10-13-2024, 12:04 PM
6. It's a minor thing when we're getting run out of the building by several dozen points, but I continue to cast a wary eye at Taylor's in-game decisions. Aside from clock management, the most obvious place this manifests is fourth downs. We went one of four on fourth downs yesterday. Fourth and 5 from the 41 is one where generalized analytics may say go for it but no way should applying one's brain to these specific belligerents/this situation - what is likely to happen with our offense going against that defense - lead one to think we should go for that fourth down at that time in a tie game. We deserved to get sacked. Fourth and 3 from the 44 is two yards less stupid but probably still not using your brain to account for opponent and it being a one score game. At what point does the riverboat gambler mentality cease being a ballsy way to show you play to win and start being bush league desperation. We're probably there. In many of the individual cases (including both above), one can credibly defend Taylor's analytics and/or circumstance-driven decisions, but in the aggregate we are the #73 fourth down team yet go for it #3 of any team in the country (Baylor and Air Force also go for it too much). That seems to leave points and field position on the table. I suspect we are a worse team than we would be if Taylor were more conservative. I also am starting to wonder if the aggression is even a coherent and credible part of our personality. For example, we continue to not commit penalties (we're elite in at least one respect!) but it doesn't mean much when you're so overmatched in the most fundamental ways. We may end up viewing this team as too aggressive in our game management and too buttoned up in our style of play. Heck, I know a lot of fans who feel that way with the predictability of the Lamson package (though I think there are many things to criticize first/more forcefully than that).
7. If fourth down decisions and in-game management are meaningful things on the margins, the blaring size 32 font we're dealing with in the middle of the page is of course the QB play. This wasn't actually that bad by Daniels, but that itself is extremely telling. I had been talking about a positive reversion to the mean seeming almost inevitable for Daniels and believe it or not we saw that yesterday, which was basically exactly on Daniels' Total QBR mean from last year, making it his best game this season (but still not as good as his five best last year). Adjusted for the terrifyingly tough opponent, he did ok. Daniels was #69 of 107 in Total QBR this week. He had his best game and it still turned out how it did, and his best game through five tries this season is still sub-par. I mean, the pitch to a defender (albeit a great play by a player on a great defense) and the play air mailing Ayomanor on a deep sideline route are just not plays that can happen at this level. And that's on his best day of 2024. On the season, it's beyond ugly: #123 of 129 nationally and the dead last worst in Power Four. In other words, we are in the place we have been for weeks just waiting for Elijah Brown to get healthy and feeling sorry for ourselves (or mad at ourselves/somebody?) for Brown being on the shelf for a practice contact injury. On some level it feels like the season starts when Brown gets to face an FBS opponent. It's not fair to put these pressures on a true freshman QB but we have so little hope right now that it's palpable how Brown is becoming the vessel.
8. There really isn't much to say about offensive personnel otherwise. I'm glad Daniels' running ability translated even against a good opponent, Lamson didn't fumble (but Daniels did! WTF with our QB play this year is the tl;dr for the season), and Davis had a modestly encouraging game in light of the factors I mentioned above that made this a throwaway game. Even still, we just had a game without a single running back-produced first down and were back to the QB run as a crutch. The Ayomanor disappearance is terrible to watch. He's gone from 20th in the nation in receiving last year to not even in the top 100 this year (16th in the ACC). [Moving the chains (first down) leader board: Daniels (4), Lamson (3), Ayomanor (2), Cisse (2), Mosley, B. Farrell, Blackburn] Hoping to get a full RB complement out there by the time we play the soft part of the schedule and, between that and presumably a new QB1, can find some success to build on. But we can't put all of our hopes in Brown being a miracle worker and revelation. Not only is QB a hard position where he is likely to experience his share of failure, but there's also the matter of our offensive line. To this point of the season, PFF views us as #95 in pass blocking and #124 in run blocking. Atrocious, especially with everything returning. Yesterday was a breakdown that one might fear could erode fragile confidence. The way House got abused and Leyrer, Baklenko, Roush, and Davis struggled (we gave up four sacks on 27 drop backs, coupled with the aforementioned lack of trust in Daniels and his health, probably made it the right decision to throw as little as we did. Very rude awakening for House in particular. The relative bright spot, according to PFF, was Maikkula having the best game of his career. He has had a shaky start to the season coming off his health issue so if he could have a good second half that would raise confidence heading into next year.
