Download from West Lafayette

[Zipsrifle]

OK, again, I'll start off by saying that I will not have picked up on nearly as many things as some of the others on this board. I'm a fan, but not an expert, so I'll do my best.

To start off, I'm a little Miffed at UA. Why do they split up the Akron fans? I believe the family of the players get to sit in one section (which are pretty good seats) and the other fans get to sit somewhere else. It was this way at OU last year and at Purdue yesterday. Though I totally feel that the family should get good seats, at least put the rest of the fans behind them or something. We were totally split up (about 40 yards apart) so our fan presence was essentially nothing.

The next point is that I thought the officiating was pretty good. Though Purdue got a few calls, we got a few too (Dom caught one on a bounce in the 4th and they gave it to us). The radio broadcast sucked, the Purdue announcers were VERY bias. They added a yard to every Purdue play and subtraced one from every Akron play. Lots of other little things.

As for game strategies, I have to think that Purdue kept some of it's cards close to it's chest and did not come out against us with everything they had. If the game was closer, they might have, but they really didn't have a need to put all their cards down. They got a lot of penalties that hurt them, where we were much more disciplined. I think JD had an EXCELLENT game plan, though we had hardly anything on the ground, we never abandoned the run. I am a bit suprised that we had 3 passing plays after a 1st and goal on the 5 late in the 3rd. In the end, I think the score was about right.

Overall I was Impressed, but that about where it ends. In a nutshell, we played 3 quarters with them and then ran out of Gas. Depth really kept us from having a chance yesterday. The Zips played their hearts out, but were just overmatched. The Defence was on the field a LOT and in the 4th it showed. Their backups were able to score on us pretty easily in the end and that wasn't the case at the beginning of the game.

Offense: Good showing. The line was actually pretty good. There was good pass protection for the first 2-3 quarters, but it broke down late. They weren't getting much of a push, but opened up some good holes, unfortunatley, there was always a linebacker at the other end. They were diciplined and didn't make too many mistakes. They are much better than I thought they would be and if they play that way for the rest of the year, we'll be fine. Overall, a slight drop off from last year, but IMO, they could pass last years line by midseason. I would give them an A for yesterdays performance.

Getsy was about what I expected. What most impressed me how aware he was. He was definately the Field General. Read the Defence and switched things up quite a bit. Never lost sight of the snap clock, but wasn't afraid to take it down under 3 seconds. Seeemed calm when he was under center. He had good pocket presence, and never got blindsided even though there were many times he would have if he just stood there. He is, though, no Charlie. In the 2nd, he got a little flustered and started making bad throws. Jabari was WIDE OPEN down the right side and Luke overthrew him by what looked like about 5 yards. Sure TD last year. Then, he had about 2 series where he was way overthrowing the receivers (a lot) or throwing the ball into the ground. He did recover from this period which is a good thing IMO. Unfortuately, if he was under pressure, he would start throwing sidearm or not step into the throw. I don't know how he didn't get an INT. He isn't as slippery as Charlie was either, if they got an arm on him, he went down.

At Running Back, let me say that Kennedy is no Biggs. Kennedy did a great job, especially for a freshman, but Biggs is, IMO, a solid #1. Kennedy would hit his assignment, but didn't quite have the juke that 34 has in getting an extra yard or two. Good experience for him though. Biggs is a BEAST! He caught a pass over the right side got hit HARD then plowed through the guy! He delivered some punishment. I didn't really get a chance to check out 3's speed, but it would be nice if he was faster than Biggs, who just couldn't get around the corner yesterday.

At WR, all I can say is Hixon has got a lot of ice on him today. MAN, did he take a beating. He had to go up and get the ball a few times and paid for it. Despite this, he was fearless. The next time the ball went his way, he went up for it. Mongomery had a STELLAR day. 3 TD's and a blistering run on the pass from Biggs. I wasn't really big on Jason last year, but he's strong this year. Hixon and Mongomery are going to be DANGEROUS in MAC play! Jabari was better than last year, and has great hands. Wasn't in the game as much as I expected and is probably still picking up a few things. Kasparek is HUGE and made a couple catches. I can see us getting him the ball a few time in MAC play and having him mow over some CB's and safeties.

Defence was impressive in the fact that they stopped Purdue enough to keep us in the game. They were on the field a LOT and just got rundown in the end. The two most frustrating thigs were the arm tackling and not wrapping up! WAY, WAY, WAY too much arm tackling. We may be faster, but we aren't getting good hits! Rarely did Void get a good square shot, and he got one 17 yard run because about 10 Zips tried to grab on to him and pull him down. We had about 5 plays that would have been losses if we could would have squarely hit him, wrapped him up, and brought him down. If we did get a square shot, we didn't wrap up. This was very frustrating in the backfield! They were getting 2-3 yards until, thankfully, another Zip would show up. I would say that we did an EXCELLENT job of swarming the ball. It would have been a lot uglier if we did't have everyone getting to the ball. This did bite us a few times, we committed to the run too early a few times and it went for big gains.

Not much penetration from the line, in fact, Purdue got about 3 yards every time they ran the ball. No pass pressure either. Kirsch could just stand back there all day. The linebackers were the strong point yesterday. Jay Rohr looks to be the general and is on almost every play. I was also VERY impressed with Kevin Grant. Wow, can that boy hit someone. I still remember a Purdue run where he filled the gap and just Wham!, stood Void up and then the rest of the D finished them off. He's going to be a star!

I was a little frustrated with what was supposed to be a strong point. The backfield seemed to get burned a lot. Played off the ball too much, Purdue could get 5 yards on every pass play. We're too short too. Kirsch threw up a few jump balls, including one in the endzone, and we just couldn't get up there. They didn't shed their blocks either. Purude ran a few end arounds and our guys couldn't get off their blocks. Reggie Corner didn't show me a lot yesterday, but Dion Elie had a good game.

I would classify us as a typical MAC Defence right now. For supposedly dominating the Offense in preseason, they weren't up to the task against a Big 10 Offense. We'll do OK in the MAC, but it didn't look like they would dominate the game in MAC play.

Finally, special teams. I'm hoping a lot of the problems were just first game jitters. The blocked kick really hurt us. The first few punts had a lot of pressure, but that seemed to subside later in the game. Whoever was snapping also had a few high snaps. I thought Sullivan actually did a great job of recovering from these and getting the kick away. He had some boomers also. The only problem with this was that he outkicked the coverage. We didn't do a good job early on of bringing down the returner, but seemed to get the knack later in the game. Swiger was almost automatic on FG and PAT. Outside of the bobbles early on, Hixon is awesome returing kicks. One on one return, he took 1 step and sent 4 Purdue players right into each other and he went right around them The blocking could use some work, as we didn't seem to get much of a wedge when sidelines were covered.

Overall, I have to say that the game went better than I expected. We had Purdue nervous for 3 quarters. From what I saw, and after 2 weeks of play, I don't see any reason why we don't have a shot at contending in the MAC. If this team keeps making progress, it should be a good season. The First teams look solid, I think the big ? will be our depth.

That's my 2 Cents!

[Z-P]

Thanks ZR..........nice report.

[Captain Kangaroo]

Thanks ZR..........nice report.

I agree. Thanks!