Quick hitters after getting to watch ND game

[TheSwagger1]

- Wonder if Duke's ankle isn't really 100% yet? I made a post about 3 weeks ago mentioning that I'd really like to see him have a great game against a fast defense. I suspect it will come with time, but it would make me feel better. (To be 100% clear for any numbnuts ready to give me a lecture, Duke Johnson is the least of this team's worries.... I love him and think he's a stud).

- Did Waters get any burn? Lockhart?

- I finally saw some positives from young DL that made me feel good in Hamilton & Ivery. They didn't really make any plays, but they looked right & moved like I expect Miami DL to move. I feel a little better just after that little tidbit of seeing them. I was starting to get concerned that I wasn't seeing any "it" factor from any of the young DL. Really hope their reps go up, I'm not the biggest Moore fan.

- Kirby was the victim of some criminal uncalled holding. He's another youngster that looks and moves like he has it (as compared to say Armbrister, who gets plenty of reps but I never really see any flashes that make me thing he's going to blossom into some stud)

- I wonder if Paul is 100% healthy? He is a nice potential backup for us but has some clear things to improve on (primarily any time he's asked to do anything in space or coverage). Considering his shortcomings he has given us some nice reps for being what he is. I like him.

- Eddie Johnson is a psychopath. I love him like crazy. He had a bunch of mental errors in this one though. Looks like he has no idea what to do in the passing game and probably has about 7 or 8 cringe-worthy clips when they review film. His intensity is where I want our defense's intensity to be... he brings it.

- I really wish we could get DP back outside.

- it is amazing how much more athletic Deon Bush looks than any other DB on our roster, sans maybe Mcgee. Without beating a dead horse, we direly need someone else like him back there. The other guys just don't have it, though Highsmith performs admirably & I'm a fan of what he's giving us.

- Everything that's been said negatively about our DL is 100% true. It is amazingly, shockingly bad at both DT and DE. We might literally have the absolute worst DL in all of Div1 football.

- More of a question about the season than the ND game in particular - anyone feel like they know what we got in our young corners? It is irrational to expect it, I know, but I keep hoping one of them is going to make a play and show some "it" factor.

- I'm afraid we're really ****ed at K. That might really hurt us in some of these tight games (and I expect almost all of them to be tight) down the stretch.

- NC game scares the bejeez out of me. It's winnable but I'm not feeling overly confident right now. Biggest game of the season.

 

[rok]

Goudis should be given a shot. He needs experience and Wideclaw is 0 for his last fiftyleven hundred field goals.

 

[TheSwagger1]

Goudis should be given a shot. He needs experience and Wideclaw is 0 for his last fiftyleven hundred field goals.

I'm a little worried that he hasn't already. Makes me wonder what we have there. Anyone have a report on him from previous practices or open scrimmages?

 

[TheSwagger1]

Another comment - Fisch & Morris both seem to be guys who are tremendously impressive while the iron is hot but have trouble rebounding when things go awry (obviously I mention them together because they go hand-in-hand on this one). If our O misses on a couple series in a row it seems like we're trying to take a u-turn in the titanic to get it corrected. The WRs hung Morris out to dry this game, of course, but just a trend in every game other than GT (where they did eventually turn it around but it took a long **** time). I really hope Morris spends a lot of time this offseason putting some touch on the ball. I know if I had a cannon like that I'd want to rifle it every down too but I think it would help our offense a ton if he got better at this.

 

[skyman]

Yea herb joined the party and proceeded to do as the romans and drop a pass. Our Wr were doin work

 

[jwcane97]

I saw a couple plays where Tracy Howard was out there and did everything right (IMO) in a zone, he carried his man to the next level, released him, but had no underneath support. Isn't the LB supposed to cover the flat? saw Golson hit that 2 or 3 times.

I don't know if its the athletes, the scheme or what. But even when the kids do what they are supposed to someone else screws it up.

 

[ScubaCane]

I saw a couple plays where Tracy Howard was out there and did everything right (IMO) in a zone, he carried his man to the next level, released him, but had no underneath support. Isn't the LB supposed to cover the flat? saw Golson hit that 2 or 3 times.

I don't know if its the athletes, the scheme or what. But even when the kids do what they are supposed to someone else screws it up.

