WMD's Armchair QB - Team USA Edition

[War Machine Dawg]

Well gents, the Dawgs are 4-0 and leaving September undefeated for the 1st time since '99. If you aren't excited about what this team might be able to do, check your pulse. Now, on to the recap.

1. We came out flat, aGAIN. Absolutely no excuse for it after last week. We woke up a bit starting in the 2nd quarter, but it still has me concerned. Starting slowly can become a bad habit.

2. Per the Kang after the game 17 had a wrist. I thought Russell's passes didn't look like they had the same zip they'd had the last 3 weeks, so it's good to know there was an injury issue driving it.

3. Chris Wilson is a good DC, but his ******** vanilla D in OOC games is running up my blood pressure. Can we re-hire JLD to coach the OOC games? I'm sick of watching us play Cover 2 and letting teams run up and down the field. Man up and shut the ******** down the way we all know we can.

4. I say aGAIN, I love the depth of this team. It's going to pay off big down the road.

5. My biggest disappointment is our failure to establish the run early. We were wayyyy too pass happy. Play action only works if they actually believe you're going to run the ball.

6. Mullen needs to take over play calling from Koenning. Some guys are natural play callers, some aren't. Mullen is, Koenning isn't. Example: JR's first 3 carries went for 8, 13, 8. He didn't touch the ball the rest of the half.

7. Nice to see Nickoe knock someone the 17 out. And get a pick and a nice return. Hopefully he's starting to bounce back a bit from the Achilles.

8. Once aGAIN, Bump should never be allowed to return a punt. His reps should go to Tubby.

9. Speaking of Tubby, can we PLEASE ditch the Wildcat? Everyone knows what's coming and it isn't fooling anyone. Give Dak the reps.

10. And speaking of Dak, I really liked what I saw from him. His pass on the post was ridiculous, an absolute laser. Too bad Tubby dropped his pass in the red zone.

11. Russell is still holding the ball too long. Too many people are incorrectly blaming some of the pressure he's getting on the OL. In the 5 wide set, the free blitzer is the QB's (Russell's) responsibility. He has to either get rid of the ball or get moving. I'd equate him to Big Ben in the sense that he's a guy who makes his OL look worse than it is by holding the ball so long.

12. For the 2nd week, our TEs got zero involvement in the passing game. Hurry back Malcolm Johnson.

13. Morrow needs to wake the hell up out there. If you're on the field, assume the ball could come to you. Russell threw him a totally catchable ball and he didn't have a chance to catch it b/c he wasn't expecting it.

14. I ask for the 2nd week: why isn't RoJo more involved in our passing game? He's a mismatch for us that we're failing to exploit. Get him more opportunities.

15. A win is a win. Yeah, it was ugly, but we still won by 20. And their TD came in garbage time when we were playing even softer D with the backups than we did with the starters.

As always, feel free to comment, add, disagree.

In Mullen We Trust,

WMD

 

[coach66]

Spot on!

nm

 

[Big Sheep81]

There's only wins and losses...no pretty or ugly. The win/loss column in the record books has no spot for that (thank God). Pretty good summary.

 

[thunderclap]

I'm with you. I'm clueless about our offense, the personnel, the play calling, etc.

 

[NTDawg]

So you are saying getting laid is the only thing that counts. It doesn't matter what they look like. I disagree.

 

[AlSwearengen]

A couple points. Everyone is bitching about coming out flat, but the way I see it, the more games we can sleep walk through and still win, the better. If we can shorten our season from an emotional standpoint, it will help us on the back half. We are going to need it. I also think we are playing vanilla as hell for a reason. I'm going to trust this staff to do things that we don't understand right now. Mullen has made it obvious that he is usually playing chess when others are playing checkers as far as thinking three or four moves ahead. I've seen bad coaching and this isn't it. Concerning R. Johnson, I'm afraid this is a case of the head not being caught up to the body. Against Troy he looked terrible on a deep ball that he should have caught.

 

[maroonmadman]

16. Special teams - were actually quite good this game. Punt/kickoff returns were good, coverage was good, mada all xpa's and 3 of 4 FG's - all three by our no. 1 kicker, Bell. Maybe it had something to do with Kang jackie being at the game but whatever the reason we need to keep it up.

