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(01-12-2022 01:53 PM)Cataclysmo Wrote:  

(01-12-2022 12:47 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(01-12-2022 12:33 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  Biggest game of the...well ever...and we had the least imaginative play calling possible. Made zero sense.

I mean, to some extent I understand where they are coming from...get a TO or two, hope you make something happen on offense and it's a close game while limiting the best offense in the country to fewer possessions. Unfortunately, the defensive conservatism bled over to the offense, and it just stuck up the whole building by the end of the day. Really though, if we recover that muffed punt, it's a 4 point game with us getting the ball at the half...I doubt any of us would've complained being in that situation, and that's exactly what they were going for by keeping the game in front of them. I'm more upset about the offense than the defense...I'd rather take the million cuts (allowing Bama to run) than the MG40 (allowing Bryce Young to pass) and hope you can find a medic to patch up the wounds (offense does anything). There is also no telling if have 4 guys at the line would've done anything...our 1's were clearly outmatched down there, so throwing another guy out there who isn't even up to that level may have done nothing but limit the amount of second level tacklers.

Bryce Young threw a bad pick at the 50 with about 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. He had the yips bad at that point in the game.

On offense, we proceeded to have a penalty called for illegal formation and then couldn't dig out of the hole. Story of the entire day.

For sure...there were two pivot points. If we get a TD there is it 17-13 heading into the 4th Quarter. If we get that muffed punt we either get 3 or 7 and it's 10-6 or 10-10 at the half with us getting the ball. If we're in it like that at either of those two points, it isn't a 21 point game at the very least.

I'd add the 44-yard deep ball with 1:30 in the first half with the score still 10-3. It was their biggest EPA of the day and changed what felt like a budding dogfight into what instead felt like a budding blowout. We did well to come out from halftime and regain momentum though.

(01-12-2022 01:59 PM)Cataclysmo Wrote:  I'd add the 44-yard deep ball with 1:30 in the first half with the score still 10-3. It was their biggest EPA of the day and changed what felt like a budding dogfight into what instead felt like a budding blowout. We did well to come out from halftime and regain momentum though.

That likely wouldn't have been there if they recover the muffed punt.

(01-12-2022 02:45 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(01-12-2022 01:59 PM)Cataclysmo Wrote:  I'd add the 44-yard deep ball with 1:30 in the first half with the score still 10-3. It was their biggest EPA of the day and changed what felt like a budding dogfight into what instead felt like a budding blowout. We did well to come out from halftime and regain momentum though.

That likely wouldn't have been there if they recover the muffed punt.

Slight change of topics..I love having Aussie ruggers as punters. All string bean 6’8” of him dove into that scrum like there was free beer after the match down there. He came off the field smiling with his fingers an inch a part saying “I was that ******* close” over and over.

(01-12-2022 03:14 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  

(01-12-2022 02:45 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(01-12-2022 01:59 PM)Cataclysmo Wrote:  I'd add the 44-yard deep ball with 1:30 in the first half with the score still 10-3. It was their biggest EPA of the day and changed what felt like a budding dogfight into what instead felt like a budding blowout. We did well to come out from halftime and regain momentum though.

That likely wouldn't have been there if they recover the muffed punt.

Slight change of topics..I love having Aussie ruggers as punters. All string bean 6’8” of him dove into that scrum like there was free beer after the match down there. He came off the field smiling with his fingers an inch a part saying “I was that ******* close” over and over.

100% that was awesome

Apparently Fletcher's dad is like an aussie rules football legend. Every time I see a tweet about him there's a bunch of random aussie fans posting about his dad in the replies lol.

(01-12-2022 01:10 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  They didn't sack us on early downs and in short yardage because we were running one and three step drops for short passes...every time we got sacked, hurried, or disruptively pressured was in those scenarios where we needed 5 or 7 step drops (something that would be required for deep/long developing pass plays). Bama really wasn't blitzing at all, because they didn't need to and they knew it.

