Open Date - MIdterm Grade Report

OPEN DATE - MIDTERM GRADE REPORT

As has been the case in recent seasons, the Bulldogs handled perennial rival Open Date with considerable ease.  The biggest worries for coaches in an off week are probably injuries and the players having extra time on their hands to indulge in nonproductive non-football and non-academic pursuits. I read that Mullen was giving the players the weekend off.  So far it's been "no news is good news." And the other news was that BYU continued to get their butts beaten and their feelings hurt.  While I'm sure the Cougars would love a win, I can't imagine that they expect anything other than another butt-whuppin', something the 'Dogs are hopefully focused on supplying.  Hop on BYU early and often, and this could be the start of a good run for State.

So the Bulldogs have almost a half season in the books, winning the first 3 impressively and soaring into the national rankings, only be thrashed twice consecutively on the road by UGA and Auburn, who are both currently Top 10 teams, to stand at 3-2.  I think most State fans expected -- indeed hoped -- that we'd be at 3-2.  But given how the season transpired, I think it's a glass half full/half empty scenario, depending on whether one is a maroon spectacle-wearing optimist or a traditionally beaten down pessimist.  I probably tend toward the former, but I'm also a bit of an experienced cynic.  I had hoped for 4-1 but expected 3-2.  So I'm happy ... but ....  Sort of like the old song (damn if I can remember which one) goes ...
It's not what you do 
When you do what you're doing.
It's the way that you do 
What you do when you're doing ....

With that in mind, here's the progress report that I think the Bulldogs have earned up until this almost midterm:

Offense: B-

  • The offense was explosive in the 3 wins.  
  • The line surprisingly dominated the line of scrimmage, opening holes for the running attack and protected Nick very well.  
  • The backs ran hard.  
  • Nick threw the ball better than last year, not trying to force balls and not telegraphing his passes.  
  • The receivers got open and made the routine catches.  
  • There were some very creative plays, e.g., the TD passes to Mixon and Brown vs. LSU.
  • In the last 2 game against elite competition, however, it was a different story.  There was little push, so the running game bogged down.  Fitz has yet to hit a home run on a long run.  
  • Although he has only been sacked a couple of times, Fitz was pressured and didn't respond.  The receivers were not open, dropped the ball way too often, and caught no 50/50 balls.  Fitz forced some throws.  
  • The moral seems to be that when we can run the ball, we are tough; but when we have to throw it, we're in trouble.


Defense:  C+

  • In the first 3 games the defense did exactly what Todd Grantham preaches, i.e., stop the run, pressure the QB, force turnovers.  
  • The 'Dogs' DL was attacking and dominating from Simmons in the middle to guys like Sweat, Spencer, Adams, Green on the edge.  
  • The linebackers and secondary were cleaning up and were covering receivers.  
  • It looked like the change in defensive coordinators had turned sheep sh*t into Shinola.  
  • But the traditional MSU bugagoo, vulnerability to big plays reared its head.  
  • Both UGA and AU ran better than any MSU fan expected them to, and the secondary looked very vulnerable.  
  • Against UGA there were lots of missed tackles.  
  • The D went from dominating to dominated.  
  • I think we're better than we looked the last 2 games simply because we're not likely to play but one more offensive line than we saw in the 2 losses.  If we stop the run and pressure the passer, we'll win.


Special teams:  A-

  • There's little to quibble about here.  
  • We've blocked kicks.
  • Our newly discovered placekicker -- What's his name again?!?  Oh, right, Christmann!  [just kidding] -- has been completely reliable.  
  • Our kickoffs routinely go into the end zone for no return.  
  • Our punter is averaging over 45 yds. a kick and has 11 downed inside the 20.  
  • Our kick coverage has been good.  
  • So why the minus??  I've been a little disappointed in our lack of return yardage.  Honestly I expected more from Donald Gray on punt returns and from him and Mixon on kickoff returns.  Not big disappointments ... just small ones ... so I could live with a plain ole A.


