Game #6 Miami (OH) Redhawks

[Hilltopper]

What's the story with Brumbaugh?

Partially torn MCL.

[GP1]

I'm still not 100% sold on this offensive line, despite some success.

The o line had a good day yesterday. Only two sacks, both qbs had enough time to throw and they had another good day on the ground.

[Buckzip]

Partially torn MCL.

When is he expected back?

[Spin]

they ended up beating UMASS? wow

UMass took apart Can't State.

[johnnyzip84]

It was the left tackle Osbourne. He totally wiffed on his man.

I saw it distinctly - on that particular occasion, it was clearly IW56. It's a shame, because he's been having a respectable season for a guy who was 3rd team D-Line not too long ago. Hopefully, KP16 will be OK and IW56 will learn from it.

[UA1987]

Williams has done a great job of transforming himself to an offensive lineman, but I've seen him fooled and manhandled on several occasions, and this last one is serious. I'd rather see a big body at left tackle and wonder what went wrong with Boyett. Is he just in Peterson's dog house or is he that far behind? No way I'd sit McNamara either. Put Brown at RT and McNamara at RG and you're done on that side as far as I'm concerned. We miss Tank.

[UA1987]

Is Mizell hurt or what limited his playing time?

[LZIp]

Williams has done a great job of transforming himself to an offensive lineman, but I've seen him fooled and manhandled on several occasions, and this last one is serious. I'd rather see a big body at left tackle and wonder what went wrong with Boyett. Is he just in Peterson's dog house or is he that far behind? No way I'd sit McNamara either. Put Brown at RT and McNamara at RG and you're done on that side as far as I'm concerned. We miss Tank.

Are you trying to say you aren't happy with Peterson? I think he has done a fine job. I'm sure he knows a lot more about the talent on the line than us.

Is Mizell hurt or what limited his playing time?

I didn't notice limited playing time for Mizell, but I also didn't notice his play much. He did have the fumble recovery. Was Lane getting PT in place of Mizell? Great game by Lane by the way. Looks like he may turn into a good one!

[UA1987]

I'm concerned about Peterson. When your starting QB gets mauled, your start to look.

[LZIp]

I'm concerned about Peterson. When your starting QB gets mauled, your start to look.

It was one play. The offense line is about as good as you could reasonably expect considering all that was replaced from last season. The coach is doing the best with what he has to work with. The best he has to work with is a converted DL unfortunately.Converting players from the other side of the ball and starting them should tell you all you need to know about the depth/talent of the unit. Coach can't make him not whiff a block.

[UA1987]

It appears we used a 5th DB as a Rover at Mizell's expense, probably in response to their QB play.

[UA1987]

We have other players on the offensive line and I've seen Williams get manhandled before. Scott Boyett is 6'7 315 lbs (3 *) and has not played - why? I think it is a good question.

[Dave in Green]

Hilltopper and I discussed during the game that the offensive line play looked surprisingly good most of the time. They did an overall good job of providing a secure pocket for the QB and opening good holes for the RBs.

[Lee Adams]

Sack on Pohl came 'clean' off the LEFT side of the Akron line. Be concerned about the secondary against a team that has a decent QB plus a semblance of a running game. Only 4 more wins for bowl consideration. 6-6 won't do it.

[LZIp]

Sack on Pohl came 'clean' off the LEFT side of the Akron line. Be concerned about the secondary against a team that has a decent QB plus a semblance of a running game. Only 4 more wins for bowl consideration. 6-6 won't do it.

3 more gets us to 7-5. I see 4 games left on the schedule we have no business losing. Other two are probably toss ups.

[LZIp]

Was just thinking about this today. At minimum expectations (beating teams we are clearly better than), we should win 8 games this season. This would be the most wins in the history of the program at the D-1 level.

[Balsy]

Sack on Pohl came 'clean' off the LEFT side of the Akron line. Be concerned about the secondary against a team that has a decent QB plus a semblance of a running game. Only 4 more wins for bowl consideration. 6-6 won't do it.

4 more wins get's us to 8-4. This is achievable with Pohl or Woodson IMO.

