While the offense looked better than any of us expected, let me add some caution to this presumption
. The offense played at least 3 wide, and often 4 wide. The defense stayed in a vanilla 4-3 scheme. What this meant is that the slot receiver on both sides of the ball was marked against a linebacker when it was man, and was moving against linebackers inside in the zone (which was played the majority of the game). Notes of caution:
- Yes, Lowery looked sharp, but where did he line up? In the slot. Who was guarding him? Most of the time a linebacker was in his vicinity, and at most a saftey. But he was never covered one-on-one by a corner. Not saying he won't be good, just saying it is impossible to judge him against that type of defense.
- Yes, we have upgraded at QB. HOWEVER, again, they were throwing against a zone or soft man and often had a WR vs LB matchup to take advantage of. That is why so many of the completions were in the middle of the field. In fact, the passes that were forced were because the QBs started ONLY looking in the middle of the field and the safteys were able to read that and brak up some passes.
- The outside receivers just did not make plays. It is a little hard to tell if that is because our CBs are really good or if our WRs are really bad. We know from last year that our WR aren't exactly studs. Bobby Chase almost made a great catch, but besides that was not really able to get open and make any plays. Qbs did not throw downfield that often on fly routes on the sidelines, only a couple of times. And those throws were out of bounds or behind players the majority of the time, except the one that I think Medlock caught. I think the four main corners looked like very strong, good players. That is why Moss was moved to RB and there will be some frosh pushing the three deep at corner. But I wouldn't expect a complete reversal of our success (or lack-there-of) at WR.
- At QB, I really liked what I saw of Eckert. Strong arm, goot accuracy, solid reads. He and Phillips are obviously a notch ahead. Phillips numbers are exaggerated because he took advantage of the LBs on Defense a lot. Eckert had a much better game from a passing standpoint, and was trying to spread the ball around.
- Phillips success only came when we ran the ball or he scrambled. That was the only way we were able to move the ball when he was in the game on a consistant basis. I love the athleticism, but he is not close to as good a passer as Eckert.
- The first team OL ate the DL for lunch, spit them out, ate them again, and then threw them away. They dominated. I think the OL is much improved, but I think it is also indicative of how little depth we have on the DL. I thought Bey and Pryor looked like they might hold their own. But they are inexperienced and that was taken advnatage of several times. On the inside, Delay was pushed around all over the place. I like him because he looks like he has a really big frame, but he was pushed around even more than the other guys, and Munlin hit that spot a lot. Really hard to tell if the OL is really good or if the reserves are that bad. Probably some mix of the two. I would be very concerned about depth.
- Urbanus dwarfs everyone.
- Second OL couldn't create a hole. At all. Nothing up the middle at all, Adami and Jones are very, very good players. Not enough pressure on the QB from the starting ends I thought, considering it is a second string line, and one of those players was Neal at tackle. He was beat badly by Rogers on one play, but Rogers should have dominated him the entire game.
- Munlin was fantastic. Yes, there was an OL advantage that maybe exaggerated things, but man he hits that hole quick and hard. That is a major difference between him, Dorsey and Massey. He hits it very hard and fast. Massey is squared to the line, showing that he is ready to punch it up, but keeps drifting outside. He will learn at some point that you either square and punch or you get outside quick, you have to make a quick decision. But he is hard to judge with the second OL being so poor.
To summarize, I think we can expect an upgrade in QB, RB, OL, and DB this year. But I don't think it will be as pronounced as the scrimmage showed because of the type of defense played and the weakness of the second team on OL and DL.
