catdaddyp

Absolutely. Our defense certainly isn’t without fault. I can’t find any kind of stats to reflect this, but our “sudden” defense has been horrendous.

Here are some rankings & stats that don’t show up on the MAC site: Run Blocking (MAC games only): 1 - WMU 2 - NIU 3 - Miami 4 - Ball 5 - CMU 6 - EMU 7 - BG 8 - Ohio 9 - Toledo 10 - Akron 11 - Buffalo 12 - Kent Pass Blocking (MAC games only): 1 - WMU 2 - NIU 3 - Ball 4 - Buffalo 5 - BG 6 - EMU 7 - Akron 8 - Miami 9 - Toledo 10 - CMU 11 - Ohio 12 - Kent Pass + Run Blocking (MAC games only): 1 - WMU 2 - NIU 3 - Ball 4 - Miami 5 - EMU 6 - BG 7 - Toledo 8 - Akron 9 - CMU 10 - Buffalo 11 - Ohio 12 - Kent - Our receivers have dropped 17 balls so far. To put that in perspective, we only dropped 17 all of last year. - Finley is completing 66% of his passes when kept clean compared to 45% under pressure. Adjusted without the drops would take those numbers up to 75% and 59% respectively. - Finley has thrown 4 of his 7 interceptions when “kept clean.” - It may not seem it, but the OL is actually giving Finley similar time as our opponents’ OLs are giving their QBs. - Runs off RT/TE have been our best rushing plays and we are averaging 7.8 yards per carry on it. - Norton has been the best blocking wide out. I think we all know this by now, but if we quit shooting ourselves in the foot, we’ll actually win some games.

All those guys, outside of Frye, would take a pay cut coming to Akron. And I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance Frye would come after having a realistic conversation with Moorhead about the state of program and expectations. If Moorhead is let go after this season, might as well start looking towards the FCS and lower ranks as no one worth their salt at the FBS level will take this job. They’ll realize the expectations are to win immediately, while having a shell of a budget to work with, and expected to win against P4 competition. After all, this thread was started during our midst of P4 competition. They’ll also have to refill the roster all over again as most of the talent that has been collected by Moorhead will surely bolt. Moorhead took over the worst roster in the FBS and has had 2 true full recruiting cycles. The first was hastily put together and It’s amazing he was able to pull in the guys he did to begin with. That said, we only have 8 players left from that class and only 2 players from the Arth regime are even starting for us. Should we have more wins? Absolutely. But we also had 3 losses built in this year. I do want to see a few wins to close out the season to show some progress in the win column. For anyone who believes it can’t get worse and have forgotten the path this program was on under Arth, here are his 2022 commitments and what they’ve gone on to do: QB - Amari Jones = Signed with FIU. He is still at FIU and has played a total of 10 snaps on offense. WR - Eric Holley = Signed with Toledo. Still at Toledo and is a backup. WR - Rahsan Murray = Signed with DII Cal (PA) Vulcans. Still at Cal and is a backup DB. OL - Van Keen = Signed with Youngstown State. He is still at YSU and became a starter this year. CB - Keyone Nixon = Signed with Morgan State. Currently N/A. S - Montarious Reed = Signed with Western Illinois. Currently at a JUCO.

Some notable bye week stats: - Finley leads the MAC in passing yards with 1,456. He is also tied for the most interceptions with 7. - Norton leads all WRs in the MAC with 541 yards. He is 2nd overall and trails only BGSU’s Fannin. - McCoy is 3rd in tackles with 65 total. D. Lewis and Fish are tied for 9th with 46 total. - Nunnally and Adler are tied for 9th in sacks with 3 a piece. - Golden-Nelson is tied for 7th with 4 passes defended. - Smith is 5th in field goals made. - Book leads the MAC in total punting yards and average per punt.

