09-13-2015, 08:25 AM
Granted, UCF may not be the toughest of foes, especially when down a QB or two, but I found a lot to like about this game.
(1) Excellent gameplan. We are hard on Shaw a lot for playcalling, but I thought he did an excellent job in this game. With the exception of the opening reverse, I thought the play calling, balance between run and pass, inside/outside, power/spread was excellent. There were some terrible penalties and stone hands on our recievers, but people were open and the opportunities were clearly there. I even liked the wildcat, as the Bryce love fly-sweep adds a whole new dimension for defenses to fear. The only play calls I really didnt like were the punts from the 35 (get to that later)
(2) Defense. Our D-line got penetration, even after we lost Shittu, and Martinez was all over the field. More importantly, I was particularly impressed with our young DBs, all of whom played tight and physical coverage, and were quite unfortunate to get slapped with a few soft PI calls. I don't doubt that USCs recievers or Oregon's running game/pace will strain our young DBs and thin D-line, but they looked excellent yesterday.
(3) Team Speed. I loved seeing the McLovin combo out on the edges, it gave our offense an explosiveness that we just haven't had from our skill players for as long as I can remember.
(4) Kicking: Both our punting and kicking game look much better then last year
Dislikes:
(1) Waaaay to many stupid mistakes. The refs made a few bogus calls, but there were a lot of boneheaded penalties, most notably the block in the back on the punt return and a few offensive holdings away from the play.
(2) Catch the ball!! Hogan started out with a few bad throws but looked fantastic after the first quarter, but I lost count of the number of balls that were on the money and bounced off People's hands.
(3) Punting on the 35. It's a simple matter of expected value. I'll be generous and assume our average punt gives them the ball on the 10 yardline. The expected value of 1st and 10 on the 10 is essentially 0 points, while 1st and 10 on the 35 has an expected value of ~1 point. If we say Ukropina will kick 50% from that length, then a field goal attempt has a +0.5 point expected value (.5 * 3 -.5 * 1). If we assume a 1/3 chance of converting a 4th and 5-7, A fresh set of downs (1st and 10 on the 30) has a roughly 3.5 point expected value, so we can estimate a net ~+.6 point value from going for it (.33 * 3.5 -.66*1).
On the whole, I thought it was an excellent team performance that was marred by some undisciplined penalties and bad hands on the recievers. I'm still not overly confident about next week, but I feel a lot better then I did one week ago.
(1) Excellent gameplan. We are hard on Shaw a lot for playcalling, but I thought he did an excellent job in this game. With the exception of the opening reverse, I thought the play calling, balance between run and pass, inside/outside, power/spread was excellent. There were some terrible penalties and stone hands on our recievers, but people were open and the opportunities were clearly there. I even liked the wildcat, as the Bryce love fly-sweep adds a whole new dimension for defenses to fear. The only play calls I really didnt like were the punts from the 35 (get to that later)
(2) Defense. Our D-line got penetration, even after we lost Shittu, and Martinez was all over the field. More importantly, I was particularly impressed with our young DBs, all of whom played tight and physical coverage, and were quite unfortunate to get slapped with a few soft PI calls. I don't doubt that USCs recievers or Oregon's running game/pace will strain our young DBs and thin D-line, but they looked excellent yesterday.
(3) Team Speed. I loved seeing the McLovin combo out on the edges, it gave our offense an explosiveness that we just haven't had from our skill players for as long as I can remember.
(4) Kicking: Both our punting and kicking game look much better then last year
Dislikes:
(1) Waaaay to many stupid mistakes. The refs made a few bogus calls, but there were a lot of boneheaded penalties, most notably the block in the back on the punt return and a few offensive holdings away from the play.
(2) Catch the ball!! Hogan started out with a few bad throws but looked fantastic after the first quarter, but I lost count of the number of balls that were on the money and bounced off People's hands.
(3) Punting on the 35. It's a simple matter of expected value. I'll be generous and assume our average punt gives them the ball on the 10 yardline. The expected value of 1st and 10 on the 10 is essentially 0 points, while 1st and 10 on the 35 has an expected value of ~1 point. If we say Ukropina will kick 50% from that length, then a field goal attempt has a +0.5 point expected value (.5 * 3 -.5 * 1). If we assume a 1/3 chance of converting a 4th and 5-7, A fresh set of downs (1st and 10 on the 30) has a roughly 3.5 point expected value, so we can estimate a net ~+.6 point value from going for it (.33 * 3.5 -.66*1).
On the whole, I thought it was an excellent team performance that was marred by some undisciplined penalties and bad hands on the recievers. I'm still not overly confident about next week, but I feel a lot better then I did one week ago.