Coaching:  B-

  • The defense is definitely better, which may inflate the ranking here.  When teams have moved the ball and scored, it's been because they've had better athletes that have just whipped our butts.  We seem to know what we want to do ... and it seems to make sense.  
  • Now if our safeties can figure out how not to get sucked up so far defending the run that they can't defend play action and trickeration ....
  • The offense?  Wellllll ... that's a mixed bag to me.  
  • The line is better than I feared they might be ... those young guys have done reasonably well run blocking and exceptionally well protecting Fitz.  
  • Aeris picked up where he left off last year ... give him just a little hole, and he'll get the most out of it.  
  • Fitz has run well, although no big TD runs yet.  
  • Hill and Gibson have looked good.  
  • The receivers have been a disappointment ... perhaps not surprisingly, but we fans always hope for more and better.  The passing game has therefore been a disappointment.  
  • The Jordan Thomas as a 270 lb. WR experiment has not borne fruit ... so far he has caught more like an offensive lineman.
  • I'm disappointed that the tight ends have not been more involved as receivers.  We seemed to have recruited several talented ones, a couple of whom have not been in evidence thus far.  Farrod Green was a real weapon occasionally last year, but seldom this year.  Perhaps we're relying on them so much as blockers to help protect Fitz, maybe they're just not good enough to get open, or maybe we just don't have creative enough plays to get them open.  Most years we hear that the TE's will definitely be used more ... and to date that has only been propaganda that hopeful fans (and perhaps some gullible opposing coaches) have fallen for.
  • Given our players' talents and liablities, can our coaches develop a strategy and plays to help us win games when a defense has stopped or slowed down our running game and we have to throw the ball?  Not against UGA and AU, but in the games ahead ...?
The Schedule Ahead: B
  • Certainly both BYU and UMass have been very beatable ... by practically every team they have played.
  • Arkansas and TSUN have been awful so far.  Neither can stop anyone.  Arkansas hasn't been able to run it the way Bielema teams always do, and without that Austin Allen a) spends lots of time with his cleats in the air and b) isn't nearly as effective as a passer as he was last year.  The Rebelblackbearlandsharkswhointhehellaretheys can throw it, but they have to ... they remind me a lot of the 1968 Bulldog team with Pharr, Milner, and Smith that put up huge passing numbers, but didn't win a game.  Apparently it's points, not stats.
  • UK is an enigma; they are kind of what you want to see, i.e., a) a team that has only lost once and with any luck at all would be undefeated, or b) a team that has unimpressively struggled to beat several woeful opponents.  They have quality receivers, a good running back, and a good kicker; but their defense generally looks like what a UK defense has since Art Still graduated a scant 40 years ago.
  • aTm has morphed from a team with yet another overhyped young QB but that can't stop anyone to a team with a poised young dual threat QB, yet another excellent corps of receivers, and a surprisingly effective running game with a defense that suddenly looks pretty darn good.  Plus they play Florida (yes, the team that lost at home to LSU ... let me repeat that, lost at home to LSU!), then have an open date before they host our 'Dogs.  Not ideal.
  • That leaves, of course, UAT.  Let's just leave it that the lopsided losses to UGA and Aubrin, when we got manhandled on the line on both sides of the ball, inspire little confidence against Little Nicky Satan's hordes.

So ...?

Stay tuned ... there's much to play for, and there's reason for ample optimism for a pretty good bowl.  Of course, as the imminent psychologist Alfred Adler was fond of saying, "Things could also be different."  Guess that's why they play the games ... and why we pay to watch them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 10 - Paradise Lost

Week 10 - Paradise Lost There's no other way to say this:  I still feel like throwing up.  Normally I try to watch at least some of the replay before writing in the blog.  But I really don't want to see this one again.  Yes, it's respectable to play UAT tough and to be in it until the last play, but damn, it hurts to lose one you had won.  To sum it up, the a snippet of the lyrics to Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath" kept flashing through my mind last night ... "And the all time winner Has got him by the balls." The 'Dogs had Alabama by the balls ... and failed to do what one what a winner must do in a street fight with a badass, i.e ., when you've got ahold of them, squeeeeeeeze!!! One like this sticks in one's craw.  Despite the late night, I awakened a little before 6:00 a.m. and kept asking myself, "Did we really lose that game, or am I just having a nightmare?!?"  According to the highlights, it appears that we ...
Read more

Game 2 - Lolly Poly

Game 2 - Lolly Poly All of us who have watched a lot of football games have seen some crazy plays, but the Battle of the Bulldogs was like the Twilight Zone Bowl -- chock full of wacky plays.  Going into the season I looked at this as a "trap game."  It was the week before a critical game with LSU and the start of a run of 3 straight SEC teams against ranked teams.  In addition, State was 0-1 at La. Tech and had lost to them a couple of times at home too.  Tech runs a wide open offense, so we had to figure they'd score.  I felt better when I learned that they had a young, inexperienced quarterback rather than some hot shot transfer, as they've had in recent years; and that they'd given up some points to the mighty Demons of NW LA the previous week.  But still I was wary.  Then the game started ... and I said, "Oh, hell!  Here we go again." [Cue Dave Clark Five.]  But the fog lifted on State's offense and defense, and the special teams m...
Read more

Week 5 - Aubrin

Week 5 - Aubrin Well ... that was awful.  Delusions of being good enough to be nationally ranked and candidates for a New Year's 6 bowl have been quickly shattered.  Not only did the Bulldogs prove that they could not win big games on the road against quality SEC teams; LSU proved exactly what we feared, i.e., that they suck.  (Although thanks to our Coonass land grant cousins, we no longer have to bear alone the ignominy of being an SEC team that lost a homecoming game to a team whose mascot is a pack of condoms.)   For the second week in a row the Bulldogs were dominated up front on both sides of the ball.  Susceptibility to big plays, a traditional thorn in the side of Bulldog defenses in the Mullen era, was on full display early and often Saturday night.  Even without a healthy Kamryn Pettway, the Sherman tank who scattered Bulldog defenders in his wake last year at Scott Field, Auburn ran through and around State's once vaunted defense....
Read more