Spent nearly the entire day breaking down film from the game yesterday. Was a good way for me to stay level headed after what I saw on Saturday.
Here are some observations:
Safety Garrett Taylor had a terrible game. Absolutely awful. I counted 5 missed tackles that lead to quite big gains. The biggest being the go ahead TD at the end of the 4th for App State. If you watch film you’ll see him out there flying around but missing assignments and tackles left and right. It’s not pretty. I hope we figure out the safety position as Lamont Wade also was a bit shaky. That’s all I will say about them.
If you remember when we lost at Pitt their game plan was run the ball until we stopped them. Last year they tried to air it out. Well guess which game plan you can expect to see on saturday? If you watch our film we were beat over and over around the edge against Pitt in 2016. App St hit us with 2 jet sweeps that went for 15+ Pitt ran probably 15 of them when we played in 2016. Their other most effective running play was the QB keeper. What I saw was our LBers dropping back into coverage with no one to spy on the QB. This left a 6-8 yard hole for App St each time the QB tucked it and ran. This is a major area of concern for our D in my opinion as their QB wasn’t the best athlete we will see this year. Hopefully givens back helps clog the middle a bit creating less running lanes but we also need to have our LBers spy for these situations. They extended drives with these runs in critical moments throughout the game. Expect Pitt to run early and often and if they break through to the second level often we could be in trouble. The other major issue I saw was broken tackles between the D line and LBers. Multiple times we had their backs stopped for a short gain or loss only to have them squeak out and go for 5 or 6.
Juwan had two critical drops on 3rd Downs that would have extended nice drives. One of them was a 3rd and 9 that he was wide open on. We probably score on that drive at least a FG if he catches that pass.
Take away the KO return for App St and I don’t think this game is remotely close. The wind seemed to be completely rippped from our sails after that and App St defense came out firing after that as the return gave them some serious juice. Force them to go 80 yards on that possession instead and we have a completely different ball game.
I watched Micah every snap. He actually looked pretty good. I liked his footwork and when he chose to commit on a play. It’s clearly a work in progress and with a little more fine tuning will be quite the LBer.
K.J. is electric. Trace missed K.J. late in the 4th streaking past the safety wide open. Could have been another huge play if Trace saw him. I expect CJF is going to unleash K.J. a bit more against Pitt. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him take a jet sweep or have some more flexibility on returns. I also think Trace is going to be looking for him more.
Im still looking for Thompkins? Is he still on the team? A lot of people say Juwan disappeared in the game. Except the real player who disappeared was Thompkins. Holy moly.
Take away the two big drops and Juwan had a good game. I would love to see him become a red zone threat this year. I expect Juwan to step it up big. Here’s one thing I noticed though. App St knew Juwan was the big target. So the safety pretty much flashed his direction on the snap. This is what alllwed K.J. to have some great opportunities. He was going one on one and beating the coverage every time. If they can use Juwan to pull extra men giving K.J. more one on ones I’m cool with that.
Commit to Miles Sanders. That’s all I have to say. He had some absolutely Delicious runs carving up yardage and hitting the holes well. I thought the o line looked really good in the 4th. They were having their way with the d line and that opened some nice opportunities for Miles. I think Slade looked really powerful in his lower body as he runs. He could surprise us this year with some Saquon esq highlights. He has a serious burst.
Final thoughts. I don’t believe we saw any more than 60% of the playbook. Rahne called quite a good game. Again there were a lot of mistakes in execution. I don’t hold that over Rahne. Guys literally dropped the ball. I’d like to see him open some things up for Trace to run a bit more but overall I thought he called a good game.
The defense has some soul searching to do. Watch the final few drives for App State. The throws that fell incomplete missed because the QB threw it too far. Very few were actually defended. That scares me a bit. Are we slow? Praying someone is behind us available to help? Out of position? This to me is the biggest red flag. Again we are going to face some much bigger and better WRs in the B1G. I also think our coaches knew the secondary was an area of concern which is why the LBers constantly dropped back into coverage opening up that large running lane for the QB as I mentioned earlier. What they didn’t expect was our D Line to get mauled by their oline as consistently as they did. I believe they banked on our D line holding contain and applying enough pressure on the qb. Hopefully they find the right combination of guys to play a much more sound 4-3-4. I didn’t see that in this game.
Here’s the thing that might be an X factor. When the game is on the line this team now believes that they can win. OT against Minnesota in 2016 set this team on fire after. Iowa last year had a similar feel to it. This could have been the best case scenario for psu. There clearly are issues and app state literally exposed all of them. From the onside kick to poor tackling to blown coverages. But what happened? The team came together. Tied it. Held on App States next drive. Dominated in OT offensively and then Amani wins it. They believe they can win and that confidence is contagious. If this staff has proven anything it’s that they can make adjustments and they love to win. They are not going to brush these things under the rug. Heck Franklin huddled all the coaches up before they left the field just to tell them that they have a lot of work to do. These freshmen Stars now have seen what a battle looks like. Some fought in it and came up big in it. Confidence is contagious.
