Finally watched the BC game, some thoughts...

[cinimonBun]

Was at my sister's wedding yesterday so only caught about 10 minutes of the game while the other groomsmen and I were sitting around waiting for photos.

- Was very encouraged by Morris's play. I'm admittedly probably the biggest Morris homer on the board, but it was clear to me that he's made some definite strides. He still locks on to his targets from time to time and had a couple risky throws that were almost trouble, but I also saw him go through his progressions and purposely look off his receivers a lot more than I've ever seen him do before. His legs add an extra threat to his game and I'm interested to see how Fisch takes advantage of this in rollouts over the course of the season. And my god, the arm strength. Truly has an NFL-ready arm in that sense.

- Everything has already been said about how incredible Duke is, so instead I'll talk about Mike James. I thought he looked light years better running with the ball than he did last year. He ran hard, with a purpose, and even showed a little wiggle on a few runs that I didn't think he had. I feel a lot more comfortable with the idea of him being our main back now, as it appears he put in a ton of offseason work.

- Pleasantly surprised with the play of the OL. I'm assuming BC doesn't exactly have a dominant defensive line, but nonetheless they looked good out there. Hoping Kehoe proves me wrong over the course of the season and that they continue to play as cohesive as they looked yesterday. Got a good push for most of the game. Flowers...man, what a stud. It's real easy to fall into the hyperbole game after watching a guy's first performance, but I'd be shocked if he doesn't leave UM as one of the best OL we've ever had. He didn't just hold his own, he was flat out dominant for much of the game. Total package.

- Drops from the receivers are worrisome. Hopefully just first game jitters. Hurns had a couple himself but overall I thought he played a nice game, and seems ready to step up as the #1 possession receiver on the team. Dorsett was quieter than I had hoped, but on the flip side I can see what all the hype is about for Malcom Lewis. Disappointed with how quiet Cleveland was...I'm expecting big things from him this year.

- DL is scary right now. Never got much of any push all game. I realize BC always has a great OL, but the pre-season concerns about this group appear to be valid. Hopefully Porter gets (and stays) healthy and can help make a difference in the middle, because I'm just not seeing much to get excited about right now with this group.

- LBs were one of the lone bright spots on D for me. Their coverage as a group is still mediocre at best, but I like the aggressiveness they were playing with. Denzel's an absolute monster. Gaines was a nice surprise, thought he showed some good instincts out there. And the young guys really appear promising, minus the dumb penalty that Terry committed. This group has a bright future IMO.

- DBs...yikes. I thought Bush and Howard played pretty well for it being their first college action. But past that, there's not much to get excited about. McGee doesn't seem to have changed much (though he did make a great tackle on that 3rd down stretch run). VT is just horrible out there. It's incomprehensible how a guy that looked so promising as a freshman turned out so bad. Rodgers wasn't as bad but let's just say that I don't feel any better about the concerns about his instincts after watching the tape. Hopefully the young guys are as good as advertised and start getting some more burn here. Gunter I admittedly didn't notice much, which I suppose is a good thing. I'll let the experts judge his play because I honestly can't remember hearing his name being called at all other than on the fumble recovery.

- The offensive results were great and I thought Fisch did an excellent job of taking what the defense gave him. That said, he still gets cute a little too often for my liking, and I'm also concerned about the "Nix Zone" that Lu brought up. Good defenses will absolutely murder us if we try that approach on them. I'm a Fisch fan though, and I think he's smart enough to realize you can't take that same approach against the more physically talented D's we're going to face. It's going to be imperative that they start using some intermediate/deep outs and hooks with the receivers, as well as some TE seams up the middle of the D. Morris has the arm strength to do it so I'd be shocked if we don't see a lot more of them next week.

- Like everyone else, I'm not sold on Coach D yet either. They're playing a ton of young guys out there so playing a more conservative D in the first game or two is to be expected, but i'm still worried. Obviously he doesn't have a lot to work with, but the lack of adjustments is scary. Hopefully the D will improve as the year goes on like last season, but I'm not terribly confident that D'onofrio's much more than a JAG coordinator.

- Special teams were fantastic all around, minus the bumbling around on that first pooch kickoff BC did. I'm a big believer that excellent ST play is one of the main building blocks in a well-coached team, and I don't think there's any argument that this area of the team has been noticeably improved even since the beginning of last season.

- Lastly, one of the most promising things to see was the change in conditioning. It's good to see that all the talk about it hasn't just been smoke and mirrors. Being stronger than a team like BC as the game goes on should be expected, but we sure as **** haven't seen it in years.

All in all, it's just a solid win against what I can only assume will be a mediocre-at-best team this year, but there's some definite good to build from. As long as Fisch doesn't intend to stick with the Nix Zone offense all year, I think we're gonna score a ton of points. KState's gonna be a much better indicator as to what we're really looking at here.

 

[jevoasis]

Good points. Definitely agree about James, he looked very good and deserves to get starter carries going forward.

 

[storm1926]

Cim's sister married? Noooooooo

 

[CanefaninBuckeyeland]

Agreed. I'm not going to pile on the defensive strategery until they get a couple of games under their belt. The D line was the most startling and disappointing thing that I saw. At some point I thing a team like K State won't even worry about passing and challenge The D line's manhood. If the BC running back had just a little more speed, he would have broken multiple 15 yard gains (that is when he wasn't fumbling).

Although the O line had a solid game, I still didn't like the short yardage execution. On more than a couple of occasions (i.e QB sneak, Eduardo Clemente 3 and 1 situations, etc.) the O line got stood up. They didn't necessarily get get pushed back, but they made some of those attempts more difficult than they should have. I'm not gonna freak out over that yet.

I think someone mentioned in another thread that the receivers were "fighting the ball" and I absolutely agree with that assessment. All though they did settle down as the game progressed. I was a bit underwhelmed with Dorsett though. You can see flashes of what he can do, but it looks like he's thinking too much instead of just doing it. I will chalk that up to youth and game 1.

I'm going to hold off on judging the secondary due to the overly conservative and vanilla scheme. I will say that VT is always a day late and a dollar short. I know it's not fair to single him out, but as a veteran of the defense, I expected more playmaking ability.

Morris had a solid game, he just has to make sure he doesn't revert back to some of the mistakes of the past (i.e staring down receivers, some indecision, and poise, or lack thereof, in the pocket when pressured).

As far as the RBs are concerned, I was very pleased with their performance in their individual roles. James was the workhorse, Clementes was the short yardage and goal line back, while Duke was absolutely amazing.

All in all, BC was an almost perfect opponent to start off the season with. They're good enough to give us an honest assessment of where we are (unlike a FAMU-type opener), but easy enough to not shake our confidence like an Oklahoma beat down would have done. Defensively, it is what it is. Many, if not most, of the starters shouldn't be playing due to redshirts or backups. Because of that, the instincts just aren't there yet. We're doing a lot of thinking out here instead of playing. Offensively, I'm confident that Morris will continue to mature and everyone will settle into their roles. 1-0 is definitely better than 0-1, so off to Manhattan. GO CANES.