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Both sides of the ball are problematic

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I know everyone here is all excited for a win after the thrashing at UT, BUT, we did not look good.

Gary Nord needs to work with Rusty on his checkdowns.  Very rarely was he checking down yesterday.  On a large majority of the plays we had a WR running wide open and Rusty was jamming the ball in on someone else.  A bit concerning.

Defense is just abysmal.  The playcalling is vanilla at best.  We need to bring the blitz much more often.  Pressure the QB's to throw the ball earlier and to the first receiver they see so the DB's can make a play.  I think we blitzed ONCE yesterday.  We blitz more often and this game is over at half time.

Replacing the safeties definitely hurts.  I don't think the coaches prepared the second team players enough to step into the role as starter.

I think there is a lot we need to work on and if it gets corrected, we could have a great season.  If not, I sit here wondering what the season will actually look like.
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Re: Both sides of the ball are problematic

SigEp77 said

I know everyone here is all excited for a win after the thrashing at UT, BUT, we did not look good.

Gary Nord needs to work with Rusty on his checkdowns.  Very rarely was he checking down yesterday.  On a large majority of the plays we had a WR running wide open and Rusty was jamming the ball in on someone else.  A bit concerning.

Defense is just abysmal.  The playcalling is vanilla at best.  We need to bring the blitz much more often.  Pressure the QB's to throw the ball earlier and to the first receiver they see so the DB's can make a play.  I think we blitzed ONCE yesterday.  We blitz more often and this game is over at half time.

Replacing the safeties definitely hurts.  I don't think the coaches prepared the second team players enough to step into the role as starter.

I think there is a lot we need to work on and if it gets corrected, we could have a great season.  If not, I sit here wondering what the season will actually look like.

Umm…we punted once!  I have ZERO complaints about Rusty or the offense.  There may have been open receivers that were missed, but that was probably because there were open players everywhere.

Defensively, I agree with you…lots of work to be done.  The good news is that a lot of the issues are correctable and it is early…there is time to correct problems.  You also have to keep in mind that UAB, for as not good as they are, have a decent offensive team.  They put over 30 points on UCF last season.

Playing with two new safeties, you'd expect some issues early on and there have been.  They now have 2 games under their belts, so hopefully things start clicking.  I also thing blitzing more could help.  We did a few times against UAB and forced some bad throws.  The D will improve.  We improved from week 1 to week 2, but there is a long way to go.  Here's hoping we get some injured linemen back this week and have a great week of practice. 
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Re: Both sides of the ball are problematic

fauowls44 said

The D will improve.  We improved from week 1 to week 2, but there is a long way to go.

I don't see how 27 first downs and 482 yards is an improvement over last week.  The D definitely has a long way to go.  We outscored UAB, plain and simple.  I'm not convinced yet that the only reason we won isn't just because we ran into a defense worse than ours.

Happy with the offense, but we can't count on scoring 49 points every week to win.  We'll certainly be an entertaining team to watch, if nothing else.
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Re: Both sides of the ball are problematic

The said

fauowls44 said

The D will improve.  We improved from week 1 to week 2, but there is a long way to go.

I don't see how 27 first downs and 482 yards is an improvement over last week.  The D definitely has a long way to go.  We outscored UAB, plain and simple.  I'm not convinced yet that the only reason we won isn't just because we ran into a defense worse than ours.

Happy with the offense, but we can't count on scoring 49 points every week to win.  We'll certainly be an entertaining team to watch, if nothing else.

The 5 sacks are an improvement.  We had zero pressure against Texas.  Getting a couple of key stops was good to see.  It certainly wasn't a GOOD showing, but there were areas that improved from the Texas game.  Take away the special teams mistakes(fumbled kickoff and the successful fake punt) and the game is much more lopsided.

I'm not saying there isn't a long way to go defensively, just that it wasn't ALL bad.  I saw some reason for hope. 
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Re: Both sides of the ball are problematic

Both sides of the ball are problematic

Interesting discussion. We should take note of Michigan State's performance Saturday, as well. MSU's Javon Ringer rushed for 135 yards and five (that's right, five) TDs in the victory over Eastern Michigan. Old-fashioned, smash-mouth football, the Detroit Free Press said.
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Re: Both sides of the ball are problematic

fauowls44 said

The said

fauowls44 said

The D will improve.  We improved from week 1 to week 2, but there is a long way to go.

I don't see how 27 first downs and 482 yards is an improvement over last week.  The D definitely has a long way to go.  We outscored UAB, plain and simple.  I'm not convinced yet that the only reason we won isn't just because we ran into a defense worse than ours.

Happy with the offense, but we can't count on scoring 49 points every week to win.  We'll certainly be an entertaining team to watch, if nothing else.

The 5 sacks are an improvement.  We had zero pressure against Texas.  Getting a couple of key stops was good to see.  It certainly wasn't a GOOD showing, but there were areas that improved from the Texas game.  Take away the special teams mistakes(fumbled kickoff and the successful fake punt) and the game is much more lopsided.

I'm not saying there isn't a long way to go defensively, just that it wasn't ALL bad.  I saw some reason for hope.

I really think you need to define what improved means.  Just because we had 0 sacks against the then #11 team in the nation and then had five against one of the worst teams in the nation does not point to improvement.  It points to performing how one should perform against the level of competition.  I would argue that we should have had many more sacks yesterday.

I'm no coach, but would anyone be really surprised when the DC's in our conference pick up on Rusty locking on to his first option and not checking down?  I wouldn't.  If an opposing D can pressure Rusty with a minimal rush and drop into coverage, we are screwed in the passing game.  It's no secret our running game is terrible.

I'd still like to see how the D improved from week 1 to week 2.  I want to say there were at least four times yesterday UAB had a receiver so open down field he could have caught the ball and ran back to Alabama before our closest DB caught up to him.  Had UAB's QB had any type of arm we would have LOST this game.

Take the blue & red glasses off for a second and view the squad objectively.
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Re: Both sides of the ball are problematic

I am in agreement with SigEp, and I'll also add that I thought our receiver made more plays than Rusty made passes.  I thought his accuracy was way off .

We can't blitz very well with 3 down lineman, either.

We did make improvements in facets, but played a worse team. 

Like things, love people.
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Re: Both sides of the ball are problematic

Fledgling said

I am in agreement with SigEp, and I'll also add that I thought our receiver made more plays than Rusty made passes.  I thought his accuracy was way off .
We can't blitz very well with 3 down lineman, either.

We did make improvements in facets, but played a worse team.

Thanks for bringing that up.  Still clearing the cobwebs but that is also a point I meant to make.  Rusty did not look sharp yesterday either.
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Re: Both sides of the ball are problematic

There must be 20 news articles on the web this morning commenting on FAU's lack of defense. I assume the printed copies of all the local papers down there have similar stories. No doubt the players are well aware of the concern. I'm not a coach. I don't know what it takes to fix it. I am surprised the secondary struggled. That was our strong point last year.

Its the old "let down" thing. There was so much hype about how good the owls were going to be this year. Reality showed up and its a bit disappointing.  The offense could use some fine tuning but over all is playing very well. It could still be a very good season. We'll have to take it one game at a time.

FAU - THE REAL SLEEPING GIANT
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Re: Both sides of the ball are problematic

Illi, I think the coaching has a ton to do with it, no adjustments during the game. The D backs were giving to much on coverage to the WR. I believe the replacment DE's put more pressure on the QB then the LB's. A lot of time for the QB and some huge holes up the middle. Another problem "No Big Leaders" from the defensive players last year you had Pinnick, Sincere and Laz the year before.

The O did very well, I agree with SigEp77
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