The Good
Lockett showed off his acrobatic strengths in the return unit, but still has work to do as a receiver.
Whoo, boy. Special teams put on quite a show, didn't they? Three field goals by Cantele and 6 extra points. Huge punt returns by Lockett and Thompson and big man Dowling. Excellent coverage by Truman and Loomis and beautiful corner kickoffs that kept Missouri State within the 20 yard line. In a game where the offense and defense sputtered, special teams provided sparks and momentum all game long. Granted, Missouri State's special teams coach did quit 10 days ago, so we should have looked good. Still, it was the most solid and consistent unit on the field today, for all 4 quarters.
Question mark: Ryan Doerr. Krause's punts weren't great, and Doerr was handling the snaps for extra point plays. Injury? Surprise attack for next week? Not sure, but I hope he stays healthy.
The Bad
When Braden high steps, the team high steps. His was the first of 5 touchdowns in the 4th quarter.
They let Collin call his own plays for awhile in the first half, and unfortunately, I think it showed. The first drive of the game was great, (a tight end play!) but then completely unraveled in the red zone. Red zone scoring was a hallmark of last year's team, and I think that was because of the plays coming in from the sideline. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if Collin handled the calls between the 20's and then handed it over to Coach. Touchdowns are needed in this conference.
I think Collin will benefit from quite a bit of time in the film room this week. He seemed hesitant to run or throw or make decisions in the pocket, especially on 3rd down. The receivers still need to do a better job of running their routes and not dropping passes. All of our offensive players seemed to choke on the open field in front of them when given opportunities. I thought Wilson and Tannahill had some pretty uninspired blocking in the first half as well. Lots of rust.
Bright spots: the running game and the offensive line. Pease, Hubert and even Wilson look a lot better running the ball this year. Wilson looked so good inside the 10 that we might be able to use him for rushing touchdowns instead of Klein this year. I'm sure that would make everyone a lot happier, but Wilson will have to make sure he hangs on the ball. He has a bit of a history as a dropper. Pease isn't trying to run over a wall of people any more, which is nice, but his side speed isn't as great as Hubert's. Following the blocks is key for him. Hubert needs to remember to run forward instead of trying to juke everyone. His 96 yard run was beautiful, and you could see on his face how much he needed to break away like that. I hope it's a sign that he's finally turned the corner. The line looked really strong and just need a bit more experience in game situations with sealing off the corners and blocking for Collin. I like what I'm seeing from Finney though. Very strong crew, and only one false start by the newbie Whitehair.
Also, I don't want to talk too much about it, but boy. Sams looked so pretty. It reminded me of a movie trailer, when they reboot a classic film, and then they have this reveal of an object or a person or a symbol that is inextricably linked with that brand. That was what Sams' TD run meant to me. Chills.
The Ugly
The defense has some serious work to do this week. Anyone miss Cosh yet? Like you would admit that.
Man, that secondary looked terrible, didn't it? They are sorely missing Tysyn Hartman's leadership. To make matters worse, Ty Zimmerman left the game at one point and headed to the locker room for treatment. Not good, guys. Not good at all. This unit needs to make huge strides this week to get through Miami. Then it needs to improve 10 fold on that to survive the conference schedule. Ugly, ugly play. No fire, bad reactions, soft coverage, missed tackles, lack of instinct and over pursuit. Basically every mistake that you could make. In terms of position battles, I thought Milo (Gooooolsby) had a better game than Ferguson, and newcomer Randall Evans absolutely flew around the field. Which is good, because Bubba looked completely lost. Hopefully the rust shakes off this team easily.
Unfortunately, it wasn't just the secondary. The defensive line looked pretty woeful as well. Meshak routinely got to the backfield and then missed the QB completely. Dude needs to figure out how to run AT a player instead of around the back of him. If he can't shake an undersized Missouri State lineman, we're in trouble. To be fair, he got a heck of a lot closer than Adam Davis and Vai Lutui. I never saw them break away from the pile on any play. Missouri State didn't try to run the ball much, so the linebackers had a pretty quiet night. Arthur had a few tackles and both Tuggle and Childs looked good at points. Tre was a non-impact, which will hopefully fuel him for next week's rematch with Miami.
Bright spots: Ryan Mueller had a couple of pass deflections and Jonathan Truman continued his textbook tackles. I like both of these guys a lot. They constantly meet and exceed expectations. Randall Evans lived up to his big talk and Milo (Gooooolsby) looked very comfortable in the defense.
Final Thoughts
I realize that the strategy for this game was to stay as basic as possible, so I'm probably getting worked up over nothing. We did, after all, keep them from scoring a touchdown. We were much better in the second half than the first, but I don't know how much of that was fatigue on Missouri State's part. They had a lot more unforced errors in the second half that we benefited from. Then the Hubert 96 yard TD run deflated them completely and we got away with a rout just by wearing them down psychologically. Again, these are quibbles, and we did score 6 touchdowns. The defense just concerns me a great deal, especially after watching the openers for Miami, WVU, Iowa State and OSU. Time to step it up, Cats. No time for complacency.
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