Game thoughts - Lamar

[JasonB]

Ugly game, hard to watch at times. Not a ton to take from it, but here we go...

- I thought TM was really sloppy. Tried to force deep passes instead of taking the easy pass when it was there. Great pass to Rice in the endzone. Stone had a great pass, great diving run for the TD, and then an awful INT. Everything you would expect out of a young Farve.
- Receivers, obviously Rice is through the roof. But I would like to see the other receivers more involved in the passing game rather than just deep balls or screens. They will get their chance this week, because I am sure Maryland will do what they can to take away Rice. Surprised to see Daniels drop two passes, after he had a great camp. Maryland showed his athleticism on his pass play, and I would expect special packages for him moving forward.
- Awesome to see TJ get the long TD run, and nice to see that he kept his legs after last week. Gardner looked good in his first action. TJ showed a little lack of fluidity in not coming up with the TD catch when he flaired out. Pass wasn't great, but a catch I thought he should make. Rested Siggers and Camar for Maryland. Gardner wasn't great in pass blocking, and it might limit his usage rate some as we move forward.
- Improvements by the line, especially in the running game. Sparks graded well, so I think we are at 7 linemen, with Erwin an emergency 8th. Perdue had one pass play and gave up a sack, and showed that he isn't ready yet. Condon really improved over his first game. Overall, only 4 pressures given up which isn't bad.

- At DE, I was really surprised the group graded out as well as they did on PFF. Wiley was all over the place, but the others I thought lost contain at times and didn't have the athleticism to make some big plays on the QB, and lacked speed to chase people down. Something to watch. Overall, 23 pressures isn't bad. But 5 came from Levelston and 4 from Chatman. Would like to see the DE group lead in that category. Still need someone to step up and be "the guy".
- At DT, Newman played better, which was great, but 98 still isn't there. Losing Levelston for the first half next week is a big deal. Wright will do well as a replacement, but there isn't depth behind him at the 3 technique. Aho would probably slide inside, but now I think he might be doubtful against Maryland. This could be a big problem, because the Levelston/Chatman combo is really disruptive against the pass, and losing that is going to give their QB a lot of time.
- LB is playing out as we thought, with Slade, Phillips, and Reid splitting time and the two Burns and Farrar filling in. Nice to see Burns make a play again with the blocked pass. This group got exposed in the passing game a bit as we played a lot of generic coverage, and they missed a few tackles. Not the level of performance, outside of the Reid INT, that you would expect.
- At corner, interesting to see Armani, Crossley, Westfall, AJ Davis, and Furgal saw a lot of snaps. Rogers and Hall played a very limited number of snaps. Hopefully just as a precaution. Good that we got Davis a lot of time. Surprised to see Furgal in there. Playing that many snaps with Davis and Furgal and still holding them under 50% completion percentage is a good thing.
- At safety, I'm still surprised to see Roberson get more snaps than Moses. I think that will change pretty quickly as we move forward, even though their snaps are going to completely dry up as Massey gets healthy. I'm guessing that we will end up with Roberts backing up Crossley and rotating there, Massey at free with Moses backing him up, and then NWO and Adimora splitting time at the strong safety position. Massey/Crossley/Roberts is probably going to end up being a three person rotation, similar to what we have a LB with Slade/Phillips/Reid.

Finally, no missed XP or FG. Rogers looks like the real deal. And no shanks yet in the punting game. Might be best complete special teams unit since the Morestead days...

[leopold]

As usual, thank you very much.

[BleedingRed+Blue]

As simple as the play calling was, and with the turnovers, it's shocking that we still scored 45. Encouraging, but weird.

[AusTxPony]

Disappointed in the lack of contain by Defense. Also, Lamar open receivers dropped a lot of passes that were catchable, another concern. Hope some of these issues get corrected for Maryland.

[ponyboy]

Lashlee meant it when he called this game “preseason.” It was from the very beginning an exercise in resting key resources and giving others live-action looks, while not giving anything away strategically. Also, we get Levelston back in the second half next week, so that’s less bad.

[SmooBoy]

Nice analysis, Jason. Rhett will reveal a few more plays and players this week. Can't wait to see what Camar and some non-vanilla play calling will look like.

[AusTxPony]

Rewatched game on Plus. SMU looked better on TV than I felt in person. Levelston should win an appeal against targeting. Even the announcers said that was close to being overturned. Let's hope so.

[Lefty]

Lamar game was all about getting the win, protecting players and getting time for newcomers who could be needed later on (AJ Davis, Gardner, etc.)

Beat Maryland

[shadowman]

Disappointed in the lack of contain by Defense. Also, Lamar open receivers dropped a lot of passes that were catchable, another concern. Hope some of these issues get corrected for Maryland.

This was my biggest concern, Lamar had a lot of open receivers, especially deep. Luckily, most of the time, the balls were dropped, the pass was off a bit, or the QB made the wrong read.

Hopefully, this is because we were just running the vanilla defense and saving our trickier schemes for the upcoming game.

[DallasMustang11]

If we do appeal the Levelston targeting call, when/where would we learn the result of the appeal. Extremely worried about the interior DL if he has to miss the first half.

[tristatecoog]

Why do you think Tanner played three full quarters? It felt like they wanted to give him one more drive to show his stuff and his punched it quickly with a seven play 70 yard drive capped off by a 20 yard throw to Rice.

After getting beat 28-14 by ACU, Rich Phillips said Lamar looked improved against the Ponies.

Just pure athleticism by the Ponies to beat Lamar with regular plays.

Lamar seemed to only have 50-100 fans. Maybe they're cheaper to host than SFA, ACU, TX State and the like.

[Arkpony]

Not having Mrydel to advise me of football strategy, I don’t share some of the enthusiasm for our defense. I’m afraid we give up to many passes and too many runs.

[Doesntmatter]

Not having Mrydel to advise me of football strategy, I don’t share some of the enthusiasm for our defense. I’m afraid we give up to many passes and too many runs.

When you win 45-10 and 42-16, you didn't "give up too many passes and too many runs." Make that rain cloud over your head go away for goodness sakes.

[Arkpony]

I certainly hope you are right, but I’ve seen the competition.

[mrydel]

Not having Mrydel to advise me of football strategy, I don’t share some of the enthusiasm for our defense. I’m afraid we give up to many passes and too many runs.

Haha. Just stop it with the negative vibes. How many 3rd and 20s have we given up this year? Maybe the worm has turned. I am happy with our defense so far other than contain. Too many QB scrambles getting to the outside. Keep the QB contained and I think we are ok.