One Last Note from Homecoming...

The 42 passes thrown Saturday, by a redshirt frosh making his first start, against two NFL caliber corners, in a blustery wind, keep bugging me.  

I though, "why would we chance to pass so oft?"  

          (iambic pentameter...fuck yeah!)

The questions kept nagging at me so I went back and looked at the box score/drive chart/play-by-play from the game and found an interesting, albeit entirely unsurprising, correlation between sustained drives and passing.  

We went three and out 6 times (which isn't very good, by the way.  In fact, is pretty bad.) and those six three and outs consisted of 14 pass plays.  Half our three and outs went pass-pass-pass and only two of our three and outs are readily justified; one drive began with consecutive false start penalties, and I can reconcile trying to pass out of first and twenty (...sort of), and one began with a three yard loss by Donnie Brown. 

Make of it what you will.

I'm just going to say that I wouldn't shed a tear if Donnie was given 50 carries against WVU.  

Post-Game Wrap Up: Hofstra

I'd have put this up earlier were we not playing Hofstra.  Its so tough to get up for a IAA team coming off an under-whelming 7-5 season and replacing 14 starters.  Its ever tougher, however, to adequately judge a performance against such a team.  A win is obviously expected.  But what should we have looked for between the lines?

Aside from the W, I would have called the game a success if Donnie Brown notched 100+ yards in the first half (check), the defense shut out or otherwise dominated Hofstra (big check), and Lorenzon played mistake free and connected for at least three passes of 20+ yards (not so much).

First, what went right:

-Donnie Brown was an animal.  He exhibited excellent burst and hit holes hard.  While he didn't exhibit extraordinary power or elusiveness, Brown continues to prove that you simply cannot throw an arm tackle at him.

-Scott Lutrus.  Several TFL and a fantastic pick.  No point in beating a dead horse, Scottie was all over the field.  

-Pass Rush.  5 sacks, two of which were credited to JR DE Lindsey Witten.  I thought Lindsey should have been given another sack but I'm not going to cry about it.  Witten owned the backfield.  UConn has just found their situational pass-rusher extraordinaire.  

Now what went wrong:

-Lorenzon.  What.  The.  Fuck.  His three picks (should have been four, one was dropped) were HORRIBLE.  Not one of the balls can be attributed to great coverage or any fantastic defensive effort; they were just ill-advised throws.  The Courant, in an article this morning, echoes my sentiments that Lorenzon looked to be pressing.  While this does not portend good things for the offense, its the first game of the season so I won't read too much into it.  For everyone calling for Zach Frazier (like the guy sitting behind me at the game): its early.

-Offensive Play Calling.  Vanilla.  Plain-Jane.  Fucking Boring.  Pick and choose your adjective because the play calling was mind-blowingly unimaginative.  We must have picked up a copy of the playbook that Michigan scratched during the off season because I saw more stretch-zone plays in one half than I saw all of last season.  Five or six plays stand out as being run again and again and again: the aforementioned stretch zone, a toss sweep, a simple (manly) iso, and a waggle in which the backside WR ran a drag parallel to Lorenzon.  

      I'm willing (praying, actually) to believe that the play-calling was symptomatic of coach-paranoia; why give Temple more film than they need?  One could also chalk it up to the injuries to Dixon and Todman, with those two in the game one would expect we could/would open the offense up.

Final Verdict: Meh.  

                          -I still expect to beat Temple next week, but it will not be an easy game.  If Lorenzon can forget about Thursday and Todman heals up we may be able to pummel them, however I have no reason to believe that we won't do everything in our power to keep Temple in the game.  Five turnovers next week would be damning.