Same old, same old . . .
by orlandobruin on Sep 5, 2010 4:47 AM PDT
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PrintI watched the game with friends so I didn't post a lick here yesterday and haven't read any posts or stories about the game yet. I wanted to do my "brain dump" before I got other perspectives. Here it is . . .
Notwithstanding the "revolver" look, not much appears to have changed from last year in this game:
Ineffectiveness in the the red zone: The Bruins continue to have problems getting seven instead of three.
Giving up big plays on the ground: Thomas reminded me of Jahvid Best in the Cal game last year. A handful of huge plays accounting for much of the damage against UCLA. I give the Bruins a pass on the last, meaningless TD as they were looking to stop the first down.
Bad tackling: Hopefully this will improve.
Drive killing penalties: Way too many false starts. I specifically remember 2 in the 1st quarter that changed 2nd and 6 to 2nd and 11, effectively nullifying momentum on good first down plays. Both possessions results in punts.
Dropped Passes: Even the sure handed guys, Embree and Marvray, dropped some easy balls (although Marvray's TD catch was spectacular).
Not stretching the field: Prince didn't throw the ball downfield once until the Harkey and Marvray plays at the end of the game. Whether that is because he showed some rust or by design, the Bruins need to stretch the field.
Conservative defense: Didn't see too many blitzes and it didn't seem like the Bruins were stacking the box on obvious run plays to force Coffman to beat them.
QB play: Prince was inconsistent in his throws, which is not surprising given his limited practice. That should improve as the season goes forward. More troubling to me is that, given the QB's rushing role in the revolver formation, Prince wants to take off and run on passing plays before going through his progressions.
Not taking advantage of mismatches: Big, tall UCLA receivers vs. short KSU DBs. Yet the Bruins never went deep, threw a fade route, or any other pass (with the exception of quick slants) where the Bruins could exploit their size.
I noticed a few other things that, while not necessarily being consistent with our play last year, I have some thoughts about after the jump:
2 Point Conversation: Hated the play call. Hated it. Hated it. First, the Bruins emptied the backfield, which immediately meant KSU didn;t have to worry about a handoff. Then, Prince rolled out, which effectively cut the field in half and greatly limited his options, resulting in him having to try to thread the needle to make a play.
Punt Returns: I love Taylor Embree. But why is
he returning punts? Are guys like Thigpen, Carroll, and Smith having trouble catching the ball? Embree is a possession receiver (so I understand having his surehandedness back there if the Bruins are having trouble fielding the punt). He is not a burner. We need someone back there with some sizzle.
Different game if Kai Forbath is 100% healthy? I know that Kai kicked 3 medium range field goals in the game. But the Bruins punted from the KSU 35 after recovering a KSU fumble in the first quarter. That would have been a 52 yard field goal, well within Forbath's range. I am sure CR
N would have tried to put points on the board if Kai was healthy. Those 3 points could have drastically changed things down the stretch, considering that the Bruins ultimately needed a 2 point conversation for a tie.
Enjoyed seeing some of the freshman play: Barr caught a pass. Malcolm Jones looked very good on getting a handful of carries. Hoping these guys get more involved in the future.
Line play was not a total disaster: Despite the predictions of the end of the world with respect to the offensive line, I though that, in general, they played solid. They should look even better with Harris back next week. Glad to see that we did not appear to sustain any injuries. On the defensive side, I though Holmes played well and I think some of the two deep made some noise in the backfield (#94-Tepa?
- had a sack). I do have some concerns about the run stopping ability but not sure how much of that was Daniel Thomas, not putting 8 in the box, or line play. Again, glad to see that we did not appear to suffer any injuries.
In summary, like last season, the Bruins lost a winnable game. The last few minutes seemed like a replay of the last few minutes of the Oregon State game last year. Typical Bruins to score a TD to cut it to 2 and then not get the 2 point conversation.
I am cautiously optimistic that the coaches and players will keep at it and get these issues ironed out. Hopefully, Stanford, with Luck, will play to the strength of our defense (secondary) rather than rushing it like KSU did. Not sure who Stanford has to replace Gerhart. Bruins have their work cut out for them in the next 3 games.
All right, time to read what you guys said . . .
GO BRUINS!
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.
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Some good thoughts here OB
Thanks for taking the time for doing a constructive “brain dump.” Much appreciated.
I don't love Taylor Embree
in fact I don’t want him lined up as a starter again.
