09-22-2019, 08:53 PM
Our defense played much better in our Saturday loss than I expected. It played well enough to win, had the offense held up better. And of course the defense would have looked better yet if our offense had given them more to work with. The defensive success was despite the fact that we were going up against arguable the best passing quarterback in college football. So for all the problems with safety and inner linebacker--the defense played well enough to win against the high powered offense of the Ducks, and utterly unlike prior weeks, we actually got some pressure on the quarterback.
The running game, too, is doing well enough to win. Scarlett is averaging 4.6 yards per carry this season, which is better than we mostly expected, I think, given the uncertainties about the O-line. Certainly good enough to support a ball control offense if the passing game were there. Stefan Taylor averaged 4.8 his senior year, for comparison.
I agree that much of the offense's problem are holding penalties committed by our shallow O-line. That probably is a function of starting so many youngsters. Hopefully that will improve.
But the shock came where many of us least expected it. Our passing game has dramatically regressed. We were led to believe that our wide receivers were young but excellent--just needing opportunities to step up. But it seems as if this is where we badly miscalculated. The receivers so far seem too slow and also often fail to run good routes, such as when Fehoko allows his cover to nudge him out of bounds.
As for quarterback, Costello has--for one reason or another--lost his accuracy. Shaw said that for our offense to work well this year Costello needed to up his accuracy to the 70% range. Last year was 65%. He is now down to 56%. Worse, he is averaging only 5 yards per attempt--far too few to keep the secondary back on its heels. They can easily cover all our wide receivers 1 on 1 and then double on Parkinson.
I'm not sure how to diagnose this disease. Is it the talent level of the receivers? Weddington and St. Brown were 4 stars. Is it that Costello has been injured and is not his old self? He doesn't look like last year's Pac 12 efficiency leader. Is it an unimaginative passing game? Is it all of these things at once?
We need our defense and running game not to regress, we need our frosh linemen to iron out how to block without holding, and we need for Costello to become more accurate (or we need to start Mills.) If we can do all those things, then we will win some games this year.
Will we do these things? Only time will tell.
The running game, too, is doing well enough to win. Scarlett is averaging 4.6 yards per carry this season, which is better than we mostly expected, I think, given the uncertainties about the O-line. Certainly good enough to support a ball control offense if the passing game were there. Stefan Taylor averaged 4.8 his senior year, for comparison.
I agree that much of the offense's problem are holding penalties committed by our shallow O-line. That probably is a function of starting so many youngsters. Hopefully that will improve.
But the shock came where many of us least expected it. Our passing game has dramatically regressed. We were led to believe that our wide receivers were young but excellent--just needing opportunities to step up. But it seems as if this is where we badly miscalculated. The receivers so far seem too slow and also often fail to run good routes, such as when Fehoko allows his cover to nudge him out of bounds.
As for quarterback, Costello has--for one reason or another--lost his accuracy. Shaw said that for our offense to work well this year Costello needed to up his accuracy to the 70% range. Last year was 65%. He is now down to 56%. Worse, he is averaging only 5 yards per attempt--far too few to keep the secondary back on its heels. They can easily cover all our wide receivers 1 on 1 and then double on Parkinson.
I'm not sure how to diagnose this disease. Is it the talent level of the receivers? Weddington and St. Brown were 4 stars. Is it that Costello has been injured and is not his old self? He doesn't look like last year's Pac 12 efficiency leader. Is it an unimaginative passing game? Is it all of these things at once?
We need our defense and running game not to regress, we need our frosh linemen to iron out how to block without holding, and we need for Costello to become more accurate (or we need to start Mills.) If we can do all those things, then we will win some games this year.
Will we do these things? Only time will tell.