I took some time to review how many players our opponents are utilizing that came before the 2022 class. A few things come to mind: - Every team has at least 2 starting OL and 2 starting DL (most have 3 or more). - Every team has at least 7 starters. - Add “excluding Kent” to the statements above. - NIU has done the best job of retaining players. - 2022 is not listed, but the majority WMU’s most productive players come from 2022 and before. Taylor is currently the beneficiary of the previous staff’s recruiting. - This isn’t to serve as an excuse for losing, but does reflect how far behind the roster was when Moorhead took over. - Our OL isn’t elite, but they also haven’t been bad in MAC play. Makes me wonder how much better the OL would be had the overall recruiting and development been better under the previous staff. - An asterisk has been placed beside players that have started at least half the games this season. The other players listed are backups that see significant snaps. Akron DE - Adler * S - D. Lewis * Ohio OL - Atkinson * OL - Titsworth * OL - Weatherspoon * DE - Weaver * DT - Henderson * DT - Mayfield LB - Taylor * CB - Parodie * Bowling Green RB - Patterson RB - Stewart * RB - Johnson * TE - Gazarek * OL - Padgett * OL - Roberts * OL - Wollschlaeger * ED - Porter ED - Rosser * ED - Saad * DT - Brown * DT - Hawkins * LB - Horne * S - Day S - McGary * WMU RB - Abdus-Salaam WR - Dieudonne * WR - Sambucci * TE - Bosma * OL - Gideon * OL - Hofer * OL - Sherwin * OL - West * DE - Lee * DE - Walker * DT - Nelson * LB - Bonnema NB - Roberson * S - Wofford * EMU TE - Getzinger OL - Janvier * OL - Rewolinski * OL - Roman * DE - Evans DE - Jefferson * DT - Price * S - Carter * S - Scandrett * Buffalo RB - Henderson * WR - Cuff OL - Doty * OL -Polizzi * OL - Shepard * ED - Bazile DT - Folsom DT - Souza * DT - Wolo * LB - Dolac * NB - McNair * S - Fuqua * NIU QB - Hampton * RB - Brown * WR - Rudolph * TE - Lampe TE - Tewes * OL - Buss * OL - Champe * OL - Lippe * OL - Schooley OL - Zschernitz * DE - Davis DE - Oppong DE - Williams * DT - Haberman * DT - O’Malley * DT - Taylor LB - Dolphin * NB - Prophete * CB - Byrd * S - Valcarcel * Kent WR - Floriea * DE - Harmon * LB - Johns * S - Branch * Toledo QB - Gleason * RB - Stuart * WR - Newton * OL - Fouty * OL - Spoth * DT - Alexander * DT - Butler * DT - Carter DT - Poynter LB - Barrow * LB - Bolden * LB - Ragin * S - Hook *

Yeah, one would think with all the All-MAC players Moorhead has had on that side of the ball, the offensive numbers would be higher. Moorhead: QB - Irons WR - SJL WR - Adams WR - George WR - Gathings OL - Whigan *WR Norton, TE Newell, and OL Blanchard will likely make it this year. Arth: RB - Dollard WR - Mumpfield TE - Brank

It’s too big of time suck for me to go back and do all 5 years, but here are the 2021 stats (Arth’s 3rd year) vs the 2024 stats (Moorhead’s 3rd year). Arth Vs P4: Outscored 59.5 - 8.5 Yardage 617.5 - 208.5 Vs Non-P4: Outscored 35.5 - 22.1 Yardage 437.4 - 356.6 Moorhead Vs P4: Outscored 50.3 - 10 Yardage 489.3 - 212.6 Vs Non-P4 Outscored 27.7 - 21.2 Yardage 364 - 354 The caveats here are that the 2024 team played 3 Power games and the 2021 team played 2. Also, Arth did not finish out the final 3 games of 2021. And there’s always a chance the last 5 games of 2024 alter the 2024 stats. On the surface, there is little difference in the offensive numbers. Defensively is where there is a substantial difference. Edit - Might as well further this comparison: Arth: Wins: 3 One Score Wins: 0 One Score Losses: 3 Moorhead: Wins: 5 One Score Wins: 3 One Score Losses: 11

Here’s a further breakdown: Vs P4: Outscored 50.3 - 10 Yardage 489.3 - 212.6 Vs Non-P4 Outscored 27.7 - 21.2 Yardage 364 - 354

I’m not in the locker room, but I don’t think culture is an issue. The players seem to generally be good guys and they play hard. Discipline is there to an extent. It’s just not where it needs to be in my opinion.

