Thoughts on the Cincy game

[JasonB]

That was awful, but I watched until the end...

- Offensively, the deer in the headlights, conservative stuff on the road needs to stop. TCU we came out aggressive, throwing against their tight coverage. Every other road game, we come out and try and run the ball first down, and then throw short the rest of the time. It is super conservative. It allows defenses to compress the field, and is actually a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it requires throwing in tight windows and when TM is nervous, he holds the ball and gets sacked.
- TM got rattled early in this game and never shrugged it off. That was a terrible performance. I am shocked they didn't play Preston in the second quarter. The only reasoning I can think of is that they are seriously thinking of starting Preston next week as well as in the bowl game.
- That said, I think this game showed how far away Roberson is from his old, explosive self. He was on the backside of Mordeci's throws on the majority of routes, and as we know TM doesn't go through progressions quickly enough to get to the backside. With no Grey and no Kerley, you needed someone who would take the top off the defense and provide a deep thread. We absolutely did not have that today, and Cincy was ready for it. They didn't need to worry about protecting deep and had all 11 within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Going east-west with WR and RB screens is really not effective against that. You have to be able to take the ball deep from time to time. There has to be a threat against a good defense, or else you get what we saw today.
- We had 3 different OL on the first 3 drives. First drive was JT at LT and Morris at RT. Second was JT left and MB right. Third was Ali left and Bryant right. I think nobody is healthy at Tackle and they were just trying to find something that worked, but it was a bad sign.
- On the OL, HIckman gets been for strength. Hopefully he gets stronger as he develops over the spring. Osborne has a different thing. On one of the sacks, he blocked his tackle into Hickman, who took it over, but they ended up double teaming that player, and a LB was able to stunt blitz through the hole left by Osborne and we gave up the sack. There just doesn't seem to be great communication between the players on the line against more complicated schemes. Some of that is inexperience, but they need to work better for the OL to start taking a step forward.
- Defensively, this is the first game in forever that we actually lost the line of scrimmage. They were able to push our DL around pretty good. Will Jones has a nice motor, but he had a really rough game. Same with Newman. Most quiet games in forever from Levelston and Elijah. I was stunned to watch Cincy get 4-5 yards running the ball with relative ease.
- Overall, we didn't show up physically. The defense didn't engage at the line as well as we have in the past, and the LBs were not physical either. We didn't engage physically and were on our heals the entire evening. It was a really bad performance.
- I'm going to give that Cincy coaching staff some credit. They looked at our D and saw that safety was a weak point and just went after them all night long. That was impressive QB play and great coaching to rip it apart. But 16 and 18 were... not good. That was terrible. The bite on the crossing route on the first play of the game. Denbow biting on the zone read on the 40 yard TD run. It was terrible. The entire team was trying to play someone else's position and abandoning their own assignments, but it was worse at safety than everywhere else. 16 lacks the athleticism to change directions at all. And 18 isn't awful athletically, but he isn't at the highest level, and he isn't experienced enough to be able to read what is happening on the field to compensate for it. So when he gets beat, he has no recovery speed. The sooner 12 and 0 are the starters, the team will have better athleticism at the position. But Cincy just abused that position the entire game. They knew they would bite on combo routes, bite on misdirection, and abandon their role. There was a 4th and short conversion where Denbow runs over around the line on the opposite side of the field from where he was lined up. We gave up a small gain and a first, and he wasn't at fault for it, but what in the hell is he doing running over there? On that perfect fade pass for the TD in the corner, 18 slides up a little on the left side, but Denbow shifts over to also cover the left side, so there is no help what-so-ever on the right. What in the hell? These defensive concepts are either on the secondary coach or they are on the safeties for not playing where they are supposed to, but it is terrible. Even going back to the first play of the game, you are playing a 3 deep look. McMorris has his zone correct, he isn't supposed to be chasing that guy across the middle. The central safety, 18, chases the underneath cut and abandons his position. Sure, he chases it because he sees that the LB isn't aware of the route and hasn't dropped deep enough in his zone, but you still can't abandon your spot to cover for someone else. It is better to give that 20 yard pass over the middle than the 43 yard TD.

I have no idea if rumors or whatever impacted the team, but if you take out the TCU game, we have had horrible starts against LT, Memphis, Houston, and Cincy, all on the road. Coming into this game, we averaged 100 yards less of offense on the road than we do at home, and those stats are way, way worse now. Some of that is on the line, and some on the coaches and play calling, but the slow decision making of TM has a lot to do with it, and he has massive jitters on the road in the pocket. I'm still not sure why the only game we had him roll out was against USF. But there is a pattern here and I don't think it has anything to do with the coaching rumors.

[ponyboy]

Well said, all of it. And Bentley’s ankle prevents him from cutting.

[PlanoStang]

Playing all the starters on offense into a lost cause to get a score or 2 just REEKS
I think our Bentley might have been reinjured because of this

We gotta game next week against Tulsa

[Donnell88]

SMU sacks 0, tackles for loss 1. Cincinnati sacks 3, tackles for loss 7. SMU is the most pathetic 8-3 team I've ever seen.

