To start, a few chronological notes throughout the course of the game:
We were probably a little too conservative; too many sideline throws and screens and not much of anything in the middle where we could run after the catch.
I mentioned his before but we really beefed up our action away from the play to influence second and third level reaction. This will open up creases for big plays and it’s a welcome nuance. Not sure if this is McElwain or Hamilton but it’s a welcomed attention to detail that we didn’t really develop last year.
I thought Patterson played well. He’s a good player and I liked how we used him by moving the pocket.
Ruiz struggled a little bit. He wasn’t bad, but I expected more from him. I don’t want to blow this out of proportion because he certainly didn’t hurt us, but he missed a couple blocks that I would expect one of our better lineman to make.
I like our G’s...a lot. I can see where Mike probably drives the coaches crazy because he has been prone to mental lapses here and there (conditioning issue?), but they were both good in this game against a really solid front.
JBB was fine. He missed a couple blocks, one on the Higdon run that would’ve popped, but he was otherwise okay against what’s probably the second best front we’re going to face.
Runyan has to be better. In some ways he was worse than it looked because he was really out of control at times where nothing bad actually happened. Wasn’t pretty and he looked over his head. His alleged athleticism didn’t show in protection, he didn’t slide or keep his feet. He drifted between being okay and actually hurting us. This is one spot that needs to be better.
If ND had lost that game their fans would be talking about how terrible their T are. Gary and Winovich dominated their offense. The fact that we trailed by 2 scores all game took away from the fact that our edge rushers dominated them. But games against good teams come down to slim margins and a jump-ball-prayer-answered-TD and another TD drive extended twice by third down penalties were the difference. We play them again and I like our chances.
Last point...I really like this group. We’re early in development but I think it’s going to come together. We need to be more aggressive offensively by attacking chunk plays and Patterson probably needs to get more comfortable and decisive.
This doesn’t look to be the same mishmash group we saw last year. A big part of any teams season is small improvements along the way; last years little problems early on never got better so there’s certainly no guarantee that this team will figure it out, but I’m encouraged.
It’s funny because both MSU and PSU were 20 + point home favorites and actually trailed inside of 3 minutes. We now point to those games as likely losses because we lost by a TD on the road to what I think is a top 10 team. I think we’ll know what we are by the middle of October; if our problems are mitigated and we refine our attack I think all the preseason goals are achievable. The ceiling is unchanged. Hopefully we start to see the seeds of improvement manifest during the weakest phase of our schedule.
- First series OL very physical, big Mike getting a nice push in the interior.
- Nice WR screen to Nico; OL pulls away from the play to suck LB pursuit away from the play. This is a new wrinkle that we see throughout the game where we expend a lot of energy and motion on the backside to slow down second and third level pursuit. I like the change.
- On 2nd & 2 on the first possession Gentry can’t hook Hayes on the edge and Bredeson goes inside of him to hunt a LB and can’t get to him. This results in Higdon being pushed out of bounds for no gain. First, Gentry needs to make that block, but Bredeson can’t go inside of him like that. As soon as he cut inside of Gentry he was so far out of position that he was no use to Higdon.
- On the next play on a 3rd & 2 interior OL moving DL but both T were beaten inside.’
- On the second drive Patterson overthrows Collins deep down the right hash while under pressure. Comminication issues between Ruiz and Onwenu as they’re split by DT who forces an early throw. It looks like Ruiz thinks he has help to his right so he lets the DT go but Mike is shading out JBB and has no chance to get back once he sees the DT. Ruiz ends up chasing the DT into the backfield but I’m guessing Mike screwed thus up. Patterson had Evans open for an easy first down against a LB if he’d had time
- Two things on the sack that ended the 2nd drive and took them out of FG range: 1 - Runyan way overcommits inside on the stunt and can’t get back out. This is where I had hopes for Runyan; I thought his supposed athleticism would keep him out of trouble on plays like this where he’s quick and agile enough to get himself out of trouble. Not the case on this play. He was on roller skates vs a routine stunt. 2 - if Patterson steps UP rather than try to leave the pocket he has Evans open for an easy 1st. Patterson faded to his left right into the stunt but the rest of the OL does a nice job, so if he stays in the pocket Runyan getting beat wouldn’t matter as much because the DE would’ve ended up going deep around Patterson.
- On the third possession Mike misses on a LB in the second level but Higdon makes him miss.
- On 1st & goal Ruiz is late getting to a LB who pursues inside out and brings Higdon down at the 2. Well blocked play where Higdon could’ve scored if Ruiz could cut off the MLB’s pursuit.
- Runyan beat on 2nd & goal prevents Patterson from stepping up in the pocket and Patterson’s sacked at the 10. In some ways it looks worse than it was because JBB’s man came around the edge and brought pressure, but forcing his man deep on this play shouldn’t be a problem because the ball should be out pretty quickly. Biggest problem is that Runyan completely loses leverage on his defender and he brings pressure right into Patterson’s face. Now Patterson can’t step up or leave the pocket. He may have had Gentry in the middle of the field but either way he should’ve had the awareness to throw the ball into the second row.
- On ND’s 3rd TD drive Wimbush steeped out of bounds at the 11 1/2 yard line on 3rd & 7. What should have been 4th & almost 2 turned into 4th & inches after the ball was spotted just outside the 10. ND went for it rather than kicking the FG
- First half drive chart: 6 plays 22 yards, 10 plays 47 yards, 11 plays 31 yards. We lost a possession due to the Thomas return TD but no 3 & outs against that D is impressive.