I get what you're saying, but "blitzing" isn't what I'm talking about. Bama may not have sent extra guys on passing downs, but they were far more relentless in how their line pressured. Watch the game on early downs. Bama isn't even trying to get to Ridder a lot of plays (except Will Anderson). They are disciplined about being in the right position. They knew UC was running those short passes and were playing to get push and then get their hands up. They also didn't want to be out of position on runs and give Ford a huge play. UC actually ran it well with Ford (5.1 per carry), but Bama prevented Ford from having true explosive plays with their early down discipline. I just think there were downfield plays to be made early downs because of Bama's gameplan. Georgia was under a lot of pressure on passing downs but was smart enough to take their shots. We didn't. (I agree I'd have liked to stretch the horizontally as well, but I think the vertical chunk attempts was the big miss)

(01-12-2022 03:15 PM)natibeast2.0 Wrote:  

(01-12-2022 03:14 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  

(01-12-2022 02:45 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(01-12-2022 01:59 PM)Cataclysmo Wrote:  I'd add the 44-yard deep ball with 1:30 in the first half with the score still 10-3. It was their biggest EPA of the day and changed what felt like a budding dogfight into what instead felt like a budding blowout. We did well to come out from halftime and regain momentum though.

That likely wouldn't have been there if they recover the muffed punt.

Slight change of topics..I love having Aussie ruggers as punters. All string bean 6’8” of him dove into that scrum like there was free beer after the match down there. He came off the field smiling with his fingers an inch a part saying “I was that ******* close” over and over.

100% that was awesome

I think over there they call them "WIREYYYY"

(01-12-2022 11:45 AM)RealDeal Wrote:  

(01-12-2022 09:47 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Yes, I think that's the way to go...the bigger issue to me is the fact that we ran a 4-4 against Navy the last time we played them and basically ground them to a halt, but thought we could get away with a 3-3 this year and almost got nipped for it. I don't care if we're 3-3 stack, 4-3, 4-2-5, etc...my biggest issue is that we ran base so damn much and just relied on the talent gap that there was almost nothing new to scheme against for most teams in the later half of the year. We need to be more multiple now in order to keep teams off balance, seeing as how our talent gap on defense vs. most of our opponents' offenses is no longer anywhere near as large.

I think it's more of an implementation issue than an alignment. Everyone's base defense is some sort of nickel yet even when we were getting plowed in the run game vs Tulsa and Bama we didn't bring safety's up into the box. How the front 6 breaks down doesn't really matter to me; if you're not willing to bring 7 and 8 into the box occasionally. You could go 5-1-5 and it doesn't really matter if the back 5 are all staying back. I listened to Joel Klatt on Ryen Rusillo's podcast and he was very critical of Fickell being willing to sit back and die a slow death without making them testing the corners.

i listened to that pod as well and was nodding my head in agreement. Some are phrasing it as playing not to lose. Honestly, i would phrase it as playing not to get blown out. i have my qualms with that but whatever my qualms, we closed the season as the #4 team in both the AP and the Coaches poll. i don't know if that happens if we take chances and, likely, get our doors blown off for the non-zero chance of winning. Coach Fickell is building something. While i wish we emptied the chamber, results be damned, i can't argue with #4 in the nation.

That was UC’s defense all season. Thought everyone here understood this. They take away big plays and concede small 4ish yard chunks forcing you to convert 3rd downs all the way down the field. The belief being somewhere across the length of the field either the offense makes a mistake or one of our players makes a play. It gives up yards but is stingy with points. Bama was able to take bigger chunks and recover from some mistakes better than most our opponents but the scheme still did its job, 17 points into the 4th quarter despite our offense not giving them time to breath.

Same reason defense struggled to get off the field later in the year against weaker opponents who had nothing to lose so they simply ran right into it taking the allowed chunks and then repeatedly going for it on 4th down. THOSE were the games we really needed to put more men in the box. Teams that attacked us downfield played right into our strength which is why Saban brought a primarily running strategy.

This game was won by bamas dline. We couldn’t slow their edge rush. Too bad Hudson left a year early..