 

[Big Sheep81]

Well, that would depend on how long you've been at sea......

But, for a thinking man like yourself, I would say no, there is no difference. However, memories of the better looking lays linger longer that those of the ugly ones. Just remember that pinkmouthed snapping turtle is pretty much the same although some of them are easier on the eyes than others.

 

[pDigital32Dawg]

Good Post, I will say in Russel's defense he did have a wrist brace on this past week prior to the USA game as well.

 

[Todd4State]

I have some of the same concerns

I'm not sure that emotion and focus are mutually exclusive. We shouldn't have to get up for South Alabama to beat the snot out of them. We should have the focus to beat the snot out of them. We may not have had the emotion, but there is no doubt we didn't have the focus.

I though the defense played pretty well for most of the game. We actually blitzed a good bit and we were much more active in this game. Most of the yards we gave up was with the second team guys in the game.

I would like to see Bumphis run the wildcat instead of Jameon. Much more of a threat to pass.

Tyler and holding the ball too long- some of that is on the WR's for not getting open soon enough. When we go to five WR, Tyler needs to auto check to a slant and/or a stab route if the other team shows blitz.

I think Les gets stuck in ruts and patterns things too much sometimes. Calling the same play over and over...

 

[Coach 57]

I feel i had a pretty damn successful head coach he once told us after an ugly asset playoff win. "Winning is a girl you chase for most of your career then u marry her. Sometimes when she's all done up & her make ups right the whole darned town knows how fine she is. But sometimes, like tonight you'd just like to keep her *** at the house. But the point is, she's yours & yours alone." That's now i feel about this deal. That may be the worst game Tyler's had that I've seen. But I'm damn glad he's our QB. As far as what i saw Saturday i saw what you did. Good points. I think the same thing you do about 81. He's a damn beast!

 

[War Machine Dawg]

I just think we're better served letting Dak get the "Wildcat" raps than either Tubby or Bump. As far as being a threat to pass, Jameon was a QB in HS, so he's plenty capable. I just don't think we have confidence in anyone but Tyler & Dak to throw. Plus, Dak needs all the PT he can get. Hopefully Russell stays healthy, but if he doesn't, Dak will be the guy and we need to get him ready as quickly as possible. Plus, I don't think the D would be able to completely ignore the threat of a pass the way they're doing with Jameon and/or Bump if we tried him.

I agree about the difference in emotion & focus. Like I said, there was no excuse for us to sleepwalk through that game, especially after last week. I wasn't expecting us to be "up" from an emotional standpoint, but I was expecting much better execution overall. Of course, a lot of the problem was also failure to establish the run early in the game. When you're passing so much, it's hard to get in a rhythm offensively. We should have pounded them into submission with the ground game in the first half.

As for Koenning getting stuck in ruts, that goes to my point of some guys having a natural talent for play calling. Koenning doesn't have that natural talent. He's ok, but Mullen has that natural talent.

 

[War Machine Dawg]

I forgot to mention that. Yes, special teams was MUCH better Saturday. I think we finally saw what the coaches have seen in Bell. He's got ridiculous leg strength and hang time. Hopefully his head is finally on straight, because he's got a special leg that could win games for us. He really allows us to do some things on kickoff with the hang time he gets.

 

[Xenomorph]

There's going to come a Saturday when we throw out of the wildcat...

...and when the receiver is 20 yards down field dragging across the middle all alone everybody's going to be glad we waited for the right moment.

 

[War Machine Dawg]

A couple points. Everyone is bitching about coming out flat, but the way I see it, the more games we can sleep walk through and still win, the better. If we can shorten our season from an emotional standpoint, it will help us on the back half. We are going to need it. I also think we are playing vanilla as hell for a reason. I'm going to trust this staff to do things that we don't understand right now. Mullen has made it obvious that he is usually playing chess when others are playing checkers as far as thinking three or four moves ahead. I've seen bad coaching and this isn't it. Concerning R. Johnson, I'm afraid this is a case of the head not being caught up to the body. Against Troy he looked terrible on a deep ball that he should have caught.

