90
Ark State- 120
Georgia Southern- 121
South Alabama- 32
JMU (Not Listed)

2 different metrics that measure different things with vastly different results. These can also move fairly quickly.

Having said that, we have clearly faced some good defenses to this point, outside of Arkansas State. I suspect JMU is probably not quite as good as their metrics are currently but I think them, South Alabama and Marshall can be listed as *difficult defenses remaining. Worst case, not significantly better than Liberty/UVA/VT. Georgia State, Georgia Southern, App State, Coastal don't have great defenses.

FWIW, we got screwed having to play South Alabama this year out of the other division.

(10-05-2022 09:03 AM)ODUi Wrote:  Harvey also caught the 4th & 22 conversion that was erased by a holding penalty.

That was such a deflating play. Yeeeessssss.. no..

Some deals on tickets

Have to admit I don’t feel optimistic about this game. Guessing we’ll be 10-14 pt underdogs. Playing at uva and ecu were easier tests. But I hope and believe our men will rise to the challenge. This is a program statement game for us in the SBC. And, of course, when we kick the pukes’ arse in our house (hopefully undefeated and ranked).

Is Coastal the team people expected or the team that has played the first 5 games?

F +/-- 54
EPA/Play- 47