Updated

Offense
QB:
1ab) Evan Prater/Ben Bryant
2ab) Brady Lichtenberg/Luther Richesson

RB:
1abc) Ethan Wright/Charles McClelland/Ryan Montgomery
2ab) Myles Montgomery/Stephan Byrd

WR:
1a) Nick Mardner
2ab) Drew Donley/Blue Smith

WR 2:
1ab) Tyler Scott/Jadon Thompson
2a) Chris Scott

Slot WR:
1a) Tre Tucker
2a) Will Pauling

TE:
1ab) Josh Whyle/Leonard Taylor
2ab) Payton Singletary/Chamon Metayer

RT:
1a) Dylan O'Quinn
2a) Cam Jones

RG:
1a) Lorenz Metz
2ab) Mao Glynn/Landon Fickell

C:
1a) Jake Renfro
2a) Gavin Gerhardt

LG:
1a) Jeremy Cooper
2a) Colin Woodside

LT:
1a) James Tunstall
2a) John Williams


Defense
CB:
1a) Arquon Bush
2a) Todd Bumphis

CB:
1a) Jaquan Sheppard
2ab) Sammy Anderson/JQ Hardaway

S:
1a) Bryon Threats
2ab) Jacob Dingle/Isiah Cox

S:
1a) Javon Hicks
2ab) Armorion Smith/Will Adams

N:
1ab) Justin Harris/Taj Ward

WILL:
1a) Jaheim Thomas
2a) Cam Junior

MIKE:
1ab) Ivan Pace/Wilson Huber
2a) Devin Hightower

SAM:
1ab) Deshawn Pace/Ty Van Fossen

DE:
1ab) Iziah Ruffin/Robert Jackson
2a) ?

DT:
1a/b) Jabari Taylor/Eric Phillips
2ab) Justin Wodtly/Dontay Corleone

DE:
1ab) Malik Vann/Jowon Briggs
2a) ?


Special Teams:
K:
1a) Ryan Coe

P:
1a) Mason Fletcher

KR:
1a) Tre Tucker

PR:
1a) Ryan Montgomery

FWIW:

Is there a reason we care about a Penn State running back transferring to LSU?

(01-14-2022 12:59 AM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  Is there a reason we care about a Penn State running back transferring to LSU?

I think there are hopes that we could lure Corey Kiner out of Roger Bacon ‘21 and now LSU. He had offers from basically everywhere and Kelly wasn’t able to get him to ND.

https://247sports.com/Player/Corey-Kiner-46050095/

He seems all in on LSU though based on his Twitter and I don’t believe he is in the transfer portal though.

We certainly wouldn't turn down a best in class type running back but I like our returning players and if the offensive line continues to improve the ceiling is high for the rushing attack in '22.

(01-14-2022 09:25 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  We certainly wouldn't turn down a best in class type running back but I like our returning players and if the offensive line continues to improve the ceiling is high for the rushing attack in '22.

If Prater wins the job we're going to get a ton more rushing yards from QB too. I think Des' high game was like 60 yards. With Prater's athleticism I could see him averaging that over 12 starts.

(01-14-2022 09:31 AM)RealDeal Wrote:  

(01-14-2022 09:25 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  We certainly wouldn't turn down a best in class type running back but I like our returning players and if the offensive line continues to improve the ceiling is high for the rushing attack in '22.

If Prater wins the job we're going to get a ton more rushing yards from QB too. I think Des' high game was like 60 yards. With Prater's athleticism I could see him averaging that over 12 starts.

I think there is an interesting wrinkle there with Prater...it stands to reason that they'd run him more due to the inconsistency with passing, but his frame is SO slight, that they'd have to worry about injury while doing it.

(01-14-2022 09:50 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  I think there is an interesting wrinkle there with Prater...it stands to reason that they'd run him more due to the inconsistency with passing, but his frame is SO slight, that they'd have to worry about injury while doing it.

I think frame is overrated. Some QBs are good at avoiding the big hits. Lamar Jackson isn't huge and hasn't been injured much. He got hurt this year on a passing play; not a designed run. I'm not saying that we run QB power 10 times a game but I think we can incorporate more QB run game without endangering the QB.

Heck we ran Des a lot more when he was smaller than when he developed a frame that you would think could handle more.

(01-14-2022 01:21 PM)eroc Wrote:  

I have more than a few pages of scout and hours of film on Brady from his high school days...I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see him be a successful college QB. He always seemed to have a little less arm strength on the deep balls (lots of floaters on the sidelines deep), but if that is working itself out I think his floor is for Prater what Bryant was for Ridder.