I have never seen a defense where guys are continuously wide open play after play, it is literally pitch and catch for every opposing QB. I think UNC puts it on us this week

 

[AUcane]

Good takes, Swag. While there's a lot to be depressed about, you can see the beginnings of the young talent developing on this roster (Duke, Malcolm, Waters, Flowers, Ivery, Jelani, EJ, Kirby, Bush, et al). That is a LOT of primarily first year guys already "looking the part". We get another dose of those kids this coming recruiting cycle, and all of a sudden, things don't look as dire. Thankfully, Golden is recruiting some big time DT studs this recruiting season so I'm sure the DL will be better. I'm more worried about getting stud DL than stud DBs. Unfortunately, this defense is contingent upon front 4 getting pressure and "we ain't doing it".

 

[CaneHammer]

-

- it is amazing how much more athletic Deon Bush looks than any other DB on our roster, sans maybe Mcgee. Without beating a dead horse, we direly need someone else like him back there. The other guys just don't have it, though Highsmith performs admirably & I'm a fan of what he's giving us.

- Everything that's been said negatively about our DL is 100% true. It is amazingly, shockingly bad at both DT and DE. We might literally have the absolute worst DL in all of Div1 football.

Nice post Swags. I wanted to point out something you made note of with Deon Bush. Most want to point out the DL for bearing the responsibility for the Defense sucking. I actually think it is our secondary. I said this in another thread. We have very little in the secondary that the coaching staff has any confidence in. It is so bad that we are "very careful" of when stack the box with 8 or 9 to stop the run. If the secondary was better we would be able to hide the suckiness of our DL by stacking the box. JMO.

I think this along with our DL not being able to shed blocks results in our defense sucking as bad as it has.

 

[SFbayCane]

Good stuff, Swag.

I'll add that I liked how our D was hitting. No shortage of guys looking to lay some lumber.

Gianni Paul is beginning to remind me of Glenn Cook; always in the right place, rarely makes the play.

Waters got some burn - had a key 3rd down drop. I didnt see Lockhart get any targets - dont know if he saw time w/o being thrown to.

 

[JHallCanes]

Yea herb joined the party and proceeded to do as the romans and drop a pass. Our Wr were doin work

That was a big 3rd down drop (at the time anyways) too. Morris made a nice play and throw on the run and Herb was wide open for the 1st. Doink.

 

[weownfsu]

Eddie Johnson got abused in the zone. He's a guy that just needs the reps and experience. He should be much better next year.

Honestly, Swag, tell me if you agree with this because I like your eye for the game, but the most troubling thing on defense to me is how most of our guys let the players run towards them. The only guy I saw even attempting to really fill gaps was Perryman. He would run in there head first and take somebody's legs out. Otherwise, everybody was standing there waiting for the guy to get to them. Right now, that is the biggest problem with the defense outside of the DT's. I don't know if it's because guys are thinking too much, or just suck, but seeing all these Miami players just stand there until the ball carrier gets to them ****es me off to no end. I can't count how many plays should have gone for 0 or 1 yard, but went for 3 or 4 because of how lazyish our guys play.

As to your post re: Fisch, I agree. I think part of the reason is that Fisch isn't patient at all and does not want to establish a running game. If WR's aren't playing well and you're having a tough time moving the ball through the air, you're going to need to run the ball. And that doesn't always come the first few times you do it. For Fisch, running the ball is nothing more than setting up a better passing down, e.g., 2nd and 5 rather than 2nd and 10. It's not a way to tire the defense out and dominate the game. Look at UF against LSU, they couldn't move the ball for **** against LSU running the ball at first, but kept at it, wore them down, and ended up dominating them because of it. We've got a huge OL with a future first round pick, a RB having an excellent senior season, and a talented freshman RB. Yet there's NO commitment to running the ball, so the second things go awry, it's chuck city. I can't explain how much I dislike Fisch when he does that, and I think overall he's a good OC. I just hope Golden beats it into his head that we are going to be a physical, tough team that can run the ball and dominate you through the air, as well. That's the team Golden wanted when he took over but right now we're a soft team that can't run the ball because our OC doesn't have the patience.

 

[Shogungts]

Goudis should be given a shot. He needs experience and Wideclaw is 0 for his last fiftyleven hundred field goals.

