With all of the angst about Childers I went back and watched the Ball State game with an eye toward what and who caused drives to end. Spoiler alert: It was everyone, not just Childers. Drops, penalties, protection and play calling all contributed.

Below is a summary of when and how each possession ended. The game times that I note are for the pertinent set of downs within that possession.

First Half
Possession 1, 9:30 1st Quarter
-Drop by Robinson
-Jet sweep by Brown for no gain
-Pressure up the middle, Childers forced to throw it away
-Punt

By the way, Ball State clearly noticed on film that “we” had trouble in protection up the middle against EMU because they brought it repeatedly and with good effect. That needs to get fixed, pronto because you can bet Ohio will do it too.

Possession 2, 7:05 1st Quarter
-Touchdown

Possession 3, 3:15 1st Quarter
-Pass to Tears broken up
-Swing pass for three yards
-Penalty makes it third and 12
-Sack, pressure up the middle
-Punt

Possession 4, 12:34 2nd Quarter
-Touchdown

Possession 5, 4:51 2nd Quarter
-Harbison for three yards
-Bubble screen blown up for loss
-Sack, unimpeded up the middle
-Punt

Possession 6, End of 2nd Quarter
-Ran out the clock

Second Half
Possession 1, start of 3rd Quarter
-Harbison for five yards
-Harbison for three yards
-Childers throws behind Wesley on slant
-Punt

Possession 2, 11:25 3rd Quarter
-Touchdown

Possession 3, 0:24 3rd Quarter
-Jones for five yards
-Sack up the middle untouched to make it third and fifteen
-Jones for one yard (this was from our own 20 yard line so some conservatism was understandable)
-Punt

Possession 4, 10:12 4th Quarter
-Interception, threw late toTucker

Possession 5, 6:45 4th Quarter
-Drop by Tears
-Jones for three yards
-Jones for two yards
-Field goal

Possession 6, 2:14 4th quarter
-Three runs and punt. Harmston missed his block on the third run or they may have picked up the first. That play was pretty well blocked otherwise.

Childers the bad
The only pass that I felt Childers missed badly on was the slant to Wesley to start the second half. Wesley had his man beat and that may have been a TD if Childers hit him in stride.

The two throws Childers would want back are the slant and of course the INT where he threw late to Tucker.

Childers the good
There were also four occasions where Childers made excellent plays to extend drives:
-3:37 first quarter, squeezed one in to Brown to convert 3rd and 8
-12:40 second quarter, scrambled right and found Robinson for ten yards and a first down
-7:54 third quarter, stood in the pocked under pressure and converted 3rd and 12
-7:15 fourth quarter, ran for 18 yards to pick up first down before Gantz field goal

That miss to Wesley on the slant...ugh. I think Wesley even flopped his hands down like, c’mon man. Without having rewatched this game, I still have more blame on Childers than any other position. Yes Robinson dropped the screen, but he is 6’5” and Childers threw it at his knees. It’s things like that about Marcus that drives me crazy.

Grading the offense by position I’d give RBs a B+, o line a B-, WRa C- and Qb a D+. Coaches a C+ for a better game plan but too many penalties.

What makes the offense more difficult all around though is that no opponent has to worry about us beating them deep. That makes both the short passing game and the running game tougher.

(10-07-2018 05:33 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  What makes the offense more difficult all around though is that no opponent has to worry about us beating them deep. That makes both the short passing game and the running game tougher.

+1000

(10-07-2018 05:33 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  What makes the offense more difficult all around though is that no opponent has to worry about us beating them deep. That makes both the short passing game and the running game tougher.

Half the passes are just lateral screens. Any QB should be making those.

(10-07-2018 05:51 PM)epasnoopy Wrote:  

(10-07-2018 05:33 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  What makes the offense more difficult all around though is that no opponent has to worry about us beating them deep. That makes both the short passing game and the running game tougher.

Half the passes are just lateral screens. Any QB should be making those.

That is true. What was his completion % on those?

(10-07-2018 05:36 PM)Djud Wrote:  

(10-07-2018 05:33 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  What makes the offense more difficult all around though is that no opponent has to worry about us beating them deep. That makes both the short passing game and the running game tougher.

+1000

Also agree completely. Without opponents having to worry about us beating them deep I am concerned defenders will sit on and jump the short pass routes. IMO the lack of our ability to stretch the field vertically makes it even more important that we stretch the field horizontally.

NIU1981 thanks for going back and watching the Ball State game and all the work that went into creating the play chart!

You are right; it was not just Childers and there were other issues, most of which should be able to be worked on and improved.

We are not making a change at QB and Childers is what he is - a game manager. I hope he continues his very gradual improvement and would like to see him get to the 250 yards of O per game, like 200 yards passing and 50 yards running or something like that. To me that would get him into the "decent QB" range for our O. I think expecting much more from him is just not realistic.

If Childers can get there and we improve on the other areas of the O we will be fine with our D.

One thing I don't know...was the game plan to play safe and let the short-medium stuff work yesterday because we knew we could move it that way? you really didn't see many (if any?) actual attempts for deep balls, not that we're good at it, but usually there's at least a couple during each game.

The deep shots are not being utilized because Childers can not make those plays. Childers missed 4 wide open receivers against FSU deep and so we've been throwing 10-15 yard ins to DJ which is a nice adjustment to fit what your QB can do and he has been getting open on those.

I'd like to see what others think. To me it seemed like Neil didn't get that much pressure but Ball State fans remarked that Neil was under a lot of pressure. Help me out here.

He was getting decent protection. He missed some open receivers. If he comped the fade consistently we would've been in big trouble.

