Captain Kangaroo Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 Purdue: Everyone was excited when the Zips posted 24 points vs. the Top 15 Boilermakers. I know I was. Well...the mighty Boilermakers are now 2-4 with 3 consecutive home losses. They are giving up 34.5 points per game. Not as much of a "quality loss" as we thought. On the bright side...man would it suck to be a Boilermaker fan this season. They're competing with Pitt for most-overrated team of 2005. MTSU: Getsy came back to earth a bit. Hixson's outstanding play and some MTSU miscues gave us a win, but a scary pattern began here. Shooting ourselves in the foot in the red zone and closing up shop offensively in the second half. NIU: Our big play offense showed up for 3 quarters. The D did too. Then Part 2 of the seasonal offensive meltdown occurred. O shut it down for the final 15 minutes and the D got pushed all over the field. At the time, I thought it was just the D being winded from the offense's 4th quarter ineptitude. Now I wonder if our D has the mental toughness to protect a lead. Like MTSU, a win allowed us to overlook a lot of bad things. CMU: AGAIN...the O comes out like gangbusters and the D plays solid. Zips take a 17-7 first half lead. AGAIN the O shuts it down in the second half and AGAIN the D is either too tired or not mentally tough enough to hold the 10 point advantage. Or...both. CMU has proven they're a solid team this year, but we gave them that game. Buffalo: Things are reversed from the typical patter, but essentially the same. This time the offense does nothing for the first two quarters, then picks things up in the second half. The D appeared solid throughout, but lets face it...Buffalo's offense isn't all that difficult to stop. Buffalo's defense played well in that game, and held BG to 28 pts this week, BTW. Miami: Here we go again, Zips fans. The O rolls out to a big 17-7 lead. We then get outscored 44-6. The O and D try to outdo each other in one of the worst halves of football the Zips have played against a MAC opponent in some time. Penalties, crucial turnovers, mental breakdowns, you name it. One thing I'll take out of this game: You could tell that Miami had no fear of losing to the Zips. At no point did they begin to panic. This is a team that knows what it is like to win a championship. Knows what it is like to be in a bowl game. And certainly knows what it is like to beat the Zips. Our guys and our staff need to figure out how to get that confident, killer mindset instilled in the Zips program. Or once the start of the game adrenaline wears off, we're going to keep blowing leads and falling apart. Summary: The most frustrating thing about this Zips team is the flushes of brilliance you see. For two...sometimes 3 quarters we can go toe-to-toe with anyone. Then things go in the crapper. If we sucked all the time, it would be much easier to say "Give the staff some more time...these aren't their recruits...we're young..." etc. Somehow in the last 5 games I want to see us learn how to "finish." No simply hold on for dear life and win, as we did vs. NIU....not simply eeek out a win vs. a bad team like Buffalo, but beat them convincingly...not simply hold on against a mediocre team like MTSU, but build on a lead and punish them. It is obvious that the staff is building for the future by redshirting the majority of last season's class. I thought more kids would play once we were in the race (after beating NIU). That said, I've seen the kids that are on the field right now can play good football. The have the talent to win. I just wonder what it is going to take to grab them by the scruff of their necks and get them to play to their capabilities for a full 4 quarters? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zipsrifle Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 I'm beginning to have doubts as to the coaching staff's ability go adjust as the game goes on. Why can Biggs have a huge yards in the first Q and get shut down after that??? No way the line was tired. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingZip Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 Way. #72 is a fat oaf who is always out of breath. This is the worst OL that Akron has had in some time, which is saying plenty about the abilities of those playing. I would not be surprised if all of the redshirting Freshmen are playing as starters next year in at least 4 of the 5 spots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GP1 Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 I'm not concerned as much about the coaching staffs ability to make adjustments as I am the teams ability to execute the game plan. Our talent level is so low that it drives down our margin for error. When we close an exposed weak spot, it just opens up another huge weak spot. I actually think our defensive coordinator is a good one doing what he does. My biggest complaint about the defense is the style we play. In a post Marshall MAC East, this type of defense is not needed. Our players are not good enough to