Didn't Wieclaw kick our only 3 points of the game? And a 47 yarder is not a gimme (although it was pretty terribly off). I am not ready to write him off just yet (but pretty **** soon)

 

[UMcanesfan420]

Next time we have a cold weather game, they need to bring a big freezer full of footballs onto Greentree and make those mofos catch frozen balls or something. This cold weather business is what bothers me most. Maybe we do need an indoor practice facility and hook it up like a meat locker so we can make these kids practice in freezing conditions. I am halfway kidding but kinda not. Maybe we can recruit one white boy reciever like Hartline from up north just in case. IDK.


I'm not saying we win if Dorsett doesn't drop that early TD, but if he catches that it could've been huge and maybe the game would at least have been close. The energy it could've brought the team could've been big. One thing I have noticed about this team is that it's one of the most momentum driven teams I've seen. When things are going well they're going really well and we have great momentum. But when they start going bad it's like, here we go.


In ATL, when Malcolm went down, it sucked the life out of the team. 36 un-answered points later, finally we get a good break and we get our flow back. Same scenario vs. NCST. Seems like the good break never came in Chicago.

 

[DapperSlapper]

Next time we have a cold weather game, they need to bring a big freezer full of footballs onto Greentree and make those mofos catch frozen balls or something. This cold weather business is what bothers me most. Maybe we do need an indoor practice facility and hook it up like a meat locker so we can make these kids practice in freezing conditions. I am halfway kidding but kinda not. Maybe we can recruit one white boy reciever like Hartline from up north just in case. IDK.


I'm not saying we win if Dorsett doesn't drop that early TD, but if he catches that it could've been huge and maybe the game would at least have been close. The energy it could've brought the team could've been big. One thing I have noticed about this team is that it's one of the most momentum driven teams I've seen. When things are going well they're going really well and we have great momentum. But when they start going bad it's like, here we go.


In ATL, when Malcolm went down, it sucked the life out of the team. 36 un-answered points later, finally we get a good break and we get our flow back. Same scenario vs. NCST. Seems like the good break never came in Chicago.

The only thing that bothered me about the game was that cold affected our guys. I expected them to be mentally tougher.

Yes, that's the only thing that bothered me (maybe I'm crazy). A loss is a loss, but the lack of mental toughness and focus caused this one to get way out of hand.

When Dorsett dropped the first one, I was nervous. When he dropped the second one, I knew the cold was in there heads for good. Game was over at that point. The lack of mental focus spread like wildfire - Davon was the only wr I noticed that didn't seem affected by it, yet it seemed he didn't get in for as many plays as the other regulars (why is that?).

 

[sfcane2]

Kirby looks the part. Very physical athletic presence about him. The back 7 actually looks to be in good shape for the future.

Not sure why we dont try Finnie at Safety the way FSU does with Joyner.

 

[bobbydigius]

Another comment - Fisch & Morris both seem to be guys who are tremendously impressive while the iron is hot but have trouble rebounding when things go awry (obviously I mention them together because they go hand-in-hand on this one). If our O misses on a couple series in a row it seems like we're trying to take a u-turn in the titanic to get it corrected. The WRs hung Morris out to dry this game, of course, but just a trend in every game other than GT (where they did eventually turn it around but it took a long **** time). I really hope Morris spends a lot of time this offseason putting some touch on the ball. I know if I had a cannon like that I'd want to rifle it every down too but I think it would help our offense a ton if he got better at this.

The offense did way better than I expected minus the drops. One thing about this ND team is that they have a lot of talent on the defensive side of the ball. We werent going to just dominate them like we did the last 2 opponents. We had numerous drives get stopped because of terrible drops. We had plays all over the field, that we just didnt execute not because they stopped us. By the time ND scored the second time in the 2nd half we lost all of our drive.

