- Oct 5, 2017
- 2,315
- 6,299
Hey guys, sorry for the delay, but it has been a busy time in Utah.
I thought the Utah fans were great overall, even though I somehow ended up with the 3 awful Utah fans in my row. Including one who did his best Vandy baseball whistler impression throughout the game. Why? Because some students flipped him off in Gainesville last year and he wanted Gator fans who weren’t involved to know her pain.
The offense was a mixed bag. It was nice to see a Billy QB throw for over 300 yards, but just like last year when we did that, we lost and did so because we couldn’t run the ball. I feared the OL would be a regression and they were. Yes, Kingsley would’ve been better, but George getting beat and others are not helping. If you take away Mertz’s yards and the kneel at the end of the half we had 12 carries for 43 yards, 3.58 ypc. Why did we abandon the run? My guess is that if you take away a Tre Wilson 9 yarder it is barely 3 yards a carry and Billy knew the OL wouldn’t take on Utah’s front 7 well even after they lost Reid. I know I’ve been told I’m crazy, but calling outside runs to the short side of the field seem to not be as productive as those to the wide side.
We threw 10 passes that went for 5 yards or less. Again, that’s not balls that traveled less than 5 yards, that’s completions that went less than 5 yards. That’s 1/3 of the 31 completions. Throwing Zanders a shovel pass or throwing screens on 4th and long (literally the last offensive play that was incomplete) are not exactly great playcalls. However, like with AR, there were some great throws by Mertz. Unfortunately, there weren’t many spectacular runs or avoidance of sacks. I was happy to see some catches made to help the QB, didn’t see that much last year. The most notable one was the touchdown catch where Douglas went up and grabbed the ball out of the air on a contested ball.
The defense did alright. No sacks was surprising and although an argument could be made they only gave up 10 points (the INT and stop nullified by the two #3’s issue), I think there was still opportunity to get a stop after the penalty. A question has to be asked if they would have done as well had Kuithe and Rising played. A lot of people said we were winning by multiple scores after their injuries were announced. Now, I wonder how many of those are even asking the question of how bad would it have been had Rising and Kuithe played.
We only gave up 270 yards, but when you give up 24 points and the offense can’t score a TD until down by 3 scores. The first TD was a safety error. I know some have attributed it to Jason Marshall, but each time I’ve seen the play whether live or on replay it looks like he is playing outside leverage to a safety in Cover 1. RJ Moten reacts too early to one route and breaks the main rule of safeties, don’t let anyone behind you. If he doesn’t let Parks behind him, I don’t believe that ball is complete.
I am impressed we limited their RB Jackson to 3 ypc after he had gone off late in the season with several 6+ ypc games. Shemar James and TJ Searcy looked good. I am hoping our run defense continues to improve. Even in the loss, this defense took a step forward holding the Utes to just 3 conversions on 13 attempts on 3rd down. Again, maybe that looks different with Rising and Kuithe, but we were atrocious on 3rd down against all sorts of teams last season (Eastern Washington was almost 50% at 8-18). It is good we held someone under 25%.
I know, why am I being more positive than focusing on the negatives in this game so far? Well, because now we have to talk about things we were told would happen and things that didn’t happen. We were told that this team would play disciplined ball. 9 penalties, many that killed drives, determines that we did not see that. You can be disciplined and lose, I think we have a decent argument to say we lost because we were not disciplined. We were told we would be detail oriented, we were not detail oriented because if we were, you do not have Marshall and Wilson on the field at the same time.
I think some of the playcalling was questionable, and have alluded to above. When you’re not running well and still try a draw on 3rd and 10, that’s bad. When it’s 4th and 14, game on the line, and you call a screen pass, and not just a screen pass, but a screen to a guy not named Pearsall or Wilson. And before we hit the OL was bad and that’s why we did it explanation, we did the exact same thing last year on a key 3rd down at the beginning of the game winning TD drive to Henderson. Henderson just made a guy miss and barely got the first. There are others, but some things that leave questions.
Another one is time management. We really haven’t seem a team play too fast under Billy if it isn’t under 2 minutes to go and we can talk about that 4+ minute drive with no urgency at the end, but I have a play microcosm. At the end of the first half, we get Utah to 4th down and call a timeout. We wait 8-9 seconds to call a timeout. If you’re going to try to make something happen with your two remaining timeouts, call it immediately. If you are putting all the eggs into a return (which it looked like we did), drain the clock to 3 seconds, maybe to 10 if you’re hoping for a return to FG range. Why 15-20 seconds in case we somehow give Utah the ball? Also, why not try to block the punt? A punt block attempt requires more blockers, more blockers mean less people getting downfield which means more space initially for the return man. It wasn’t the most crucial play, but one I think that makes me wonder about the thought process. If you do the little things well, you’ll do the big things well and coaching wise, it looks like we are doing neither.
Also, where were Jean and Mizell? Where was Boardingham?
I’m not going to overreact and say fire this coach or openly wonder why we have 2 OL coaches who only have 1 top 900 recruit committed and then put that product on the field. However, we will see if this is an anomaly as a first game on the road or if this is the latest signs of problems. We are going to learn a lot about Napier and his process after this game that was not as close as the score indicates facing a team that was on it’s 3rd/4th string QB’s and lost one of their best defensive players.
It is not time to hit the panic button, but this also isn’t a free pass. McNeese St. will not tell us anything unless its bad (which I said in the pre-season).
To end on a positive note, after Livingston fell on 3rd down on our last full drive before the half, Napier gave him encouraging words and had him lead the team onto the field in the second half. Not sure if that was mentioned by anyone or on the broadcast, but I saw it from my seats. I love Napier off the field, now it is time to see it on the field.