[GP1]

4 more wins get's us to 8-4. This is achievable with Pohl or Woodson IMO.

I respectfully disagree. If Woodson is the starter for the remainder of the season, they will struggle to go 3-3.

Woodson is like a closer in baseball. He only has one pitch, the fastball. There is no finesse on any of his passes and they are frequently inaccurate. His accuracy is bad to the point that it will result in a lot of the one thing that always kills teams, turnovers.

In order for him to be successful, they are going to have to move him around the pocket so he can do some running if needed, but that is easy to stop over time. They did some of that Saturday and it worked OK enough.

A good football team must be good as all three phases of the game: offense, defense and special teams. The Zips are good on defense and special teams. With Woodson, they will become average, if not below average, on offense.

If Pohl doesn't play the rest of the year, we are going to find out how hard it is to replace a player who went 8-3 in his last 11 starts. My concern over Pohl's injury is great.

[tboned]

Nice win zips! I was in South Bend to watch another game. I wish gozips.com updates were a little more frequent. Seemed like forever between the updates. Speaking of forever, I know it's off topic, but 4.5 hours to play a game at ND is painful. If not for the weather I would have left even earlier than I did. These television games are ridiculous. I guess it would be a nice problem for us to have though!

[a-zip]

Nice win zips! I was in South Bend to watch another game. I wish gozips.com updates were a little more frequent. Seemed like forever between the updates. Speaking of forever, I know it's off topic, but 4.5 hours to play a game at ND is painful. If not for the weather I would have left even earlier than I did. These television games are ridiculous. I guess it would be a nice problem for us to have though!

Go to a Zips game then tboned ;-) You won't have to worry about any of that.

[zipsoutsider]

Woodson will be fine if we need him to play this week. He will have more reps with the 1st team, which should help the receivers be in better sync with him. I was glad to see a little "zip" on his ball as the fade has really done nothing for us since Howard. We need taller receivers or better match UPS (mismatches) for that to work for us, especially in the end zone. Woodson protected the ball well in all of his appearances thus far. Glad he had the chance to take so many reps in a successful game against Miami and even happier TB and Milwee had previously worked him into live action so that he was ready.

My takeaways from the game:

1. Penalties were much better.
2. We have 2 more than capable running backs and the O line had some huge holes for them. Job well done by Peterson in transforming and improving the line as the season progressed. Neither PSU nor Michigan have shown this kind of progress.
3. I am glad we didn't just clock stall in the 4th. Get Woodson the reps he needs to continue to improve.
4. Special teams were stellar. Shout out to Robert Stein for coming back after getting benched. He is having a solid year. Return game made good decisions and protected the ball.
5. 2 fumbles... they are going to happen, but was surprised by Hundley's. Bickley just got out-muscled. It is more understandable.
6. Davis and Bickley had good games.
7. We didn't start out slow - great progress. Defense led the way in this.
8. 4-2 feels pretty good. Now it's time redeem the Ohio game of last year.

[GP1]

1. 2 fumbles... they are going to happen, but was surprised by Hundley's. Bickley just got out-muscled. It is more understandable.

Good post.

I was surprised by Hundley's as well, but he is pretty good with the the ball in his hands. JC7 was very good though and earned the extra playing time this week.

Bickley is a sore subject with me because I don't think he belongs on a D1 field. In fact, I think his fumble is more predictable than understandable. I totally understand why it happened and I find it unacceptable. He is 5' 6" and the internet says he weighs 147 pounds....my foot. In D1 football, one has to be able to compete against the other humans. What does compete mean and does Bickley have ALL of the tools to compete? Well, one must be fast...Bickley sure is fast. One must be able to catch.....Bickley is mostly good at catching, but has had some drops. How else must one compete? Well, when one catches a pass, one must be able to be strong enough to break a tackle of someone he is competing against and he doesn't have that ability because there is no muscle there to overpower anyone. If the competition is Bickley vs. a strong gust of wind, the line might read as EVEN. Since he doesn't have that ability, he doesn't really offer a lot of opportunity for big plays, which are critical to winning a football game. Strength is another way a person must compete. When another player is trying to take the ball away from you, you must be strong enough to hold on to it. The Miami defender easily stripped the ball from him. Every other MAC defense will see that and go for strips against him and turnovers become a risk. It was too easy. Giving up turnovers is another way to lose a football game.