 

[Awsi Dooger]

As to your post re: Fisch, I agree. I think part of the reason is that Fisch isn't patient at all and does not want to establish a running game. If WR's aren't playing well and you're having a tough time moving the ball through the air, you're going to need to run the ball. And that doesn't always come the first few times you do it. For Fisch, running the ball is nothing more than setting up a better passing down, e.g., 2nd and 5 rather than 2nd and 10. It's not a way to tire the defense out and dominate the game. Look at UF against LSU, they couldn't move the ball for **** against LSU running the ball at first, but kept at it, wore them down, and ended up dominating them because of it. We've got a huge OL with a future first round pick, a RB having an excellent senior season, and a talented freshman RB. Yet there's NO commitment to running the ball, so the second things go awry, it's chuck city. I can't explain how much I dislike Fisch when he does that, and I think overall he's a good OC. I just hope Golden beats it into his head that we are going to be a physical, tough team that can run the ball and dominate you through the air, as well. That's the team Golden wanted when he took over but right now we're a soft team that can't run the ball because our OC doesn't have the patience.

Fisch is a poor coordinator, for all the reasons you described. He's a young tinkerer. The anguish on his face is evident if one of his finesse designs is butchered by the quarterback and receivers. I doubt he cares at all if a series of basic running plays fails. Actually, I described an impossibility because there's no such thing as a series of basic runs. I posted prior to the season that I was worried Fisch wouldn't run the ball often enough, and nothing has changed. At the National Signing Day party last February at Bank United Center I wanted to ask Fisch if we were ever going to hit anybody on offense. Naturally they wouldn't field that question, in deference to fluffy praise of the newcomers.

When we put up 44 against NC State, or similar, it has zero relationship to how we'll fare against a rugged defense. Many of us posted that theme after the Boston College game. If anything, the prancing plays against a moderate to weak defense make you even more vulnerable and pathetic because you actually believe your schemes are sound. It's guaranteed to be shell shock city once you move up in class. The scary aspect is Miami hasn't truly moved up in class. Notre Dame is a building program with rugged intentions but they still lack athletes and defensive ferocity compared to the elite SEC defenses. Make no mistake, those cute burst routes to Dorsett would not be available against Alabama, LSU or South Carolina.

Regarding Golden, I'm no longer fully confident that he realizes we need to be tough and physical. In Golden's early months on the job I assumed his emphasis on "conditioning" really meant strength, but that he was reluctant to describe the team as weak. Now I'm worried he indeed meant conditioning. Scary. After the Georgia Tech game he raved about the team able to keep going for 60 minutes and through overtime, overcoming the huge deficit. Meanwhile, a staple of Canes football in this era is athletic looking skinny defenders frantically chasing the ball carrier toward the end zone. Man, we look great in that setting. Five or six chasers with very little body fat. It was remarkable against Notre Dame that we were wearing white, which is supposed to add the impression of heft, yet Notre Dame made us look like twigs while wearing dark.

The Dolphins are now the polar opposite of the Canes, running the ball 35+ times per game even if it's not going particularly well. Yesterday the tally was 35 rushes for 68 yards. Philbin understands how vital it is to establish a physical foundational style and allow the personnel to catch up. Fisch is determined to diagram a little middle screen this week and a flurry of flanker screens next week, along with fakes off those designs. ****, it must be a natural high on Tuesday night when he's breaking down the opponent and realizes his diddling will work. Hot ****. That's 5 or 6 plays in the bank. Disregard that the opponent will feel tricked, not muscled, and that stalwart teams will laugh at those designs. Run all the underneath junk you want and we'll practice our tackling dummy drills on your little receivers.

BTW, the Dolphins also don't appear to be overly concerned with so-called conditioning, with wide bodies like Soliai out there. Right now the Dolphins are a joy to watch regardless of the outcome, battering the offense on play after play. It's like the Dolphins have 14 defenders on the field and the Canes 8.

 

[Angry Ibis]

Being at the game, it appeared ND's best defensive players were Miami receivers. We made it too **** easy for them with our mistakes.

 

[moshated305]

I saw a couple plays where Tracy Howard was out there and did everything right (IMO) in a zone, he carried his man to the next level, released him, but had no underneath support. Isn't the LB supposed to cover the flat? saw Golson hit that 2 or 3 times.

I don't know if its the athletes, the scheme or what. But even when the kids do what they are supposed to someone else screws it up.

I have never seen a defense where guys are continuously wide open play after play, it is literally pitch and catch for every opposing QB. I think UNC puts it on us this week

Its because our LBs are lost. They never account for the backs out of the backfield. Just poor reads.