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Week 1, Western Michigan


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My thoughts:

 

Coaching - no improvement over last year

OL - Young, high potential. My only fear is that is a close description to what we have had for our OL's for the last six years

Tackling - poor, never hit and drove the ball-carrier back. They in turn always fell forward

Play Calling - improved

Special teams - sucked, the tradition continues

Defense - small LB's, no penetration from the DL, not aggressive

QB - Has the tools except for decision making. That is the one quality that is more inate than taught which limits his potential and future. Too many bad decisions.

Secondary - bad, corners burnt regularly, no help from safeties

Season Outlook - We only have five more weeks and I don't see a quick improvement. 0-6 is a real possibility.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Blue & Gold said:

Thank you.

 

LT: Gray (R-Fr.)

LG: Beckman (R-Fr.)

C : Petersen (Senior)

RG: Daniels (R-Fr.)

RT: Murphy (R-Fr)

 

And we should remember that none of them use/lose a year of eligibility this season.

How are we going to win with 4 red shirt freshman on the line.  In 2 years, they should be dynamite, but not this year.  they did get pushed around a lot.

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3 hours ago, John Ward said:

Seems like there were an awful lot of new faces out there tonight. Looked like a lot of injured players. Thought we had a bunch of new RBs.I only saw 1 . Where the rest? Whats wrong with Kato?

 

Oh, Oh, I know. 

His only really good game was (I think his first) against Ohio about a lifetime ago.

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5 hours ago, John Ward said:

Seems like there were an awful lot of new faces out there tonight. Looked like a lot of injured players. Thought we had a bunch of new RBs.I only saw 1 . Where the rest? Whats wrong with Kato?

During the game, the announcer said that Kato is not yet recovered from off season surgery.  He should be ready in a couple of weeks.  Will need to determine if he is the best option.  

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My observations.

The bad:

1. Cant stop the run on D.  If you can't stop the run, does anything else matter?  

2. No disruption behind the LOS.  Love Bubba and Reggie, but their lack of size is an issue.  More blitzing?  We need to sell out to stop the run.  After that we can worry about the DB's.

3. Riley getting beat deep again.  Happens a lot.  Just keep your man in front of you and make them dink&dunk down the field if necessary.

4. Punting is still an issue.  This should not be the case for a D1 team.

5. Gibson threw a few head-scratcher passes.

6. OL is too young to win with this year.

7. After 13 games our coaching staff has yet to make an impactful halftime adjustment.  It may be that we're simply out-manned on the field.  Idk.  But no way our D should be giving up 58.  Announcer said WMU's OL were all 5th year seniors, so maybe WMU will show that they do indeed have an elite OL.  We'll see.

 

The good:

1. Offense looks better overall.  Quite better, IMHO.  A bad play last night was a 1-2 yard gain, as where a bad play last year (and there were a ton) was a 5-yard TFL in the backfield.

2. Gibson looks good.  We can win with Gibson.  He'll get better as he's still only a R-Fr.  Unless Kato's taken a major leap, I'm thinking his days as starter are over.

3. Our new RB's - Dollard & Boogie - are much better than we had last season.  Major improvement.  (Gest must have COVID-19.)

4. Mathison is a primetime WR.  

5. Our OL is going to be amazing... in another 1-2 years. Lol.  They performed better last night than last year's OL.  I'm anxious to watch them develop.

 

 

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Last year, with the transition, I expected nothing.  That's exactly what I got.

 

This year, I expect reasonable improvement.  That would entail a couple of wins.  I don't think the team I saw last night is capable of a couple of wins.  I get that they looked better in some aspects of the game, but............58-13.   Disappointing.

Edited by clarkwgriswold
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9 minutes ago, clarkwgriswold said:

Last year, with the transition, I expected nothing.  That's exactly what I got.

 

This year, I expect reasonable improvement.  That would entail a couple of wins.  I don't think the team I saw last night is capable of a couple of wins.  I get to that they looked better in some aspects of the game, but............58-13.   Disappointing.

I just can't believe we couldn't stop the run at all.  Nothing else will matter or fall into place if we can't stop the run on D.  We did enough on offense to win the game (though we did throw a pick-6).  But with our complete inability to stop the run last night we could've had Trevor Lawrence and Clemson's offense and we still would have lost.

 

Simply gotta sell out to stop it & make them beat you passing the ball.

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Perspective is important. If we still had UMASS, YSU, and NMSU on the schedule I'd expect a couple wins. Instead we get stuck with a MAC West contender and suddenly a pretty good MAC East. Many redshirt freshman, true freshman, and even walk-ons spent a lot of time on the field last night. If anyone expected this team to be around .500 this season, you haven't been paying attention. We will be lucky to win one game, and we really need to win one to get the stink off of us.

 

I updated the scholarship chart based on the most current roster. We have 65 players on scholly. TWENTY down from the max..so 20 down from the rest of our competition. Tough for anybody to win with that, but Arth does deserve some blame for not doing more to keep players here. I think he is too high on character, which is a good thing for the future, but not now. I think he has driven many players out because of that. On top of the numbers, there were many scholarship players who seemingly weren't available last night - whether it be from corona or injuries. Cole Gest, Kato, DeMarkus Glover, Demetrick Watts, and Eric Bentley are all players you'd expect to see out there, but they weren't at all. The program really was tore down to the studs and is in the process of being built back up. Just win a game this season, if he can't do that....we may be looking at starting back over, and I fear starting the "rebuilding" process yet again.

Zips Football Scholarship Chart.xlsx

Edited by LZIp
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I admire your guys optimism.  I have generally been the "optimistic" "patience" guy on here too.  Certainly, my pessimism this morning is at least in part from the mental hangover caused by that @$$-kicking.  Keep talking me down!

 

As far as LZips comment "we may be looking at starting back over, and I fear starting the "rebuilding" process yet again", that's part of my apprehension.  If this rebuild doesn't take, the Zips are stuck with it due to the finances of the school. 

 

I can only imagine the joy of the professors union this morning. 

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22 minutes ago, clarkwgriswold said:

I admire your guys optimism.  I have generally been the "optimistic" "patience" guy on here too.  Certainly, my pessimism this morning is at least in part from the mental hangover caused by that @$$-kicking.  Keep talking me down!

 

As far as LZips comment "we may be looking at starting back over, and I fear starting the "rebuilding" process yet again", that's part of my apprehension.  If this rebuild doesn't take, the Zips are stuck with it due to the finances of the school. 

 

I can only imagine the joy of the professors union this morning. 

This is spot on.  

 

The first head to roll should be Larry Williams. What a disaster.

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14 minutes ago, LZIp said:

I also wonder if Mathison got hurt. I didn't see him on the field at all in the 2nd half. Seems like he's probably our best offensive weapon.

Uh oh.  I noticed he tweaked what appeared to be his knee on a play.  But I didn't notice him leaving the game.  I noticed R-Fr. Shawn Naim getting quite a few reps in the 2nd half but thought it was because the coaches though the game was out of reach.

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