Go Gators!
I thought the Utah fans were great overall, even though I somehow ended up with the 3 awful Utah fans in my row. Including one who did his best Vandy baseball whistler impression throughout the game. Why? Because some students flipped him off in Gainesville last year and he wanted Gator fans who weren’t involved to know her pain.
The offense was a mixed bag. It was nice to see a Billy QB throw for over 300 yards, but just like last year when we did that, we lost and did so because we couldn’t run the ball. I feared the OL would be a regression and they were. Yes, Kingsley would’ve been better, but George getting beat and others are not helping. If you take away Mertz’s yards and the kneel at the end of the half we had 12 carries for 43 yards, 3.58 ypc. Why did we abandon the run? My guess is that if you take away a Tre Wilson 9 yarder it is barely 3 yards a carry and Billy knew the OL wouldn’t take on Utah’s front 7 well even after they lost Reid. I know I’ve been told I’m crazy, but calling outside runs to the short side of the field seem to not be as productive as those to the wide side.
We threw 10 passes that went for 5 yards or less. Again, that’s not balls that traveled less than 5 yards, that’s completions that went less than 5 yards. That’s 1/3 of the 31 completions. Throwing Zanders a shovel pass or throwing screens on 4th and long (literally the last offensive play that was incomplete) are not exactly great playcalls. However, like with AR, there were some great throws by Mertz. Unfortunately, there weren’t many spectacular runs or avoidance of sacks. I was happy to see some catches made to help the QB, didn’t see that much last year. The most notable one was the touchdown catch where Douglas went up and grabbed the ball out of the air on a contested ball.
The defense did alright. No sacks was surprising and although an argument could be made they only gave up 10 points (the INT and stop nullified by the two #3’s issue), I think there was still opportunity to get a stop after the penalty. A question has to be asked if they would have done as well had Kuithe and Rising played. A lot of people said we were winning by multiple scores after their injuries were announced. Now, I wonder how many of those are even asking the question of how bad would it have been had Rising and Kuithe played.
We only gave up 270 yards, but when you give up 24 points and the offense can’t score a TD until down by 3 scores. The first TD was a safety error. I know some have attributed it to Jason Marshall, but each time I’ve seen the play whether live or on replay it looks like he is playing outside leverage to a safety in Cover 1. RJ Moten reacts too early to one route and breaks the main rule of safeties, don’t let anyone behind you. If he doesn’t let Parks behind him, I don’t believe that ball is complete.
I am impressed we limited their RB Jackson to 3 ypc after he had gone off late in the season with several 6+ ypc games. Shemar James and TJ Searcy looked good. I am hoping our run defense continues to improve. Even in the loss, this defense took a step forward holding the Utes to just 3 conversions on 13 attempts on 3rd down. Again, maybe that looks different with Rising and Kuithe, but we were atrocious on 3rd down against all sorts of teams last season (Eastern Washington was almost 50% at 8-18). It is good we held someone under 25%.
I know, why am I being more positive than focusing on the negatives in this game so far? Well, because now we have to talk about things we were told would happen and things that didn’t happen. We were told that this team would play disciplined ball. 9 penalties, many that killed drives, determines that we did not see that. You can be disciplined and lose, I think we have a decent argument to say we lost because we were not disciplined. We were told we would be detail oriented, we were not detail oriented because if we were, you do not have Marshall and Wilson on the field at the same time.
I think some of the playcalling was questionable, and have alluded to above. When you’re not running well and still try a draw on 3rd and 10, that’s bad. When it’s 4th and 14, game on the line, and you call a screen pass, and not just a screen pass, but a screen to a guy not named Pearsall or Wilson. And before we hit the OL was bad and that’s why we did it explanation, we did the exact same thing last year on a key 3rd down at the beginning of the game winning TD drive to Henderson. Henderson just made a guy miss and barely got the first. There are others, but some things that leave questions.
Another one is time management. We really haven’t seem a team play too fast under Billy if it isn’t under 2 minutes to go and we can talk about that 4+ minute drive with no urgency at the end, but I have a play microcosm. At the end of the first half, we get Utah to 4th down and call a timeout. We wait 8-9 seconds to call a timeout. If you’re going to try to make something happen with your two remaining timeouts, call it immediately. If you are putting all the eggs into a return (which it looked like we did), drain the clock to 3 seconds, maybe to 10 if you’re hoping for a return to FG range. Why 15-20 seconds in case we somehow give Utah the ball? Also, why not try to block the punt? A punt block attempt requires more blockers, more blockers mean less people getting downfield which means more space initially for the return man. It wasn’t the most crucial play, but one I think that makes me wonder about the thought process. If you do the little things well, you’ll do the big things well and coaching wise, it looks like we are doing neither.
Also, where were Jean and Mizell? Where was Boardingham?
I’m not going to overreact and say fire this coach or openly wonder why we have 2 OL coaches who only have 1 top 900 recruit committed and then put that product on the field. However, we will see if this is an anomaly as a first game on the road or if this is the latest signs of problems. We are going to learn a lot about Napier and his process after this game that was not as close as the score indicates facing a team that was on it’s 3rd/4th string QB’s and lost one of their best defensive players.
It is not time to hit the panic button, but this also isn’t a free pass. McNeese St. will not tell us anything unless its bad (which I said in the pre-season).
To end on a positive note, after Livingston fell on 3rd down on our last full drive before the half, Napier gave him encouraging words and had him lead the team onto the field in the second half. Not sure if that was mentioned by anyone or on the broadcast, but I saw it from my seats. I love Napier off the field, now it is time to see it on the field.
Go Gators!
