Game thoughts - TCU

[JasonB]

Wow, what an awesome win. It took me almost 24 hours to chill out enough to write this.

- There are few things in life (IMHO) that are gratifying as just physically crushing an opponent in football. That was awesome to watch.
- In 2019, there were a bunch of weird, fluky plays. They turned the ball over a bunch, and the game was just weird. This wasn't that game. We were just flat out better. We lost the turnover battle 3-1 and still won the game. That was a really great performance.
- For most of this game, Patterson used safeties to take out the TE pass. And he had another safety deep to protect the deep ball. So there weren't a ton of players in the box. He basically bet on his front four being able to stop the run and control the line of scrimmage. He also bet that Dykes would not focus on the run and would fall back to his roots and throw the ball. Full credit to Riley and Dykes for punishing TCU for what they gave us.
- Dykes since he got here as talked about being able to run the ball when everyone in the stadium knows you are going to run it. We ran every single play the last drive and killed the clock. That was awesome to watch. Patterson had a bunch of players in the box, but by that time, their DL was beaten, and we were still able to run the ball.
- We took advantage of an overaggressive TCU team with a lot of misdirection. The installation of the zone read was really a great move by Riley.
- I thought Bryant and Osborne had their best games. Osborne in particular I thought was very good against a difficult matchup.
- On the plus side, Mordecai still hasn't taken a sack this season. On the downside, sometimes, you need to take a sack. Two of those picks were just not wanting to take a sack. It is something to watch for the rest of the way. Sometimes, you need to anticipate someone opening or just throw the ball away. Or just throw the ball deep and trust the WR to go and get it. Nitpicky for sure, because the difference in QB1 was what won us the game - we hit our throws, they missed theirs. But something to watch.
- Bentley finally ran with patience yesterday. He took a handoff, trusted the line to buy him some time, and picked his spot. A long time ago, we saw that evolution of Zach Line under June, where he developed the patience and it made him very effective. Running for 150 yards on 20 carries against that defense is impressive enough. But doing it with a long run of only 19 yards is freaking awesome. That means constant 7, 8, 9 yard runs. The OL did their job, but having the patience to wait for an opening and then explode was really, really good. Reminded me a lot of Shanderick.
- If we get that Bentley the rest of the year, this offense is really hard to stop. If you pull safeties in, we are going to burn you deep. Drop them way back, we are going to hit the TE or run the ball. Run blitz the LBs and we will bump it outside.
- Levelston is really coming around. The rotation of the DL really, really paid off in that second half. Great defensive performance overall in the second half. But if Levelston and Williams keep up the work they did yesterday, this defense can go a long way.
- Last week, Paul had the great game. Coxe was fantastic yesterday. Really, really good overall game from him.
- Second week in a row that the defense came out, had a rough first half, but Levitt made some adjustments and they played much better in the second. Part of that is depth, but he is also tweaking things by going a little more zone at times and moving players around.
- Last week, Rogers had a rough game. This week, TCU was 0/4 throwing in his direction, and had had a fantastic breakup in the endzone. What a great bounce-back from a young player.
- The combination of Nwo and Massey at safety is going to be outstanding by the end of the year. Massey played some at safety and some at nickel corner. Massey struggled a little at times in coverage, but that deep ball where he ripped the ball away from the TCU WR and forced the incompletion was an absolute stud play. Incredible. And he set a tone physically.
- Second straight game where MLB struggled just a little bit. But that Evans is a great player for TCU.

Week 4 in college football was all about teams having down weeks after a big win. Letdown city, everywhere. Let's hope the team comes out fired up and ready to go next week against USF, who quietly played a very solid second half yesterday against BYU.

[Topper]

USF had a really nice second half against BYU. Their kids never gave up. The QB looked above average.

[Terry Webster]

I think BYU made the mistake of taking the foot off the pedal when they were up 21-0 halfway through the first quarter.

[Donnell88]

Thank you Jason for my all-time favorite post.

[ponyboy]

Didn’t see the game yet, but it was telling that Calcaterra caught 1 of 9 balls thrown his way. They were keying on him for sure.

[originaloverthehilltop1]

jb should be our starting analyst.

[Terry Webster]

Didn’t see the game yet, but it was telling that Calcaterra caught 1 of 9 balls thrown his way. They were keying on him for sure.

They were keying on him but he caught one pass for 9 yards. I don't think that Tanner threw it to him 9 times.

[JasonB]

Didn’t see the game yet, but it was telling that Calcaterra caught 1 of 9 balls thrown his way. They were keying on him for sure.

Technically, 1 rec on 3 targets, with 2 INT.

[ponyboy]

Ah, ok. Thanks.