(09-01-2024, 10:43 AM)fullmetal Wrote: Cheers for the sound analysis. After some time to reflect, I agree with you that the defense deserves much credit for doing what they could with what they had. Sometimes we call the turnover battle a matter of luck, but I do think that the defense made some of that luck.
I was disappointed at how they covered TCU's Bech on their final go-ahead TD play. It looked like the our corner stayed home while our safety thought otherwise and then had the inglorious honor of chasing Bech five yards from behind for that end zone corner TD. Seemed like an ordinary, preventable red zone playcall. Nothing tricky.
What the offense didn't do that the defense did was maximize their chances in light of the talent and matchups present on the field. If you know your OL is struggling, you have to stop waiting for the deep shots and go to a short, quick game (hint: sweeps and reverses don't work when the OL/blocking is struggling) with a healthy dose of misdirection. Tunnel screens, QB option plays out of the spread, etc...triple option would have been interesting too.
Daniels needs to get comfortable throwing in tighter windows and making much quicker assessments of separation/speed. Do we not have hot routes and quick reads in the playbook? If our WRs were blanketed by a quick TCU secondary, why weren't there crossing routes, wheel routes, stacks, etc designed to free up WRs? Why wasn't there even a little bit more play action (don't remember much) to get Roush involved?
Honestly, when things are this bad, you gotta try to get the ball to your playmakers who are more likely to win their matchups. I'm sure TCU was scheming to shut down Ayomanor and Roush, but surely Troy Taylor knows that there are ways to break his guys open.
I like Troy Taylor but he gets an D- for his offensive (in both senses) play calling in this game. That last drive starting at 3:13 left in Q4 was pathetic: 2 long, low probability passes to Harris and Bachmeier on 1st and 2nd downs, a 3rd down sack for a loss of 6 after a totally blown block by #71, McLaughlin, who double blocked the D lineman being blocked by the O lineman next to him and left the rusher opposite him with a free path to Daniel, and then a desperation far-too-high pass to Ayomanor on 4th down. There was ample time for us to march downfield with short passes, even if only to the 30-or-so yard line for a tying FG (it was TCU 27-SU 24 at the time). TT's reputation as a clever O play caller was seriously called into question by this drive.
I might add that TT's post-game presser was MASSIVELY BORING, REPLETE WITH PLATITUDES, VERY LOW ENERGY, AND UNENLIGHTENING! All in all, an impressive performance by TT. But other coaches deserve slices of the blame pie. For you would think that by this time...
1. the O line would have its pass-blocking assignments down pat;
2. our tackling on D wouldn't be so poor that it took 7 or 8 guys grabbing him above the waist to bring down Richardson on his gain of 34 to our 27 during their next-to-last TD drive;
3. our DBack pass coverage wouldn't be so poor that on the go-ahead 4 yard TD pass to Bech, he was wide open in the north endzone, with #4 (Manley) being in a different zip code (9-10 feet away) when Bech caught the ball!