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After seeing every play a bunch of times and looking at pretty much every player in the picture, I come away shocked and amazed that we won. The biggest saving grace was how little time it took to review the game compared to normal. I guess only 40 something snaps will do that for you. I will say this much though, because I want to give our guys some credit, we played really really hard, every guy, right down the roster, no matter who rotated in. The effort was palpable. Did we play well? Consistently? Certainly not. We made some big plays at the right moments, but overall we got schooled and pushed around.
We failed to contain and over-pursued like crazy, especially early. When the DL is getting handled, the pressure is really there on the guys at the second level to make plays. You can see the sense of urgency to help, and to be truthful, I get it. Once a UM guy got into space, our guys did a really good job of taking good angles and not letting the run outs happen. In a sense, we contained them better than, say, GSU or Tulane.
UM has a really good O Line. No kidding. The VT middle three looked like a pillow fight at a sleep-over compared to these guys. They blocked the crap out of us. They really did. Their skill guys are really really fast and they made us pay. There were lanes out there and DJ is really good at making the most of them. They gave our DEs no respect at all and shifted their focus to Gotsis and Green as most opponents have done.
Kyle Travis had a rough game, between penalties, and failing to contain, he was responsible for giving up a fair amount of turf that didn't have to happen. Demond had a rough game to I think. He had his eyes in the wrong place and stopped moving his feet on their first TD and he got himself out of position a few times too.
Keshun Freeman made a few plays and beat his guy a couple times. He is a little overmatched physically, it seems, but he is enough of an athlete to get angles on guys sometimes. He will be good, but a RS would have been good for him this year.
For the first time ever, I saw Kallon beat a guy straight up and make a run at the QB creating a little pressure. Good for him. That was a little ray of sunshine and a modest indicator of progress. Gotsis and Green each made a few plays here and there, but let's face it. They had a really tough assignment. They caught a lot of doubles and against really good players too. It wasn't an easy day at the office.
I do think the safeties played better. They are out of the picture a lot of the time, but they seemed to tackle better and arrive in time more consistently when the camera was out there. I thought Milton played well. He has good speed and Lord knows he needed it Saturday night.
PJ Davis looks like a missile supporting the run, but he was a little late picking up guys releasing a few times giving up easy completions. That 4,2, 5 sure looks barren in the flats some times. There is a lot of space out there.
We didn't force many third downs, but this time, when we did, we had a lot better luck getting them off the field. That was a major improvement.
In the end, this game was won because we did less to help the opponent on offense than they did for us. I think their inexperience at QB led to sloppy execution at the most crucial times. We should feel fortunate to be where we are. It is a good thing we have an offense. I love the effort. We are going to continue to need it. But we sure as heck are going to need the offense to show up every game too.
PS: For the life of me, I can't figure out why UM didn't decide to pound it more and take some of the game management pressure off Kaaya. It may have meant even fewer snaps for everybody, but it probably would have been a better formula. Balance for balances sake I guess.
We failed to contain and over-pursued like crazy, especially early. When the DL is getting handled, the pressure is really there on the guys at the second level to make plays. You can see the sense of urgency to help, and to be truthful, I get it. Once a UM guy got into space, our guys did a really good job of taking good angles and not letting the run outs happen. In a sense, we contained them better than, say, GSU or Tulane.
UM has a really good O Line. No kidding. The VT middle three looked like a pillow fight at a sleep-over compared to these guys. They blocked the crap out of us. They really did. Their skill guys are really really fast and they made us pay. There were lanes out there and DJ is really good at making the most of them. They gave our DEs no respect at all and shifted their focus to Gotsis and Green as most opponents have done.
Kyle Travis had a rough game, between penalties, and failing to contain, he was responsible for giving up a fair amount of turf that didn't have to happen. Demond had a rough game to I think. He had his eyes in the wrong place and stopped moving his feet on their first TD and he got himself out of position a few times too.
Keshun Freeman made a few plays and beat his guy a couple times. He is a little overmatched physically, it seems, but he is enough of an athlete to get angles on guys sometimes. He will be good, but a RS would have been good for him this year.
For the first time ever, I saw Kallon beat a guy straight up and make a run at the QB creating a little pressure. Good for him. That was a little ray of sunshine and a modest indicator of progress. Gotsis and Green each made a few plays here and there, but let's face it. They had a really tough assignment. They caught a lot of doubles and against really good players too. It wasn't an easy day at the office.
I do think the safeties played better. They are out of the picture a lot of the time, but they seemed to tackle better and arrive in time more consistently when the camera was out there. I thought Milton played well. He has good speed and Lord knows he needed it Saturday night.
PJ Davis looks like a missile supporting the run, but he was a little late picking up guys releasing a few times giving up easy completions. That 4,2, 5 sure looks barren in the flats some times. There is a lot of space out there.
We didn't force many third downs, but this time, when we did, we had a lot better luck getting them off the field. That was a major improvement.
In the end, this game was won because we did less to help the opponent on offense than they did for us. I think their inexperience at QB led to sloppy execution at the most crucial times. We should feel fortunate to be where we are. It is a good thing we have an offense. I love the effort. We are going to continue to need it. But we sure as heck are going to need the offense to show up every game too.
PS: For the life of me, I can't figure out why UM didn't decide to pound it more and take some of the game management pressure off Kaaya. It may have meant even fewer snaps for everybody, but it probably would have been a better formula. Balance for balances sake I guess.