His guys had some drops as well.

(10-07-2018 06:31 PM)badmoonrising13 Wrote:  The deep shots are not being utilized because Childers can not make those plays. Childers missed 4 wide open receivers against FSU deep and so we've been throwing 10-15 yard ins to DJ which is a nice adjustment to fit what your QB can do and he has been getting open on those.

Which kind of goes along with my main point. It might be enough to win enough games for Carey to keep his job but against good teams it won't work.

(10-07-2018 06:33 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  I'd like to see what others think. To me it seemed like Neil didn't get that much pressure but Ball State fans remarked that Neil was under a lot of pressure. Help me out here.

I thought we put quite a bit of pressure on him (from watching on TV), he did a nice job rolling away from it or hanging tough and getting the ball away while taking a hit.

(10-07-2018 06:55 PM)17Huskies Wrote:  

(10-07-2018 06:33 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  I'd like to see what others think. To me it seemed like Neil didn't get that much pressure but Ball State fans remarked that Neil was under a lot of pressure. Help me out here.

I thought we put quite a bit of pressure on him (from watching on TV), he did a nice job rolling away from it or hanging tough and getting the ball away while taking a hit.

Probably just my niu bias coming through or I'm just used to SS or somebody else getting to the QB quickly and that didn't happen.

Really impressed with how Childers has led NIU to a 3-0 start despite battling against what could be argued as the absolute worst offense mind in FBS in Coach Carey. You would be hard pressed to find one QB in the country that could succeed at NIU right now, that is just where we are at right now. Despite all that, I really have admired Childers' competitiveness and how he has basically willed NIU to wins late, particularly that EMU game. I was reminded of Jordan Lynch for the last part of that game. He was not going to be denied.

(10-07-2018 07:30 PM)MaddDawgz02 Wrote:  Really impressed with how Childers has led NIU to a 3-0 start despite battling against what could be argued as the absolute worst offense mind in FBS in Coach Carey. You would be hard pressed to find one QB in the country that could succeed at NIU right now, that is just where we are at right now. Despite all that, I really have admired Childers' competitiveness and how he has basically willed NIU to wins late, particularly that EMU game. I was reminded of Jordan Lynch for the last part of that game. He was not going to be denied.

We are 3-0 in the MAC because of our D, as well as the RBs and O-line blocking for them. Comparing Childers in any way shape or form to Jordan Lynch is laughable. I am trying to keep positive about Childers as he is what we have and he has made some plays, but he is the worst rated QB in the MAC (QBR of 30.9 v. 85.4 for the Toledo QB) and 124 out of 134 in FBS. JL had a QBR of 70.6 in 2013 with Carey as the HC.
http://www.espn.com/ncf/qbr/_/group/15
http://www.espn.com/ncf/qbr/_/page/3
http://www.espn.com/ncf/qbr/_/year/2013/group/15

(10-07-2018 07:57 PM)NILAW Wrote:  

(10-07-2018 07:30 PM)MaddDawgz02 Wrote:  Really impressed with how Childers has led NIU to a 3-0 start despite battling against what could be argued as the absolute worst offense mind in FBS in Coach Carey. You would be hard pressed to find one QB in the country that could succeed at NIU right now, that is just where we are at right now. Despite all that, I really have admired Childers' competitiveness and how he has basically willed NIU to wins late, particularly that EMU game. I was reminded of Jordan Lynch for the last part of that game. He was not going to be denied.

We are 3-0 in the MAC because of our D, as well as the RBs and O-line blocking for them. Comparing Childers in any way shape or form to Jordan Lynch is laughable. I am trying to keep positive about Childers as he is what we have and he has made some plays, but he is the worst rated QB in the MAC (QBR of 30.9 v. 85.4 for the Toledo QB) and 124 out of 134 in FBS. JL had a QBR of 70.6 in 2013 with Carey as the HC.
http://www.espn.com/ncf/qbr/_/group/15
http://www.espn.com/ncf/qbr/_/page/3
http://www.espn.com/ncf/qbr/_/year/2013/group/15

LOL yea we would have put up 40+ points with Lynch. With Childers our max is 24 points against any defense with a pulse

(10-07-2018 07:57 PM)NILAW Wrote:  

(10-07-2018 07:30 PM)MaddDawgz02 Wrote:  Really impressed with how Childers has led NIU to a 3-0 start despite battling against what could be argued as the absolute worst offense mind in FBS in Coach Carey. You would be hard pressed to find one QB in the country that could succeed at NIU right now, that is just where we are at right now. Despite all that, I really have admired Childers' competitiveness and how he has basically willed NIU to wins late, particularly that EMU game. I was reminded of Jordan Lynch for the last part of that game. He was not going to be denied.

We are 3-0 in the MAC because of our D, as well as the RBs and O-line blocking for them. Comparing Childers in any way shape or form to Jordan Lynch is laughable. I am trying to keep positive about Childers as he is what we have and he has made some plays, but he is the worst rated QB in the MAC (QBR of 30.9 v. 85.4 for the Toledo QB) and 124 out of 134 in FBS. JL had a QBR of 70.6 in 2013 with Carey as the HC.
http://www.espn.com/ncf/qbr/_/group/15
http://www.espn.com/ncf/qbr/_/page/3
http://www.espn.com/ncf/qbr/_/year/2013/group/15

That 3 and 4 is a play I'll remember for awhile at EMU, Childers did not have any open receivers (which is about 80 percent of NIU pass plays), he found a way to escape danger and just found a way to get a first down and keep the drive away. Those numbers you list there are a product of playing in a Rod Carey offense, QB has no chance to put up numbers