It’s not the portal or roster turnover. Gathings moved on to UCONN and hasn’t had a single flag thrown on him this season. Miss. State’s QB missed the bowl game in 2019 due to a black eye. A teammate felt bold enough to punch the QB just days before the bowl game. Don’t get me wrong, fights happen at practice. It’s football. But players know which lines are acceptable to cross and which aren’t.

I don’t know, judging by that game, the refs may be so tired they can’t actually tell if a field goal is good or not.

500 yards of offense and we still find a way to lose…. QB: Finley may have only thrown one interception, but there were four other times where he could have been intercepted. He did throw some beautiful passes and can clearly make most throws - finishing with 395 yards passing. That said, just because he can make a difficult throw doesn’t always mean he should attempt to make that throw. Bullock was a factor and was used in a variety of ways. RB: The backs were more of a threat in the passing game than in the run game. However, Simmons ran hard and still collected 4.8 ypc and a touchdown. He finished with 160 yards of total offense. Kellom’s fumble hurt and led to another WMU score. WR: Norton absolutely torched the WMU defense. He finished with 168 yards on 8 receptions. Norton also had two receptions called back that may have been phantom penalties. The other receivers were fine, but there were opportunities left on the table as not all catchable balls were brought in. TE: Even though Cravaack saw the majority of action at TE, Bullock started. Cravaack wasn’t overwhelmed and did ok. He’s just a redshirt freshman and still has some work to do before becoming consistently productive like Newell. OL: Hopefully, the OL naysayers will rein in some of the negative OL rhetoric. No team collects 500 yards of offense without a decent OL. No, our OL is not elite and they could be improved in the run game, but they have done a solid job the past few weeks and the talent is certainly there. Akron has never had the top rated pass protector in the MAC (in the PFF era) and Blanchard is firmly holding down that spot in 2024. DL: We started out using a 3 man DT front and had WMU’s run game corralled until the turnovers occurred and the score flipped. Once that happened, WMU became more balanced and we went back to our Nickel defense. WMU’s RBs were able to gash us on a few big runs and key 3rd downs from there. As good as we were for a period of time against the run, we struggled the entire game to put consistent pressure on the QB. LB: McCoy was lights out good. He and Fish played nearly every snap. I believe they missed a single tackle between the two of them. DB: D. Lewis started at safety, and again, was really good. He’s having an All-MAC caliber season. P. Lewis had an up and down game. Outside of one snap, these two played every snap at safety. Golden-Nelson was excellent outside of one play, where he allowed the WR to get behind him for an explosive play. Reed got his first start and saw extensive action at the other CB spot. He was targeted twice as much as Golden-Nelson and held up well. Reed has an incredibly high upside and likely won’t relinquish the starting role unless injuries dictate otherwise. ST: What a disappointing day after the special teams have been excellent all year. I thought ST would be an area where we had an advantage as WMU has struggled all season. Instead, a muffed punt steam rolled into 4 turnovers. Coaching: The positive: A+ for the gameplan going into the contest on both sides of the ball and for in-game play-calling. The negative: Untimely penalties, not taking advantage of timeouts, and simple fundamental issues (catching punts, ball control, etc.) was our achilles heel. Penalties are going to happen. In fact, some of the best teams in 2023 were also the most heavily penalized. The difference is those teams didn’t have many pre-snap (false starts, delay of games) or post snap (personal fouls) penalties. While we didn’t have a ton of penalties this game, the ones we did have were untimely, sometimes avoidable, and quite simply just more of the same. I can’t recall a team gaining 500 yards of offense (100+ more than the opponent) and losing the turnover battle 4 to 0. I thought for sure we’d at least force one turnover and get things back on track, but that didn’t happen. It’s another disappointing loss and another display of the talent level being on par with a MAC opponent. Our opportunities to collect some wins and change the perception of the program are dwindling. 5 more chances in 2024… We now have a much needed bye week and will hopefully get the majority of injured players back for EMU. QB Finley Bullock RB Simmons Kellom WR Norton P. Davis WR Golden Rush WR Polk Granger TE Bullock Cravaack Whisner LT Blanchard Shor LG Morris Seymore C T. Williams RG K. Davis Burrell RT James D. Thomas DE Adler Dall Richards DE Nunnally Cheatom DT Moore Brockington DT Kapongo Madden DT Lavea LB Fish LB McCoy Spriggs (NB) Greenwood T. Thomas CB Golden-Nelson DeWalt CB Reed Hunter S P. Lewis Roach S D. Lewis Top 5 Players Offense: ATH - Bullock WR - Norton RB - Simmons LG - Seymore LT - Blanchard Top 5 Players Defense: LB - McCoy DE - Adler NB - Greenwood CB - Reed S - D. Lewis