9. Fewer players came to play for the defense than any game yet this season. I only count five players who showed up with multiple positive box score plays (Frausto-Ramos, Leigber, Bernadel, Tafiti, and Patterson), and one of those (Patterson) didn't do anything outside of garbage time and another (Tafiti) had a Jekyll and Hyde game that while making a few plays was on the whole an abomination in PFF's view. Very disappointing for the faces of our defense, Sinclair and Wright, to be so quiet on arguably our biggest stage of the season (by the way, haven't talked about that aspect of how disappointing yesterday was....yikes!). The main story around Bailey continues to be the intrigue/frustration of why he doesn't play more (23 snaps in this game, tied for his most in the last four games), especially with struggles most weeks from Tafiti and Cooper (no impact yesterday except for the roughing penalty that effectively ended the game) and yesterday the injury to Aybar. Anyway, that's enough on what's disappointing. The standout performance by miles was Frausto-Ramos. So nice to see him make the most of his injury-produced opportunity, not only by making our play of the game on his forced fumble/fumble recovery strip, but also make multiple run stops and a tackle before the sticks on 3rd down. With the injuries in the secondary he has earned a start next week and hopefully this great performance is not a complete aberration.
10. Kenney opening up the game with an out of bounds kickoff (always an infuriating mistake) set the tone for a game in which we wouldn't be getting advantage from special teams. Due to the offense's ineptitude Kenney didn't have any chance to place kick (can't blame Taylor's riverboat gambling for that as the fourth down tries were in punt or go for it territory). Flintoft had net punts of 36 to 35 (horrible), 46 to the 17 (good), 40 to the 36 (only ok due to out-kicking coverage), and 36 to the 40 (a bit worse, also due to out-kicking coverage). Bachmeier's second half kickoff situation was unfortunate and, while I am not going to torture myself by rewatching that play over and over again, we may have gotten the raw end of a call that cost a lot of field position in a situation we couldn't afford that to be the case. This game is a hold-your-nose one for picking the game ball. I'll give it to a guy who has to play on teams each week without any fanfare and only attention when something goes horribly awry, but to be honest I have no idea if he even had a good game because, like I said, I'm not about to go and rewatch this one. Giving a coaching game ball is an equally hold-your-nose exercise in a game like this.
11. Game balls: Maikkula, Frausto-Ramos, Warford, Agnew
12. Next week is a gut check opportunity to show the world and, equally importantly, ourselves, that we are better than the train wreck of recent weeks. I know Taylor has built a long-term growth mindset and a culture geared toward mindfulness and resilience, but this level of failure can be corrosive to morale of even the toughest teams. We need to stop playing like one of the worst teams in history, for numerous reasons. I also know fans have basically written off the majority of the season and are essentially putting all emotional eggs in the basket of whatever glimpses of Brown we get, but this remains a complicated, team game and all of it matters. We need to see something that produces belief in this coaching staff among players, recruits, and fans. Against SMU it's unlikely to be a win but I really want to see us try to hold a good team within a few scores. Whether we get throttled next week or not, our two games after that are two of the three worst non-Stanford Power Four teams in the nation. We may not get an easier conference back-to-back than that the rest of our lives, and we may get a Brown sighting in one of those games. There's something to look forward to at some point, I guess.
7. If fourth down decisions and in-game management are meaningful things on the margins, the blaring size 32 font we're dealing with in the middle of the page is of course the QB play. This wasn't actually that bad by Daniels, but that itself is extremely telling. I had been talking about a positive reversion to the mean seeming almost inevitable for Daniels and believe it or not we saw that yesterday, which was basically exactly on Daniels' Total QBR mean from last year, making it his best game this season (but still not as good as his five best last year). Adjusted for the terrifyingly tough opponent, he did ok. Daniels was #69 of 107 in Total QBR this week. He had his best game and it still turned out how it did, and his best game through five tries this season is still sub-par. I mean, the pitch to a defender (albeit a great play by a player on a great defense) and the play air mailing Ayomanor on a deep sideline route are just not plays that can happen at this level. And that's on his best day of 2024. On the season, it's beyond ugly: #123 of 129 nationally and the dead last worst in Power Four. In other words, we are in the place we have been for weeks just waiting for Elijah Brown to get healthy and feeling sorry for ourselves (or mad at ourselves/somebody?) for Brown being on the shelf for a practice contact injury. On some level it feels like the season starts when Brown gets to face an FBS opponent. It's not fair to put these pressures on a true freshman QB but we have so little hope right now that it's palpable how Brown is becoming the vessel.