I agree there's a reason we're playing vanilla in the OOC games. My problem is the lack of focus, as Todd has pointed out. Like I said in my reply to him, I don't really expect us to be up from an emotional standpoint in these OOC games, but I do expect us to be focused and execute.

As for RoJo, you could be right. But he's a RSSO, it's time for him to start stepping up. He could be a big time weapon for us. As for dropping the pass at Troy, I won't dog him for that. All our WRs were dropping passes all night, not just him. It goes back to a lack of focus. But not even trying to get him involved isn't cool, and that's what we're doing right now. I think he's one of the few dynamic offensive weapons we have along with Malcom Johnson & Tubby.

 

[NTDawg]

War Machine, I like it when you post back to back. I've two Kate'sdancing on my screen at the same time.<o></o>

 

[EAVdog]

The game was boring and sloppy because we treated it like a scrimmage.

Tobias Smith didn't play, but he could have.

I think Brandon Hill was also out, and Malcolm Johnson was still out. We know what Marcus Green can do (just watch the Auburn game) so we effectively took out every TE play. I'm not sure we threw to a TE all game. And if we did it was our 4h string TE.

I'm pretty sure we knew we could run the ball on USA however we wanted. So we came out chunking the ball around. Even so Perkins is still 3rd in the SEC. Russell wasn't as sharp as usual but our WR's did catch the balls.

Every 3rd series we subbed in the entire second string DL. The entire 4th quarter was played by 2nd and 3rd string. Archie Muniz, Templeton Hardy, Holley etc... on the OL. Dak at QB. Taveze Calhoun played the entire 4th quarter. I'm not sure anyone had a clean jersey after this game. I think everyone except the 3rd #40 didn't play.

The best thing about that game, which should have everyone excited, is Devon Dell's performance. He hit 2 42 yard FG's that would have been good from 52 and his KO's were high hanging bombs that dropped about 2 yards in the Endzone. That allowed for our coverage team to be on their returner by the time he got to the 5 or 10 yard line. Special teams was excellent.

As for the soft zone, I think Mullen is feeding Banks, Slay, Broomfield now because Int's won't be as easy to come by in the future. Right now we lead the NCAA in takeaways and turnover margin. Nothing wrong with that. Let these little teams move the ball around, we'll get it back.

This game was like a practice, we could have hung 70 on them if we'd have liked.

 

[thf24]

I absolutely agree on the offensive play calling. It seems like in the past whenever we've been struggling but suddenly march down the field and score when we need to, we hear afterwards that Mullen took over from Koenning at that point.

I agree on Russell too. At first I was just thinking our receivers weren't getting open and he was holding onto it as long as he needed to, but I saw several plays the other night where he had an open man and hesitated too long.

 

[BiscuitEater]

Positives ...

* After missing his first 3 FGs to start the year, Bell now has hit 4 in a row and getting KOs to the endzone
* Special teams including coverages are much improved
* RBs may not win any 'all SEC' awards but all four are contributing
* Dak had some zip and accuracy on his two throws and seems to have confidence; feel more comfortable about him if needed
* Malone (RSFr) has done a good job starting last two games; feel more comfortable about OL
* Mullen is developing depth and playing a lot of kids
* Besides TE, injury situation 'seems' to be excellent
* Mullen has two weeks before SEC grind to heal, fix noted issues, establish an SEC game plan

Been a long time since I felt this good, four games into the season.

 

[Todd4State]

I think our problem as far as establishing the pass/run

is the plays we called. I'm OK with us establishing the pass to set up the run- but if we're going to do that, let's try shorter throws and easier throws to try to get Tyler and the WR's into rhythm and then attack deep.

So, again- it goes back to Les.

 

[NTDawg]

The snapping turtle might be same and W might be a W but some girls/wins you can't wait to talk to friends about others you don't mention to anyone. You don't want to have a second date with them even if you do now the outcome.

 

[Big Sheep81]

Well stated sir...I forfeit the remainder of the match**

nm

 

[chew1095]

So, win over Auburn (or loss to UT if you're the Bears):

See WMD's sig


Win over USA:

 

[OleYeller]

There was maybe two plays where the reciever was open and he held it too long. The rest of the time he was waiting for them to come open. He also has the tendency to stare down a receiver, but most college qb's do that

 

[CoastDawg18]

Agree with that!!