Not sure how they are going to complete this game tonight. Looks like bad weather until about midnight. Curious to see how this shakes out….

Out: WR - Adams WR - Walker LB - Cooper CB - White S - David S - Anderson Questionable: TE - Newell

Agreed, Nunnally and Adler are playing extremely well. Moorhead said he didn’t know Adler’s health status in any of his media sessions, so we may see a lot more of Richards and Dall this week if Adler is limited. Richards has been playing really well in his newfound backup role and is actually the top rated player on defense. That said, he’s played under 80 snaps, so that’s a skewed metric and the reason I didn’t add him above. The DT rotation is deep and will need to be solid again against WMU. Brockington has been good the past two weeks as he has picked up Murphy’s snaps. Moore has been a nightmare for opposing centers when he is lined up at NT. Moore is a guy who seems to get better every week and we’ll be fortunate to hang on to him for the duration of his career. Murphy may be hurt. He hasn’t seen any action in the past two weeks after being a top backup the first 4 weeks of the season. The “play 4 games, redshirt, and transfer” ordeal did cross my mind, but he’s already used his redshirt (unless he applies for a medical redshirt), so I don’t think that’s the case. On a different note, we’ve had an unusual amount of missed tackles this season (the whole defense, not just one position) and I have to believe that was due to the brutal non-conference slate. It really showed up in the 2nd half against Rutgers. Tackling was decent against a talent deprived Colgate squad, and then reared its ugly head the following two weeks against South Carolina and Ohio. I believe injuries really played a part in that because we looked much crisper against a Bowling Green team (who is better in almost every area than Ohio). We’ll definitely need to tackle well this week and I expect we’ll devote an extra player to the box and play a lot of man on the backend. We play a lot of man anyway, but I expect we’ll see it more than usual this game. My guess is we’ll force WMU to prove they can throw the ball on us. I’m not sure they can without a run game. On the flip side, if WMU can get their run game going, it may be a long afternoon.

OL played well most of the game. Looked like BGSU adjusted their defense some after halftime and JoeMo adjusted his playcalling in the 4th. I didn’t see any plays we haven’t run before, but some plays work better against certain alignments. Execution always helps too. Finley made some beautiful throws and reads in the run game.

And his replacement.

As I was going through and updating recruiting, I noticed Gregory-Bey decommitted back in early September. He was one I didn’t think would stick to his commitment.

Top Rated Players (according to PFF) going into this game: OFFENSE: (150+ Snaps) RB- Simmons LG - Seymore RT - James WR - Norton RB - Kellom DEFENSE: (150+ Snaps) DE - Nunnally DE - Adler DT - Moore S - D. Lewis NB - Greenwood SPECIAL TEAMS: (40+ Snaps) S - P. Lewis S - Conroy S - Roach NB - T. Thomas LS - Reardon

Bump for Top Ratings update. - 4 out of 5 players on offense were on the OL. Also, Blanchard is now the top rated pass protector in the MAC at OT. - Each position had a player in the top 5 on defense.

