QB Play

[Big Hoss]

Okay, someone with more football smarts than me explain this....

We have 2 QBs that are in their 3rd year of this system. When you compare their performance in the last 2 weeks (frankly the last 2 years) vs. that of what I saw in UTEP's QBs tonight, I can only scratch my head and wonder why there is a difference in their decision making.

The UTEP QBs were under a ton of pressure tonight, and yet they made some great decisions on who to get the ball to, and then actually got the ball there so that the receiver could get some yards after the catch. Our QBs, when pressured, seem more often than not to toss the ball out somewhere, just anywhere, after they have held it far too long.

Am I being too critical here, am I letting my frustrations overshadow their actual performance, or do we have one or more of the following problems...
- Our QBs have decent talent, but not good decision-making skills when pressured
- Our QBs have inaccurate arms
- Our QBs don't have as much arm strength
- Our secondary is just that much worse than all the secondarys we typically face
- Our receivers as a group either lack the collective speed or technique to get enough separation for the QB to hit them on their route

Or is it something else that I am missing? I don't feel like it's talent, because I think we have enough talent to compete at a high level against all our CUSA opponents. I just get frustrated when we always, ALWAYS seem not to be able to live up to our potential in any single game. Not a whole season mind you, ONE GAME. We haven't done that since the Hawaii Bowl.

Having said all that, I do give props to Padron for being a great leader tonight. He was encouraging his teammates when they came off the field after a bad play or series (which sadly happened way too often), which says a lot about him.

[Stallion]

UTEP went almost exclusively to short passing game in the first half because their OLM SUCK. They had no other choice. Hard to stop the short passing game

[Big Hoss]

But isn't that what the Run & Shoot is supposed to be good for, too? Short, 5-10 yard passes that the receiver can then do something with?

[sbsmith]

But isn't that what the Run & Shoot is supposed to be good for, too? Short, 5-10 yard passes that the receiver can then do something with?

Hard to do anything with poorly thrown balls you have to contort yourself to catch.

[Charleston Pony]

YAC is a big part of this offense and there are too many balls being thrown behind guys so they are having to make adjustments just to make the catch; I'm hoping it's a timing thing bewcause McDermott hasn't been working with the 1st team guys very long. He does appear to make the right reads and is certainly not afraid to hang in the pocket (perhaps because he does not appear very mobile?)