play the 3-3-5 they want to play. Execution is killing the defense as well. I'm not certain this style of defense will succeed in the MAC. It's great if you can score 40 per game. We don't have that type of team. We need a 3-4 to stop the run. That one extra LB will give us the size we need to be successful. All an average offensive lineman needs to do is get in front of a DB and maintain some contact and he will at least win a draw (offense wins in a draw). This isn't so easy with a LB. Our offensive line was doing fine at the beginning when we were throwing short passes and getting the ball to multiple receivers on first down. Biggs had a huge first half. In the second half, we saw the trying to win the lottery nonsense. The next thing you know it was 51-23. I would be disappointed if we have four freshmen starting next season. These guys had better be damn good to start as freshmen. If not, it will be a wasted year. The topic is a summary of the first six games. I think we are right where we thought we would be this time of the season. Have we gone backward since the beginning? Of course, but some were predicting a 3-8 or 4-7 season. I'm confident the Zips will have at least three more wins. If they can get things together in a hurry (I have my doubts about this) they can win six. We should win this weekend, lose to BG, beat OU and Can't....maybe. Ball State will be a toss up. Beating Ball State could give us seven wins. Seven wins with this team would be better than last year and the talent level this year is much less than last year. It would be impressive if they won seven or even tied the total wins from last season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zip37 Posted October 17, 2005 Report Share Posted October 17, 2005 .500 give/take 1 game. With ball ammunition lock and load. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zipboy Posted October 18, 2005 Report Share Posted October 18, 2005 Good posts. Stamms made a great comment during the Buffalo game. He said, "I am watching the defense. They have a quick step back to the huddle and breaking the huddle. They are ready to play." Translation to me was these guys know they are kicking a$$ this game. I saw that for the first 3 series against Miami. Once the adreniline wore off and Miami countered it got ugly. GP1 I still like this D. I may be wrong but I thought that we did pretty well against the run all year long until Miami. If we want to play a 3-4, we need to recruit more LBs. I can't see the personnel from this year in a 3-4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Kangaroo Posted October 18, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2005 Good posts. Stamms made a great comment during the Buffalo game. He said, "I am watching the defense. They have a quick step back to the huddle and breaking the huddle. They are ready to play." Translation to me was these guys know they are kicking a$$ this game. I saw that for the first 3 series against Miami. Once the adreniline wore off and Miami countered it got ugly. GP1 I still like this D. I may be wrong but I thought that we did pretty well against the run all year long until Miami. If we want to play a 3-4, we need to recruit more LBs. I can't see the personnel from this year in a 3-4. How is this for a theory: The staff and existing players perform at a level above their capabilities for a great deal of the time. They have to in order to be competitive. If the players didn't give 110% they'd be run off the field of most games. However, preparation and adrenaline only go so far without talent and depth. Over the course of 4 quarters, we simply have trouble matching the better opponent's talent and depth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GP1 Posted October 18, 2005 Report Share Posted October 18, 2005 How is this for a theory: The staff and existing players perform at a level above their capabilities for a great deal of the time. They have to in order to be competitive. If the players didn't give 110% they'd be run off the field of most games. However, preparation and adrenaline only go so far without talent and depth. Over the course of 4 quarters, we simply have trouble matching the better opponent's talent and depth. This isn't just a theory, it's a fact. Nice post. It cuts right to the heart of the Zips problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RACER Posted October 18, 2005 Report Share Posted October 18, 2005 i do agree with the last post about talent.however four out of the last five teams we play we have at least or more talent than ou,bsu,army,and can't. bgsu has a hell of an offense. when i watched them on tv early in the year their d was horrible. the coaching staff,and players can't use lack of talent against four out of the last five opponents however.there is no reason this team can't win four out of the last five. no less than three wins out of the last five would be a big dissapointment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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