Lots of positives biut here is what stood out to me.
- Hilinski continues to look more comfortable managing the game and not turning the ball over.
- Stephon Robinson continuing to emerge as a big playmaker.
-JJ Jefferson getting healthy and making plays. Look for him to be a bigger part of the offense going forward.
- Andrew Clair becoming a bigger part of the offense. I like him.
- The OL is becoming more cohesive and effective across the board in both run and pass blocking.
- DL penetration was there all day. Tommy A. Emerging as a star and Samdup starting to look like his old self.
- Gallagher played fast and loose. I think we’ve found our MLB.
Agree with most of these. My reactions:
- DL looked very different today vs prior weeks. Adebawore was an absolute force to be reckoned with, reminded me of Ifeadi his last year coming off the edge. Samdup looked better too. Just as importantly 96 Trevor Kent was a difference maker in the middle. Has he been hurt? I don’t think he had been playing much prior to this week and he really impacted the game vs our DTs in prior weeks.
- I’m not as positive as you on Gallagher. He has some good plays but some bad plays. Both 32 and 40 still are concerns for me in terms of speed of making reads and tackling in space. On the other hand I thought Bergin had an excellent game. I will say that the LBs were better this week than previously but that’s a low bar.
- For the secondary, the obvious thing to call out is Mitchell, he got beaten multiple times in the first half by their WR. He had been good most of the season and just got smoked. He got caught looking for picks and against a good WR you can’t necessarily do that. I’m not terribly worried about him long term - I suspect the coaches told him to guard first and let the turnovers come second. He was good in the second half and hopefully it’s a lesson learned for the future.
(PS did you guys watch David Bell torch the vaunted Iowa secondary? Reminded me of how good Newsome was last year to win that matchup - kept him to a lot of short contested catches and forced a fair number of incompletions)
- It was noticeable how they threw away from B Jo play after play. It was like his deep side of the field was a no fly zone. They did once toward the red zone and he nearly picked it. I loved how later in the game since they refused to throw near him the DC started blitzing him. He drew a holding call the first time and then helped knock down the ball the second time (couldn’t tell if it was him or the DL that got it - maybe both). I know his counting stats aren’t as good this year but he’s still had an excellent season. If teams continue to avoid him then it’s good that we are finding other ways to get him involved. Also other teams won’t have the best punter in the nation like Rutgers so he can impact the game there.
- Overall much improved on defense. I’m really hoping that’s the start of a trend and not just Rutgers being bad. We will see next week!
- 100% agree with Corbi on Robinson. It’s been clear all year but once again this week he demonstrated that he’s the best player on our offense. Let’s find more ways to get him the ball.
- I have to say the refs choice of when to call PI was totally bizarre. They missed 2 blatant ones on Stephon and a 3rd that was probably PI, and then they called 2 that were questionable at best. I guess it evens out? To our credit we took advantage of those and scored TDs on both of the gift flags.
- Also agree on Clair. No disrespect to Hull, but I think 11 is our best RB. I think the coaches agree based on who was in the game when we got into the red zone.
- Red zone play calling also good - liked that we mixed it up with the TE peel out for an easy score. I know we would prefer to run it in but calling those plays keeps the defense honest.
- OL was better. The biggest issue I see is in blitz pickup. They are improving but there are still times when we seem to totally miss, or fail to shift protection the side the blitz is coming from. I can’t say I was watching closely enough to be confident, but from casual observation the RG seems to be the weakest spot of the OL. It was most blatant when he didn’t even make contact with their DT on the attempted flea flicker but I saw it a couple other times too. That DT on Rutgers (Turner?) is a player though.
- Lastly Hilinski. My observation is that he is very good when he has time. Throws a tight ball and importantly he seems to consistently hit our guys in stride which allowed for big potential RAC from 5, 6, and 3 yday. However when he gets under pressure he struggles. As the NFL folks would say, he doesn’t throw well “off platform”. The good news is most of the times he just throws it away and avoids turnovers, but there are some ugly throwaways in there that make me concerned we will see turnovers under pressure against better teams. And against better teams he also won’t have as much time as this week… he played very well yday to get us the win. But if Marty is available I wouldn’t mind seeing him in the future.
- I guess that wasn’t quite last - just want to add to Corbi’s point that I was also thrilled to see JJ Jefferson have a strong game.
Excellent team W. Celebrate, recover, and let’s get prepped for the big noon kickoff against Michigan.
Go Cats!