- Not sure what happened on the delay of game after halftime. From the moment the officials blew the whistle on the touchback to the time we were flagged, 41 seconds elapsed. The next time ND kicked off (after their FG) 39 seconds elapsed between the touchback and UM snapping the ball, but on that play there was still 7 seconds left on the play clock. So it looks to me like they lost about 5 seconds the first time. I’m not sure what the rule is but I thought you have 25 seconds after the ball is spotted but it doesn’t look like the officials were consistent with when the play clock started after change of possesssions.
- Patterson was pressured on the first possession of the second half where a DE was left unblocked with play action fake Shea’s only cover. It didn’t look good as Shea was trying to roll left but needed the DE to suck inside a little on thr fake, but the kid did his job and stayed home and that prevented Patterson from getting outside. I’m seeing more of this kind of stuff where we’re relying heavily on deception to get the defense to help us. Didn’t work on this play.
- Great call to run WR screen out of empty set. Anytime ND saw empty they brought pressure. It was a possible TD if the ball isn’t batted at the line. Runyan probably needs to go low on the DE to keep him down. He’s in a tough spot because he’s got to get out and make a block outside on the screen but they’ve got to figure out a way to keep that DE on the ground or else he’s going to knock that ball down consistently.
- We ran two run plays out of a tight set where McKeon was in the backfield offset in the T/TE gap with DPJ on the outside hip of the in-line TE. On both plays DPJ was supposed to crack back and set the edge on a S. Both times he didn’t get it done. DPJ’s big enough to make that block but couldn’t get it done either time. The first play was inside ND’s 10 in the first half where Higdon took on 2 LB’s in the hole and picked up a first down on the FG drive. The second time we ran out of that set was immediately after the INT. We lost 4 yards because DPJ whiffs and can’t set an edge.
- Next play Higdon runs right into a stunt that should’ve gashed ND. JBB’s DE ducks inside, which is the direction Juwan actually wants him to go. If he just lets him go inside and then crushes him down Higdon would’ve been on the loose. Action on the outside caused the MLB to vacate the middle of the field and there was a huge lane for Higdon. Unfortunately the DE slid off JBB’s block and made the tackle. Bad play by JBB. Not a tough assignment as ND did everything we wanted them to do but we failed to execute.
- Runyan was then beaten on 3rd down where he loses leverage and Shea has to dump it off to Eubanks. Ugly series.
- 1st play next series Evans cuts it back when there was all kinds of room outside to the left. He picked up 2 yards when it could’ve been much more if he’d have stuck to the design. OL did a nice job.
- On the 3rd down option Shea should’ve kept and may have gotten the first down. ND didn’t respect the QB and he could’ve made them pay. Making things worse Big Mike stepped the wrong way and his DT was there to take away Evans cutback lane. This play looked bad but if Shea had just been a willing runner he may get the first down.
- On the next possession Gentry was beaten by LB in pass protection and almost had Shea killed. He actually avoided the sack and scrambled for 8 yards.
- Higdon blows pass pro on next play leading to INT. Mistakes are starting to pile up. Higdon’s in position to at the very least slow the DT down but he can’t get the job done and pressure comes right in Patterson’s face forcing an early throw and an INT.
- ND next possession they were stopped short on 3rd down but the ball was incorrectly spotted and ND was given a 1st down. No review.
- While McCaffrey was in the game, Runyan was tied into a pretzel on a spin move but since McCaffrey got no depth on his drop the defends spun right into his face. Could’ve gotten thr ball out but he took his eyes down and tucked the ball instead.
We were probably a little too conservative; too many sideline throws and screens and not much of anything in the middle where we could run after the catch.
I mentioned his before but we really beefed up our action away from the play to influence second and third level reaction. This will open up creases for big plays and it’s a welcome nuance. Not sure if this is McElwain or Hamilton but it’s a welcomed attention to detail that we didn’t really develop last year.
I thought Patterson played well. He’s a good player and I liked how we used him by moving the pocket.
Ruiz struggled a little bit. He wasn’t bad, but I expected more from him. I don’t want to blow this out of proportion because he certainly didn’t hurt us, but he missed a couple blocks that I would expect one of our better lineman to make.
I like our G’s...a lot. I can see where Mike probably drives the coaches crazy because he has been prone to mental lapses here and there (conditioning issue?), but they were both good in this game against a really solid front.
JBB was fine. He missed a couple blocks, one on the Higdon run that would’ve popped, but he was otherwise okay against what’s probably the second best front we’re going to face.
Runyan has to be better. In some ways he was worse than it looked because he was really out of control at times where nothing bad actually happened. Wasn’t pretty and he looked over his head. His alleged athleticism didn’t show in protection, he didn’t slide or keep his feet. He drifted between being okay and actually hurting us. This is one spot that needs to be better.
If ND had lost that game their fans would be talking about how terrible their T are. Gary and Winovich dominated their offense. The fact that we trailed by 2 scores all game took away from the fact that our edge rushers dominated them. But games against good teams come down to slim margins and a jump-ball-prayer-answered-TD and another TD drive extended twice by third down penalties were the difference. We play them again and I like our chances.
Last point...I really like this group. We’re early in development but I think it’s going to come together. We need to be more aggressive offensively by attacking chunk plays and Patterson probably needs to get more comfortable and decisive.
This doesn’t look to be the same mishmash group we saw last year. A big part of any teams season is small improvements along the way; last years little problems early on never got better so there’s certainly no guarantee that this team will figure it out, but I’m encouraged.
It’s funny because both MSU and PSU were 20 + point home favorites and actually trailed inside of 3 minutes. We now point to those games as likely losses because we lost by a TD on the road to what I think is a top 10 team. I think we’ll know what we are by the middle of October; if our problems are mitigated and we refine our attack I think all the preseason goals are achievable. The ceiling is unchanged. Hopefully we start to see the seeds of improvement manifest during the weakest phase of our schedule.
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