okeefe4prez
Well-Known Member
As an OC, all you can do is put your players in a position to succeed, and they have to do the rest. There were multiple times yesterday where the Hawks were set up for success and just couldn't make the play.
McNamara missed Anderson long, and another time he had a wide open Vines and he missed him short (Vines was interfered with, but they weren't calling that all game). I am pretty sure those misses had a lot to do with limited practice reps, hopefully he gets healthier soon (I am not opposed to him sitting W. Michigan to get that thing healed).
Johnson had several runs where he was one-on-one in space, and he got taken down. I thought that one at the end was particularly bad, that was a really well blocked play, and he just needed to beat one guy. Had he bounced instead of angling off the edge, there is no way that guy gets him.
We ran a nice WR screen to Vines on our last FG drive, and though it got 8 or so, it would have been a TD had he made 1 guy miss in space.
Several plays later, we got exactly the look we wanted on the TE scissors, but someone screwed up the depth and our guys ran into each other.
We have way too many plays where our OL run right past defenders screaming to the ball carrier.
Despite the poor offesnive production, I came away from the game cautiously optimistic. So often last year, it did not seem like there were any plays to be made. This year, there were plays to be made, we just aren't making them yet. I think we can get there. I would love to see aboutt 75 snaps vs. W. Michigan, that would really help our O get in a groove.
Excellent post. This is a team that is really close. The plays that we missed are the sorts of plays that I believe we will hit when we need them. After watching Stanley and Petras overshoot wide open guys for the past 6 years, I am freaking over the moon with what we have right now. My God, if we win that Penn State game the sky is gonna be the limit for this team. They are going to be downright salty by October and November.