RESCUING DANCE MUSIC FROM THE BLAHS
A few things
1: I disagree that our defense was too conservative. People have been saying we have been “caught in our base defense”, that shouldn’t be a problem, unless we can’t execute. I think that is what happened. As well, we did blitz a fair amount, and ended up with 5(?) sacks.
2: We weren’t always stacking the box, but we were playing run first. Daniel Thomas is really good; that can’t be overstated. I think one problem, though, that really hurt us, is that Sean Westgate got physically overmatched. They were running at him all the time, and he couldn’t get off of blocks. It makes it really hard if one player who has a pretty important role in power run defense is suddenly out of the play.
3: I think an unnoticed factor in this game is how short KState made it. They just ate quarters with their running game. We went 9 for 26, but if passes were caught, and we had more drives, that number would have been higher. We lost the time of possession battle 35:56 to 24:04, and they had about 10 more plays than we did. We were actually fairly effective on offense, gaining 313 yards, and we might have had a few more scoring opportunities with some longer drives (if drops were catches) and with some more plays.
by Captain Leebeard on Sep 5, 2010 12:22 PM PDT reply actions
I think your point number 1 is interesting
Captain … is that something you can elaborate on in an extended post? I am one of those in the camp of not being impressed with Bullough. So I would love to hear more where you are coming from. Thanks in advance.
I was just thinking about this:
“Not stretching the field: Prince didn’t throw the ball downfield once until the Harkey and Marvray plays at the end of the game. Whether that is because he showed some rust or by design, the Bruins need to stretch the field.”
Why didn’t we go long? Only other play I remember that we even threw the ball for longer than 10 yards was the 3rd pass of the first drive where he overthrew the wide receiver near the sideline.
I understand in years past when with Craft and when we had a poor offensive line why we would need to focus our passing game on the 3 step drop and short passes, but why yesterday? If we limit the field of play to 10 yards past the line of scrimmage at most, that makes it much easier on the defense.
Good point.
Especially because the receivers have been getting open long. There was the one to Rosario as well, which he tried to catch with one hand and got the interference call. Another example of successful going long. Maybe Chow was worried about Prince throwing long, so soon?
Go Bruins!
yeah...
my issue at this point is that the more excuses made for Prince, the less I understand why Brehaut didn’t get in the game. If they didn’t trust Prince’s arm strength, that’s another reason to put Brehaut in for a series and look to take advantage of their secondary on the deep ball.
yeah
there was one play in particular where we needed ~10 yards on 3rd down, and threw the ball underneath to a double covered receiver 5 yards down the field (who dropped the pass); summed up a lot of the passing game for me.
We lent long earlier in the game a couple of times
Rosario got three steps on a guy and Prince fed it to him; it was short, which led to a PI call. I think a lot of it had to do with the wind (that ball that Prince fed to Rosario was in the wind, which is why it was short).
We tried a couple of times to go long, and actually had a couple of plays setup. We just didn’t execute in spots.
CNC
uses deep routes to open guys up underneath, and short/medium routes to get guys open deep.
The key of a CNC offense is the QB taking what the defense gives him.
If passes are not thrown downfield, it’s not because a deep route was not called, it’s because the deep route was not available (or not seen).
Some of that may be attributable to KP being hesitant, but he should loosen after another week throwing.
RE: The 2 Point Call
I think the original play didn’t roll Prince out to the right. I believe there were hoping the TE was going to come free in the middle.
When that didn’t happen, Prince rolled out to the right to try and make something out of the play.
I’ll agree that I didn’t like the fact that we emptied the bakcfield on the play. We’d been running well all day – would have been nice for a pistol read there with an option to run, given the amount of yardage we’d gained on the ground all day.
RE: the original play...
That is what Prince says in the Gold interview about the play. That the original routes were covered so they tried to make something happen. Embree got free, but not by enough.
Go Bruins!
While I agree that we shouldn’t have emptied the backfield, I do not have a major problem with the call or Prince rolling out.
Does anyone know the specific NCAA rules on illegal contact and pass interference?
Wiki states:
In the NFL, the defender may make continuous contact with receiver within the first five yards of the line of scrimmage. Anything after that is penalized as illegal contact. Pass interference is called if the defensive player contacts the offensive player while he is trying to catch the pass. Inadvertent contact, though, is not penalized.
In high school and college, the defender may make contact with the receiver as long as the receiver is in front of the defender. These provisions end when the pass is in the air.
It looked like Franklin got pushed in the back. If Franklin was not pushed down, Prince would have likely converted the 2-point conversion. I have to think that this is still considered illegal contact in the NCAA rules, or you could just shove all the receivers down before the passes are thrown.
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