13 to 23. That score will continue to haunt the minds of players and fans this weekend as the Bulls fell to Rutgers on Thursday night on ESPN, dropping to 0-9 all time the big cable station sets up shop in Tampa for USF. The game was an up and down battle that saw so many things happen, a few good, and a lot bad. Let's try to dig deeper into each unit and see what happened out there and what it means for the rest of the season.
Where do we start with this game? The offense struggled to be consistent early in the game. It seemed the play calling was to establish the run game and not take shots or even throw the ball short to get the quick passing going, but it didn't work. The run game totaled just 95 yards for the entire game. Demetris Murray had 9 carries for 27 yards and a touchdown. Lindsey Lamar couldn't get free at all in the game. B.J. Daniels carried it 15 times for 68 yards. So far this season, the run game has been lacking for this team. Murray and Lamar haven't been able to break free and Daniels, with all the scrambling he does, can't escape every defense and continues to take losses in key situations. It is partially the offensive line (3 new starters) and the inability for the backs to find the holes, when there, to get through and get something going. The line, a concern, is also not blocking well in passing situations for Daniels and forces him to run more and breaks down plays faster. It is something that has to get better.
In the passing game, it was probably the most frustrating thing to watch. After racking up big plays in the passing game, Daniels was 15 for 33 for 242 yards and threw 3 interceptions. Now we will get into why Daniels continues to struggle in the pocket, but 2 of the interceptions where deflected passes, one a screen to Murray that went off his hands and another that hit Evan Landi in the red zone and was caught (that one was crippling). The third, on a designed roll out, was just an awful decision by Daniels to make the pass at that stage. Like I said, we will dig deeper into what on earth is going on with Daniels and his field vision later.
Andre Davis had 8 receptions for 84 yards. It seemed he was the only person Daniels was looking at last night (more on this of course). Terrence Michell had 3 receptions for 83 yards. Derrick Hopkins had 3 for 59 yards. Chris Dunkley had 1 for 16 yards. The short passing game wasn't in the playcalling much in this game and instead the team took several deep shots and tried to look underneath the zone coverage, but passes were off and not a lot happened. Even the deep passes were highly contested and came down to one on one battles for the ball.
Overall, it was an ugly game for the offense as they could not get anything going. Was it the tough Rutgers defense? Partially, but face the facts, they are not Alabama on defense, they are Rutgers and it seemed to the casual eye that the team was timid, lacked energy at times and the playcalling was just bad timing.
The defense played well despite being on the field 38 minutes compared to just 21 minutes for our offense. They allowed 147 yards rushing, a troubling sign and 427 yards overall.
Sam Barrington led the way with 9 tackles and 1 tackle for loss. Dede Lattimore had 8 tackles and 1 sack. Kayvon Webster had 7 tackles, but many of those came into the tackle box helping the run game down the field, not the best sign for a corner to have to rush to help the interior defense and make stops. The star of the game was the play of George Baker who had 4 tackles but defended 4 passes, making some big plays deep in one on one situations where he knocked the ball away and saved several scores for this defense. He came up huge.
The defense was tired from last week when Nevada and their pistol scheme ran all over them, but this week, against a team that runs downfield, they were once again gashed. Rutgers seemed to run the stretch play, the off tackle play, a lot against it and each team Jawison, the talented RU running back, was 7 yards down the field before someone played a play. The team failed several times to get stops on 3rd and long and let Rutgers drive down the field against them. The defense allowed the Rutgers receivers to sit underneath the coverage (between the linebackers and safeties) and just wait for the 7 yard gains and keep drives alive.
This was a bad game all around. There are reasons, excuses, but at the end of the day it a loss. While everyone says it's just one game, we have all seen this road and in a 12-game season, one game means something. The team has a lot of work to do before they hit the road next Saturday at Ball State.
Where do we start with this game? The offense struggled to be consistent early in the game. It seemed the play calling was to establish the run game and not take shots or even throw the ball short to get the quick passing going, but it didn't work. The run game totaled just 95 yards for the entire game. Demetris Murray had 9 carries for 27 yards and a touchdown. Lindsey Lamar couldn't get free at all in the game. B.J. Daniels carried it 15 times for 68 yards. So far this season, the run game has been lacking for this team. Murray and Lamar haven't been able to break free and Daniels, with all the scrambling he does, can't escape every defense and continues to take losses in key situations. It is partially the offensive line (3 new starters) and the inability for the backs to find the holes, when there, to get through and get something going. The line, a concern, is also not blocking well in passing situations for Daniels and forces him to run more and breaks down plays faster. It is something that has to get better.
In the passing game, it was probably the most frustrating thing to watch. After racking up big plays in the passing game, Daniels was 15 for 33 for 242 yards and threw 3 interceptions. Now we will get into why Daniels continues to struggle in the pocket, but 2 of the interceptions where deflected passes, one a screen to Murray that went off his hands and another that hit Evan Landi in the red zone and was caught (that one was crippling). The third, on a designed roll out, was just an awful decision by Daniels to make the pass at that stage. Like I said, we will dig deeper into what on earth is going on with Daniels and his field vision later.
Andre Davis had 8 receptions for 84 yards. It seemed he was the only person Daniels was looking at last night (more on this of course). Terrence Michell had 3 receptions for 83 yards. Derrick Hopkins had 3 for 59 yards. Chris Dunkley had 1 for 16 yards. The short passing game wasn't in the playcalling much in this game and instead the team took several deep shots and tried to look underneath the zone coverage, but passes were off and not a lot happened. Even the deep passes were highly contested and came down to one on one battles for the ball.
Overall, it was an ugly game for the offense as they could not get anything going. Was it the tough Rutgers defense? Partially, but face the facts, they are not Alabama on defense, they are Rutgers and it seemed to the casual eye that the team was timid, lacked energy at times and the playcalling was just bad timing.
The defense played well despite being on the field 38 minutes compared to just 21 minutes for our offense. They allowed 147 yards rushing, a troubling sign and 427 yards overall.
Sam Barrington led the way with 9 tackles and 1 tackle for loss. Dede Lattimore had 8 tackles and 1 sack. Kayvon Webster had 7 tackles, but many of those came into the tackle box helping the run game down the field, not the best sign for a corner to have to rush to help the interior defense and make stops. The star of the game was the play of George Baker who had 4 tackles but defended 4 passes, making some big plays deep in one on one situations where he knocked the ball away and saved several scores for this defense. He came up huge.
The defense was tired from last week when Nevada and their pistol scheme ran all over them, but this week, against a team that runs downfield, they were once again gashed. Rutgers seemed to run the stretch play, the off tackle play, a lot against it and each team Jawison, the talented RU running back, was 7 yards down the field before someone played a play. The team failed several times to get stops on 3rd and long and let Rutgers drive down the field against them. The defense allowed the Rutgers receivers to sit underneath the coverage (between the linebackers and safeties) and just wait for the 7 yard gains and keep drives alive.
This was a bad game all around. There are reasons, excuses, but at the end of the day it a loss. While everyone says it's just one game, we have all seen this road and in a 12-game season, one game means something. The team has a lot of work to do before they hit the road next Saturday at Ball State.
Perfect title for this article, the morning after. That's exactly how we feel about last night's performance an unfortunate event that should be aborted.
ReplyDeleteIts beyond obvious that Skip is not the right man for this job. Losing 11 of 15 conference games since being hired, and winning one home conference game in three seasons since taking the job speaks for itself. Its time for a change.
ReplyDelete