Thoughts from a second watching of the game. Focused primarily on the offensive line, linebackers, and DBs.
Before I start, just some general thoughts. A huge plus from the game - we were nearly perfect in the red zone. Four visits, four scores and three touchdowns. We have struggled converting red zone visits into touchdowns for a long time now. Yeah, two of them were with Hejny, who undeniably gives us an edge in the red zone, but improvement is still improvement. Also, Ford was great in blocking. I really would like to see him get involved in the passing game, too.
Alright, the offensive line. My gut impressions from my first watch were pretty much confirmed after the second. There was a lot of movement with the guys up front. We had guys playing multiple positions and rotating through who was playing each possession. For example, McKinney played RT on some drives, RG on others, and was not on the field on some. We also had some weird alignments, like the LT lining up on the right side outside of the RT and the TE slotting down into the LT position. We did not seem to get much push up front in the run game, though that was probably a side effect of us running a lot of zone blocking schemes. Speaking of, the line seemed to execute better playing gap schemes than zone. Finally, we just seemed to have guys get lost from time to time, seemingly unsure of who was their responsibility and who was going to be picked up by the RB or TE. I think this gets better as the season progresses. We'll see. I maintain that they will be the deciding factor for how good we'll be on offense. After the line, it's the WRs. Individually:
Shick: He jumps off the screen, but for all the wrong reasons. He was not great at LG, and that's being generous. He missed blocks, got beat, and routinely couldn't find his man when the defensive line ran any sort of twist or stunt. For example, on the first drive, he pulls to lead block for Hejny. There's three guys out front of Shick and he manages to block none of them. He tried to pick up the LB, but he completely whiffed and the LB gets the stop on Hejny. A few plays later, he pinches down to double team the NT, but in doing so, allows the LB to blitz untouched. Fortunately, Hejny was athletic enough to roll outside and run it in for the first touchdown.
Kawecki: He played okay at RG. One of our few starters who were here last year. He had to move to C when Carpenter got rolled up on, which highlights his versatility. He was probably more at home at C, but I think we're looking for guards. He was good on the move. He found his blocks and stuck to them. However, he got beat on the play where Hejny supposedly got hurt. It was his guy who got to Hejny.
Carpenter: He also played well. He seemed much more comfortable in pass pro than in run blocking, but he played solidly. Had some mistakes at times, but I can see why we wanted to grab him from Tulsa. Hopefully he isn't too badly hurt.
McKinney: He held his own when he was out on the field. As mentioned before, he played multiple spots on the right side of the line. He seemed to look more at home when he was at RT, however. He is another one who looked better in pass protection than in run blocking, but he was decent all the way around.
Mafi: He also played RT and looked good doing it. I think guard is where we're weak right now, which is why we're rotating through guys playing at RG. Mafi was good in pass protection and was also surprisingly solid in run blocking. He wasn't in on every drive, however.
Samuel: Samuel was.. okay.. at LT. He seemed more comfortable in run blocking than in pass protection, but he did have some good blocks. Particularly, on the 2nd long catch by Terrill Davis, UTM ran a stunt and he recognized what was happening, found his guy on the delay, and blocked him up. He is susceptible to getting beat by DEs who play with heavy hands, though. It's concerning that UTM DEs were able to chop down on him and beat him.
Moving to the linebackers. Again, my gut impression was largely confirmed through the second watch through. I thought they were athletic and were flying around. I do worry about depth behind Brian McCoy and Brandon Rawls, though. There are a few things that I need to correct from my first post, though.
Brian McCoy: Good Lord, this guy plays aggressive. It cost him a few times in coverage, which is what led up to the horse collar tackle on the first drive. However, he got better as the game went along and was all over the field. He could be really good this year. He also appears to be our main communicator out there, calling out assignments and directing the safeties and LBs. I get Shaun Lewis vibes when watching him play, and no, that won't be my last throwback reference with linebackers.
Brandon Rawls: He was better in coverage than I initially thought. On the play where we collected our second horse collar tackle penalty, UTM actually ran the same play that McCoy got lost on and ended up having to horse collar tackle the RB the drive before. The difference was Rawls read the play and blanketed the RB. Unfortunately, the resulting sack was also a horse collar tackle. This is a smart guy. He reminds me of Patrick Lavine, athletic but not overly aggressive.
Taje McCoy: This is were I have to make a correction from my first post. In a second watch through, he did not play as well as I initially thought. He was certainly around the ball, but often that was a result of his motor not stopping and covering up the fact that he was out of position. That said, he has a relentless motor and hopefully, he'll get more comfortable in the defensive scheme.
Lastly, the secondary. I'm not going to go too much into various players and instead, I'll focus more on just general thoughts. However, one player deserves a shoutout from this game. Kenneth Harris played lights out. He lined up in the Nickel mostly, but also on the outside from time to time. He was all over the field. He played well in run support, he was great on delayed blites. He had great timing. He's good at dissecting the play and making the read. He's not afraid to tackle. While I would like to see him wrap up, he absolutely laid the wood to one poor UTM receiver. He played really well.
The UTM scoring drive and the trick play. Initially, I thought this was largely on Robertson, who did get sucked forward by the look of a wide receiver screen. However, I'm actually not all that mad at what he did. Yeah, I would like to see him dissect the play a little bit faster, but I don't know what he saw from his angle, either. It's easy to critique when viewing the play from the TV camera angle, allowing full vision of a play. It was Dylan Smith who was supposed to be in coverage on the WR and who got beat. Smith took a poor angle and wasn't fast enough to recover. It's a bad breakdown, but honestly, it was one of the few glaring errors that our secondary made.
On the whole, the outside CBs played well. All the Smiths played well. JK Johnson also did well in coverage. I don't know if this is a reflection of the talent we have out there or the lack of talent in the UTM WR group, but the UTM receivers did not have a ton of breathing room all night. JK Johnson looked a bit gun shy to tackle. I don't know if that's just rust or if he just doesn't like to tackle. He did have a clutch tackle on the UTM QB, stopping him 2 yards short when otherwise, it was easily a first down. Even on that one, though, he seemed hesitant.
Really, I was most worried about the LBs and the secondary and both groups played really well. It is an FCS opponent, so I'll continue to take it with a grain of salt, but I was impressed by both groups.
