Acker, WRs, and other thoughts
Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2013 10:14 am- The defense was fine, this loss is all on the offense and special teams.
- Acker has been fantastic for two straight games. He played an amazing game yesterday.
- How many WRs are we down? In order for Ace to start, that means DT, Nelson, Taylor, Lancaster are all hurt. Ace gave the team nothing yesterday.
- On that note, did Gaines play at all yesterday?
- Two things happened to the offense in the second half. Gotshaulk got hurt; in turn, the offensive line started getting roasted. And TCU stopped worrying about a running game and just killed us in pass coverage and on the blitz. The lack of a playmaker at receiver is just a killer in these games.
- The delayed run is completely gone so far. Not even trying it. I think there are three reasons for this. 1) The o-line can't hold a block for long enough for a delay to develop, 2) we weren't able to run the ball effectively last year until we played with a larger receiver inside, which means a lot of Gaines and a lot less DJ, and 3) with the shorter routes on offense, we aren't running 4 receivers deep to create a gap for the RB or GG to take advantage. I believe the schematic changes in offense have absolutely killed the running game from the RB and QB.
- This has been a criticism of JJ teams every since the Sugar Bowl, but it is obvious that physical teams just destroy our receivers. Tons of times yesterday where a little bump throws us completely off balance, and it resulted in at least two picks yesterday.
- I have been on the record with this thing stating that 8-4 should be an expectation this year with the talent we have on the team. Obviously, we are going to most likely have a record less than that, and it should be taken as a disappointment. Tech and TCU obviously, aren't that great. An average team should split Tech and TCU, and beat Montana State, Rutgers, Memphis, Temple, UConn and UCF. And a good team would win one of the three games against Cincy, Houston, and UCF. Good football teams don't commit 15 penalties or turn the ball over 5 times. Bad football teams find ways to lose ballgames. As I said in my prediction before the TCU game, right now we are a bad football team.
I think at some point this season, we will stop with the mental mistakes and start playing better. But I don't know when that is going to happen. It certainly doesn't look like it is going to change in time to save JJ's job. The manner in which we lost the Tech, TCU, and A&M games is disappointing to everyone involved.
As much as I think it is crazy from an outsider perspective to say that someone should be let go after 5 straight bowl games, I think the team has to finish at least 7-5 and look very good doing it for Jones and the staff to stick around. Otherwise they are not going to be around. For the offense to still be a cause of our problems this long into his tenure is not going to be acceptable. We have had a couple of seasons to recover from the extremely poor WR and OL recruiting from 2-4 years ago. Things should be better by now. And from a talent perspective, things are better. The offensive linemen and receivers on the team right now ARE better players than we have had there the last two season. We just aren't showing it on the field.
- Acker has been fantastic for two straight games. He played an amazing game yesterday.
- How many WRs are we down? In order for Ace to start, that means DT, Nelson, Taylor, Lancaster are all hurt. Ace gave the team nothing yesterday.
- On that note, did Gaines play at all yesterday?
- Two things happened to the offense in the second half. Gotshaulk got hurt; in turn, the offensive line started getting roasted. And TCU stopped worrying about a running game and just killed us in pass coverage and on the blitz. The lack of a playmaker at receiver is just a killer in these games.
- The delayed run is completely gone so far. Not even trying it. I think there are three reasons for this. 1) The o-line can't hold a block for long enough for a delay to develop, 2) we weren't able to run the ball effectively last year until we played with a larger receiver inside, which means a lot of Gaines and a lot less DJ, and 3) with the shorter routes on offense, we aren't running 4 receivers deep to create a gap for the RB or GG to take advantage. I believe the schematic changes in offense have absolutely killed the running game from the RB and QB.
- This has been a criticism of JJ teams every since the Sugar Bowl, but it is obvious that physical teams just destroy our receivers. Tons of times yesterday where a little bump throws us completely off balance, and it resulted in at least two picks yesterday.
- I have been on the record with this thing stating that 8-4 should be an expectation this year with the talent we have on the team. Obviously, we are going to most likely have a record less than that, and it should be taken as a disappointment. Tech and TCU obviously, aren't that great. An average team should split Tech and TCU, and beat Montana State, Rutgers, Memphis, Temple, UConn and UCF. And a good team would win one of the three games against Cincy, Houston, and UCF. Good football teams don't commit 15 penalties or turn the ball over 5 times. Bad football teams find ways to lose ballgames. As I said in my prediction before the TCU game, right now we are a bad football team.
I think at some point this season, we will stop with the mental mistakes and start playing better. But I don't know when that is going to happen. It certainly doesn't look like it is going to change in time to save JJ's job. The manner in which we lost the Tech, TCU, and A&M games is disappointing to everyone involved.
As much as I think it is crazy from an outsider perspective to say that someone should be let go after 5 straight bowl games, I think the team has to finish at least 7-5 and look very good doing it for Jones and the staff to stick around. Otherwise they are not going to be around. For the offense to still be a cause of our problems this long into his tenure is not going to be acceptable. We have had a couple of seasons to recover from the extremely poor WR and OL recruiting from 2-4 years ago. Things should be better by now. And from a talent perspective, things are better. The offensive linemen and receivers on the team right now ARE better players than we have had there the last two season. We just aren't showing it on the field.