There is no NIL budget. 2022 Freshmen Still on the Team: LB - Bryan McCoy (2023 All-MAC) WR - Bobby Golden (Starter) OL - Keylen Davis (Starter) OL - Tyhler Williams (Starter) RB - Charles Kellom (Part-Time Starter) DT - Kiawan Murphy (Two Deep) Transfer Portal Additions still on the Team: WR - Alex Adams (2022 All-MAC, but has been plagued by injuries since) CB - Devontae Golden-Nelson (Starter) JUCO Addition still on the Team: LB - Antavious Fish (Starter) 2022 Freshmen No Longer on the Team: OL - Ki’Marii Landers (Part-Time Starter) QB - Dijon Jennings RB - Anthony Stallworth TE - Marquell Darnell OL - Jourden Hale LB - Jaharon Griffin Transfer Portal Additions No Longer on the Team: ( * has been placed beside players who have exhausted their eligibility) WR - Daniel George (2023 All-MAC) * WR - Shocky Jaquel-Louis (2022 All-MAC) * OL - Anthony Whigan (2022 All-MAC) * S - Kerry Martin (2023 All-MAC) TE - TJ Banks (Starter) * DE - Victor Jones (Starter)* DT - Curtis Harper (Starter) * DT - Ravontae Holt (Starter) * QB - Jeff Undercuffler (Part-Time Starter) * RB - Clyde Price (Part-Time Starter) RB - Cam Wiley (Part-Time Starter) OL - Max Banes (Part-Time Starter) LB - Tim Terry (Part-Time Starter)* S - Nate Thompson (Part-Time Starter)* DT - Devon Robinson (Two Deep) S - Jaden Woods (Two Deep) TE - Caden Clark JUCO Additions No Longer on the Team: WR - Caleb Anderson (Two Deep) DT - Kyle Thomas (Two Deep) CB - Cam Threatt Losing 11 one score games is being competitive in those game, It’s just not winning.

Not much to report from this past weekend’s games… Week 6 Starters for new team: WR - Jasaiah Gathings (UCONN) = 78 snaps. 3 receptions for 29 yards. WR - Oran Singleton (Eastern Michigan) = BYE WR - Anthony Williams (Alcorn State) = N/A RG - Tony Georges (Kent State) = BYE RT - Jordan Daniels (Western Carolina) = N/A RT - Xavior Gray (Liberty) = N/A RT - Nate Williams (San Diego State) = 71 snaps. DE - Curtis Fann (Western Carolina) = N/A LB - Luke Bauer (Morehead State) = N/A S - Corey Thomas (Virginia) = 60 snaps. 6 tackles. S - Jaden Woods (East Tennessee State) = N/A Backups for new team: TE - Caleb Anderson (Alcorn State) = N/A DE - Ryan Johnson (Southern Miss) = 49 snaps. 4 tackles and a sack. LB - Jaharon Griffin (Alcorn State) = N/A CB - Tyson Durant (Washington State) = N/A S - KJ Martin (NC State) = 18 snaps. DNP: QB - Ryan Jankowski (UMASS) QB - Dijon Jennings (Weber State)* QB - Steele Wasel (Oklahoma) RB - CJ Price (Jackson State) RT - Ronan Chambers (Auburn)* OL - Ka’Marii Landers (Baylor) OL - Alex Robarge (Southern Illinois) LB - Andrew Behm (Southern Illinois) DB - Rishad Hence (Eastern Kentucky)

Bump for update.

I don’t know if it’s a must win, but it would definitely go a long way in gaining some momentum and finishing the back half of season on a high note. That’s where the majority of our potential wins were going to come from anyway.