[Donnell88]

And, I almost forgot - SMU passed 26 times for 66 yards. They rushed 31 times for 133 yards. Memo to SMU coaching staff: it's not illegal to throw the ball more than 10 yards.

[sail420s]

Riley is still awful. He loves those swing passes and WR screens that go for losses just as much as gains, and the gains are normally a yard or two. He has been afraid to throw downfield from day one of him arriving on campus. Just like last year, our offense starts out hot, then everyone figures them out by the second half of the season.

Thankfully, they did not put Preston in this game. I wish they could but they have wasted two of his four games to give him one drive. I can't believe the put him in against UCF when they did. I would have been OK if they started playing him in the 3rd like Cincy did with their back up today. Putting him in late to only give a him one drive is terrible player management.

Our corners are also terrible. They can't keep up with anyone. They are always about 4 yards behind the receiver on deep plays. If I was Tulsa, I would throw a 40 yard pass on every first down.

I know Sonny has said that he doesn't talk contracts during the season because it is a distraction, but at this point, not signing is more of a distraction.

[PonyTime]

Riley is still awful. He loves those swing passes and WR screens that go for losses just as much as gains, and the gains are normally a yard or two. He has been afraid to throw downfield from day one of him arriving on campus. Just like last year, our offense starts out hot, then everyone figures them out by the second half of the season.

Thankfully, they did not put Preston in this game. I wish they could but they have wasted two of his four games to give him one drive. I can't believe the put him in against UCF when they did. I would have been OK if they started playing him in the 3rd like Cincy did with their back up today. Putting him in late to only give a him one drive is terrible player management.

Our corners are also terrible. They can't keep up with anyone. They are always about 4 yards behind the receiver on deep plays. If I was Tulsa, I would throw a 40 yard pass on every first down.

I know Sonny has said that he doesn't talk contracts during the season because it is a distraction, but at this point, not signing is more of a distraction.

Only will be a distraction for next 2 days. So we got that goin for us!

[SmooTen]

Spot on assessment.

[DC-Pony]

And don’t forget a terrible start at Navy too. Down 21-7, making bad mental mistakes and showing ZERO energy in that game until Massey returned the KO for a TD. It’s the same, EVERY road game. EVERY, single road game.

[JasonB]

Riley is still awful. He loves those swing passes and WR screens that go for losses just as much as gains, and the gains are normally a yard or two. He has been afraid to throw downfield from day one of him arriving on campus. Just like last year, our offense starts out hot, then everyone figures them out by the second half of the season.

Thankfully, they did not put Preston in this game. I wish they could but they have wasted two of his four games to give him one drive. I can't believe the put him in against UCF when they did. I would have been OK if they started playing him in the 3rd like Cincy did with their back up today. Putting him in late to only give a him one drive is terrible player management.

Our corners are also terrible. They can't keep up with anyone. They are always about 4 yards behind the receiver on deep plays. If I was Tulsa, I would throw a 40 yard pass on every first down.

I know Sonny has said that he doesn't talk contracts during the season because it is a distraction, but at this point, not signing is more of a distraction.

Some of this is on Mordecai and not Riley. SB certainly threw the ball downfield more frequently. Mordecai locks in. I think the problem is explained when on one play, Roberson was the lone receiver on the boundary side and had man coverage with no safety help. The announcer pointed it out pre-snap and expected TM to look in that direction to see if Roberson could win the battle. But instead, he stared the other side of the field down and never switched off his primary. SO, pre-snap he didn't read the defense correctly, and post-snap he didn't go through his progressions. Those are aspects of the game that Preston is much, much better at.

[redpony]

we can hope that SD takes riley with him. The O game plan was nonexistent and has been suspect for many games.

[CBpony]

I'm hoping this is Denbow's last year. Good lord he's bad, there has to be someone else that can come in and at least be in a position to make a tackle that's not 20+ yards down the field.

[redpony]

I'm hoping this is Denbow's last year. Good lord he's bad, there has to be someone else that can come in and at least be in a position to make a tackle that's not 20+ yards down the field.

Agree. Plus I am surprised that SD didn't correct that problem via the transfer portal. Surely there was somebody better.

[soccermom]

Our corners are also terrible. They can't keep up with anyone. They are always about 4 yards behind the receiver on deep plays. If I was Tulsa, I would throw a 40 yard pass on every first down.

Honestly I’m surprised every team we’ve played hasn’t thrown the long balls against us every possession they’ve had. We haven’t had a secondary all season.

[JasonB]

I'm hoping this is Denbow's last year. Good lord he's bad, there has to be someone else that can come in and at least be in a position to make a tackle that's not 20+ yards down the field.

NWO and Massey are going to be a phenomenal safety combination. We just need experience.

People have a short memory, because we complained about Lashlee all the time while he was here. The fact is that we haven't turned over the OL from the Morris days, and until we get the higher end, more athletic, bigger framed players on the OL it limits what you can do in the red zone as well as the ability to hold the pocket for an extended period of time. Morris wanted quick and agile, which is the exact opposite of the Air Raid and most other modern offenses.