Receiving corps

[Arkpony]

I was at the game last night and the comments on our receivers are right on point. they are short, slow and do not possess good hands. The dropped passes were inexcusable.

Also, the play calling was uninspired and predictable. A lady sitting next to me was predicting the plays on SMU's behalf and was right half of the time. I don't understand this conservative play calling when we have no one on offense who is a game breaker.

ON the plus side I was proud of our defense and all of the guys played hard.

[SoCal_Pony]

ArkPony,

I am totally unimpressed with the lady seated next to you. I can train a monkey to predict over half of SMU's plays.....KK run, KK run, KK run, KK run, KK run, KK run, KK run....oh, you get the picture.

I do not blame Bartel or the coaches. We simply need Bennett to recruit better receivers. I think Coach Bennett is up to the task.

[GoRedGoBlue]

They are NOT slow. Trey Griffin won the 4A 100m state.

They are all very fast...the prob is they are short and it is hard to blow by 6'+ DBs and be open, it requires a very precise pass...

I think since Bartel is so young, Bennett is protecting him by not throwing across the middle, the better route for shorter quick darty receivers...

[JasonB]

Griffin might be fast, but he isn't "quick", there is a difference. On the two long balls thrown his way, he had no separation at all on the DB. Part of it is jamming at the line, but part is also acceleration speed.

Arkpony - no playmaker on offense = conservative play calling. That is all there is to it. If you have a speed demon or a tall receiver, you can spread it out.

I was happy that the coaches tried to exploit the weakness - the right side of our line against their left. We just couldn't get anything going in the air to counter once Baylor adjusted. We did have the right play that was called twice:

Baylor lines up heavy on our right side. Bartel rolls right, Warren scoots across the middle from right to left, and Bartel throws to him on the run, hoping to hit an unbalanced D for a big gain.

Unfortunately, the first time it was called, Warren stopped his route and the second time, the Baylor team shifted to a zone after the snap, so Warren was corralled after a 10 yard gain or so.

[JasonB]

Okay, one more comment .

Who has the better hands and runs better - Hrncir or Kennedy?

If our smallish receivers can't get open, it probably makes some sense to get our tightends into the game a bit more in order to give Bartel a target.

The other thing I would like to see is more outlet passes to running backs. Brown had a big drop last night, but I wonder if we have quick back that could be used in that situation?

I am not sure how the RB thing or TE thing would work though - without the WRs to stretch the field, tying up the middle probably isn't a good idea and having a RB flare out doesn't work well if all the receivers are within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage.

[gostangs]

Bottom line - if our receivers catch just half the passes they dropped, we win the game and everyone on here is talking about how improved Bartel is. After seeing a game live I did not think he looked that bad - and I had the weird feeling after the game that even though we lost to frigging Baylor, we were going to see some good things from this team this year. It just felt like we out-played them - pick anything - the kick, the drops, the muffed punt return, the penalities - if even one goes our way we win.

We need to start our season with a home game with a directional Louisiana team - and get some confidence and some big mo - we are trading seats in the stadium early in the year for loses - which cost us seats in the stadium later in the year -

[mustangsnake]

"receivers...do not possess good hands" - Arkpony
Game 1 vs Tech – Bartel, 21 – 44 w/ at least 8 – 10 dropped passes
Game 2 vs Baylor – Bartel, 12 – 25 w/ 5 dropped passes
Technically, that comes to 33 - 69 for a 48% completion average.
Add in the dropped passes and you get 67% completion average.
Can we coach on how to catch a ball?
Go Buster.

[JustAFriend]

The dropped balls are ridiculous, and I can only hope that will improve. What really needs to improve is the offensive philosophy. Someone please explain to me what there is to lose by stretching the field. I am not saying throw deep all the time, I am talking about the deep crosses, post patterns, corner routes, etc that utilize the size of the field. How many plays does SMU run from that stupid bunch formation where they all cluster in short routes? If you're gonna bunch thats fine, but from there stretch the defense. And I agree snake, someone needs to coach on catching the ball...it really isnt that hard to do, and i personally can vouch for catching the ball from Bartel so I know it can be done...

[mustangsnake]

Ah yes, JAF...I remember the good ol' days when ya'll two connected on many a pass ripping through Southlake and C-Ville Heritage. Have you thought of maybe leaving the frog, growing 5 inches, and suiting up as a pony?
Go Buster.

[JasonB]

As far as stretching the field, I have some points:

1) our guys aren't fast enought to create separation on plays down the field.

2) Going further down the field takes more time.

3) The other team is run blitzing to stop the run, so our line is overloaded.

4) Our receivers get jammed at the line so hard that even a short route takes a while to get run.

When you are a young team with a young QB, you can't afford to take a lot of negative plays. That means avoiding sacks. Which means running slants, WR screens, and the occasional fly pattern in order to get passes off quicker. Once someone busts a seam, you force the other team to respect it and drop someone off in the secondary. However, our WRs aren't making plays, are dropping passes, and aren't running well with the ball - not a lot of YAC. So you keep the offense conservative, otherwise you would see bartel getting sacked left and right and making a lot of poor passes under pressure.

[PK]

Exactly JB