I don't want to seem too disparaging about Bickley. I do think he is putting forward 100% effort and competing as hard as he can. We should all applaud his effort on the field. I just don't think he has the raw tools to really be able to be a big play guy every week and the upside is very limited. I don't think it would be difficult to develop a player behind him to take his job NEXT YEAR or even bring in a transfer to easily remove him from the slot position. For a guy with the third most yards receiving (173), he has almost nothing to show for it. His longest play is 21 yards and he has zero TDs. If Terry Pluto still wrote for the ABJ, there would be weekly articles about him. That's all we need to know.

In closing, regardless of what our wives and girlfriends tell us, size matters in football......

[Balsy]

I respectfully disagree. If Woodson is the starter for the remainder of the season, they will struggle to go 3-3.

Woodson is like a closer in baseball. He only has one pitch, the fastball. There is no finesse on any of his passes and they are frequently inaccurate. His accuracy is bad to the point that it will result in a lot of the one thing that always kills teams, turnovers.

In order for him to be successful, they are going to have to move him around the pocket so he can do some running if needed, but that is easy to stop over time. They did some of that Saturday and it worked OK enough.

A good football team must be good as all three phases of the game: offense, defense and special teams. The Zips are good on defense and special teams. With Woodson, they will become average, if not below average, on offense.

If Pohl doesn't play the rest of the year, we are going to find out how hard it is to replace a player who went 8-3 in his last 11 starts. My concern over Pohl's injury is great.

We went 5-7 last year with less than good offensive play through 3 of those games, one of those games the Backup QB scored two of the TDs with his arm. With the defense that we have, and the running game we have with Hundley, Chisholm and (the threat of Woodson scrambling). I don't see this team struggling to win 3. Struggling to win 4 maybe, but not three.

We've got Can't State, UMass, Buffalo, Ohio, Bowling Green and Ball State. Three of those games should be controlled by our defense (Can't and UMass were won by our defense last year, not a highly effective offense...which Ironically 2 of those 3 games are the same teams). Pohl has never shot the lights out, Woodson certainly won't either, but we don't need them too.

A good football team must be good in all three phases (I agree) to win most games. But if they're good in two, and passable in the third (playing against teams who aren't good in any of the three), you should still be able to win. You don't have to be a perfect or "good" team to win. You have to be better than the team you're playing. I think our defense is good enough to win most games for us.

[Dave in Green]

Zips are currently #21 in the country in scoring defense, giving up an average of just 20.8 points per game. That includes games against Penn State, Marshall and Pitt. It's not unreasonable to expect that the D should be able to maintain that average against MAC teams. If they do, that takes a lot of pressure off of the offense to need to run up a lot of points in order for the Zips to win. I'd like to see the Zips continue to put more emphasis on the running game and hog more time of possession to give opponents even fewer opportunities to score. Zips averaged 4.1 yards per rush against Miami, and our upcoming MAC opponents have no better record defending against the rush than the sweaters.

[Dr Z]

Zips are currently #21 in the country in scoring defense, giving up an average of just 20.8 points per game. That includes games against Penn State, Marshall and Pitt. It's not unreasonable to expect that the D should be able to maintain that average against MAC teams. If they do, that takes a lot of pressure off of the offense to need to run up a lot of points in order for the Zips to win. I'd like to see the Zips continue to put more emphasis on the running game and hog more time of possession to give opponents even fewer opportunities to score. Zips averaged 4.1 yards per rush against Miami, and our upcoming MAC opponents have no better record defending against the rush than the sweaters.

I agree. The effectiveness of our punting game also compliments your argument...and, dare I say, knock on wood, our new found field goal team???

I continue to hear coach in the back of my head saying "we need to find what works at Akron." I like the above formula....this year.