8. There really isn't much to say about offensive personnel otherwise. I'm glad Daniels' running ability translated even against a good opponent, Lamson didn't fumble (but Daniels did! WTF with our QB play this year is the tl;dr for the season), and Davis had a modestly encouraging game in light of the factors I mentioned above that made this a throwaway game. Even still, we just had a game without a single running back-produced first down and were back to the QB run as a crutch. The Ayomanor disappearance is terrible to watch. He's gone from 20th in the nation in receiving last year to not even in the top 100 this year (16th in the ACC). [Moving the chains (first down) leader board: Daniels (4), Lamson (3), Ayomanor (2), Cisse (2), Mosley, B. Farrell, Blackburn] Hoping to get a full RB complement out there by the time we play the soft part of the schedule and, between that and presumably a new QB1, can find some success to build on. But we can't put all of our hopes in Brown being a miracle worker and revelation. Not only is QB a hard position where he is likely to experience his share of failure, but there's also the matter of our offensive line. To this point of the season, PFF views us as #95 in pass blocking and #124 in run blocking. Atrocious, especially with everything returning. Yesterday was a breakdown that one might fear could erode fragile confidence. The way House got abused and Leyrer, Baklenko, Roush, and Davis struggled (we gave up four sacks on 27 drop backs, coupled with the aforementioned lack of trust in Daniels and his health, probably made it the right decision to throw as little as we did. Very rude awakening for House in particular. The relative bright spot, according to PFF, was Maikkula having the best game of his career. He has had a shaky start to the season coming off his health issue so if he could have a good second half that would raise confidence heading into next year.
9. Fewer players came to play for the defense than any game yet this season. I only count five players who showed up with multiple positive box score plays (Frausto-Ramos, Leigber, Bernadel, Tafiti, and Patterson), and one of those (Patterson) didn't do anything outside of garbage time and another (Tafiti) had a Jekyll and Hyde game that while making a few plays was on the whole an abomination in PFF's view. Very disappointing for the faces of our defense, Sinclair and Wright, to be so quiet on arguably our biggest stage of the season (by the way, haven't talked about that aspect of how disappointing yesterday was....yikes!). The main story around Bailey continues to be the intrigue/frustration of why he doesn't play more (23 snaps in this game, tied for his most in the last four games), especially with struggles most weeks from Tafiti and Cooper (no impact yesterday except for the roughing penalty that effectively ended the game) and yesterday the injury to Aybar. Anyway, that's enough on what's disappointing. The standout performance by miles was Frausto-Ramos. So nice to see him make the most of his injury-produced opportunity, not only by making our play of the game on his forced fumble/fumble recovery strip, but also make multiple run stops and a tackle before the sticks on 3rd down. With the injuries in the secondary he has earned a start next week and hopefully this great performance is not a complete aberration.
10. Kenney opening up the game with an out of bounds kickoff (always an infuriating mistake) set the tone for a game in which we wouldn't be getting advantage from special teams. Due to the offense's ineptitude Kenney didn't have any chance to place kick (can't blame Taylor's riverboat gambling for that as the fourth down tries were in punt or go for it territory). Flintoft had net punts of 36 to 35 (horrible), 46 to the 17 (good), 40 to the 36 (only ok due to out-kicking coverage), and 36 to the 40 (a bit worse, also due to out-kicking coverage). Bachmeier's second half kickoff situation was unfortunate and, while I am not going to torture myself by rewatching that play over and over again, we may have gotten the raw end of a call that cost a lot of field position in a situation we couldn't afford that to be the case. This game is a hold-your-nose one for picking the game ball. I'll give it to a guy who has to play on teams each week without any fanfare and only attention when something goes horribly awry, but to be honest I have no idea if he even had a good game because, like I said, I'm not about to go and rewatch this one. Giving a coaching game ball is an equally hold-your-nose exercise in a game like this.
11. Game balls: Maikkula, Frausto-Ramos, Warford, Agnew
12. Next week is a gut check opportunity to show the world and, equally importantly, ourselves, that we are better than the train wreck of recent weeks. I know Taylor has built a long-term growth mindset and a culture geared toward mindfulness and resilience, but this level of failure can be corrosive to morale of even the toughest teams. We need to stop playing like one of the worst teams in history, for numerous reasons. I also know fans have basically written off the majority of the season and are essentially putting all emotional eggs in the basket of whatever glimpses of Brown we get, but this remains a complicated, team game and all of it matters. We need to see something that produces belief in this coaching staff among players, recruits, and fans. Against SMU it's unlikely to be a win but I really want to see us try to hold a good team within a few scores. Whether we get throttled next week or not, our two games after that are two of the three worst non-Stanford Power Four teams in the nation. We may not get an easier conference back-to-back than that the rest of our lives, and we may get a Brown sighting in one of those games. There's something to look forward to at some point, I guess.