I would expect the team to be completely locked in this week. They got a good scare from a good team. Pitt may be on the receiving line of a serious butt whooping
Here are some observations:
Safety Garrett Taylor had a terrible game. Absolutely awful. I counted 5 missed tackles that lead to quite big gains. The biggest being the go ahead TD at the end of the 4th for App State. If you watch film you’ll see him out there flying around but missing assignments and tackles left and right. It’s not pretty. I hope we figure out the safety position as Lamont Wade also was a bit shaky. That’s all I will say about them.
If you remember when we lost at Pitt their game plan was run the ball until we stopped them. Last year they tried to air it out. Well guess which game plan you can expect to see on saturday? If you watch our film we were beat over and over around the edge against Pitt in 2016. App St hit us with 2 jet sweeps that went for 15+ Pitt ran probably 15 of them when we played in 2016. Their other most effective running play was the QB keeper. What I saw was our LBers dropping back into coverage with no one to spy on the QB. This left a 6-8 yard hole for App St each time the QB tucked it and ran. This is a major area of concern for our D in my opinion as their QB wasn’t the best athlete we will see this year. Hopefully givens back helps clog the middle a bit creating less running lanes but we also need to have our LBers spy for these situations. They extended drives with these runs in critical moments throughout the game. Expect Pitt to run early and often and if they break through to the second level often we could be in trouble. The other major issue I saw was broken tackles between the D line and LBers. Multiple times we had their backs stopped for a short gain or loss only to have them squeak out and go for 5 or 6.
Juwan had two critical drops on 3rd Downs that would have extended nice drives. One of them was a 3rd and 9 that he was wide open on. We probably score on that drive at least a FG if he catches that pass.
Take away the KO return for App St and I don’t think this game is remotely close. The wind seemed to be completely rippped from our sails after that and App St defense came out firing after that as the return gave them some serious juice. Force them to go 80 yards on that possession instead and we have a completely different ball game.
I watched Micah every snap. He actually looked pretty good. I liked his footwork and when he chose to commit on a play. It’s clearly a work in progress and with a little more fine tuning will be quite the LBer.
K.J. is electric. Trace missed K.J. late in the 4th streaking past the safety wide open. Could have been another huge play if Trace saw him. I expect CJF is going to unleash K.J. a bit more against Pitt. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him take a jet sweep or have some more flexibility on returns. I also think Trace is going to be looking for him more.
Im still looking for Thompkins? Is he still on the team? A lot of people say Juwan disappeared in the game. Except the real player who disappeared was Thompkins. Holy moly.
Take away the two big drops and Juwan had a good game. I would love to see him become a red zone threat this year. I expect Juwan to step it up big. Here’s one thing I noticed though. App St knew Juwan was the big target. So the safety pretty much flashed his direction on the snap. This is what alllwed K.J. to have some great opportunities. He was going one on one and beating the coverage every time. If they can use Juwan to pull extra men giving K.J. more one on ones I’m cool with that.
Commit to Miles Sanders. That’s all I have to say. He had some absolutely Delicious runs carving up yardage and hitting the holes well. I thought the o line looked really good in the 4th. They were having their way with the d line and that opened some nice opportunities for Miles. I think Slade looked really powerful in his lower body as he runs. He could surprise us this year with some Saquon esq highlights. He has a serious burst.
Final thoughts. I don’t believe we saw any more than 60% of the playbook. Rahne called quite a good game. Again there were a lot of mistakes in execution. I don’t hold that over Rahne. Guys literally dropped the ball. I’d like to see him open some things up for Trace to run a bit more but overall I thought he called a good game.
The defense has some soul searching to do. Watch the final few drives for App State. The throws that fell incomplete missed because the QB threw it too far. Very few were actually defended. That scares me a bit. Are we slow? Praying someone is behind us available to help? Out of position? This to me is the biggest red flag. Again we are going to face some much bigger and better WRs in the B1G. I also think our coaches knew the secondary was an area of concern which is why the LBers constantly dropped back into coverage opening up that large running lane for the QB as I mentioned earlier. What they didn’t expect was our D Line to get mauled by their oline as consistently as they did. I believe they banked on our D line holding contain and applying enough pressure on the qb. Hopefully they find the right combination of guys to play a much more sound 4-3-4. I didn’t see that in this game.
Here’s the thing that might be an X factor. When the game is on the line this team now believes that they can win. OT against Minnesota in 2016 set this team on fire after. Iowa last year had a similar feel to it. This could have been the best case scenario for psu. There clearly are issues and app state literally exposed all of them. From the onside kick to poor tackling to blown coverages. But what happened? The team came together. Tied it. Held on App States next drive. Dominated in OT offensively and then Amani wins it. They believe they can win and that confidence is contagious. If this staff has proven anything it’s that they can make adjustments and they love to win. They are not going to brush these things under the rug. Heck Franklin huddled all the coaches up before they left the field just to tell them that they have a lot of work to do. These freshmen Stars now have seen what a battle looks like. Some fought in it and came up big in it. Confidence is contagious.
I would expect the team to be completely locked in this week. They got a good scare from a good team. Pitt may be on the receiving line of a serious butt whooping
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