The eternal pessimist in me wants to point out all of the things wrong with the UCLA game. This part of me is struggling with the sometimes optimistic portion of my brain that occasionally rears its head and currently wants to focus on our win. I'm going to give way to the optimist, at least for the moment. Nota bene, without the capability of DVR for this game I'm going to speak very broadly, i.e. I will not be getting into many specifics about game strategy. Be sure to scroll down below to check out the first release of the ESP (or go to here).
The Good
The best thing about this game was that we won. It didn't matter how ugly it was, and it was ugly, we were able to come away with a victory. That will help these kids confidence and psyche immensely. It's tough to keep working, week in and week out, to attain a goal (even one as simple as winning a football game) when the deck seems stacked against you. This team persevered, they didn't give up, and, if nothing else, they played their hearts out on Saturday. While I don't think we should have ever been at 0-5, a large part of which has been coaching, I have to give credit to the staff. They kept the kids focused and had them prepared to play in this one from the early going.
Winning is good but only slightly behind winning was the play of our defense. For the first time in as long as I can remember our defense played fast, aggressive, and with an attitude. The defense dictated the tempo of the game for the duration of their time on the field. We were seemingly able to pressure the quarterback at will which was largely responsible for the four interceptions we generated. I know it was their third string walk-on quarterback playing but depth is part of the game. We had the advantage, we knew it, and we took it. I don't know if we would have won with Olsen playing the whole game but I think the outcome would have been close either way. I was very proud of how our defense played.
I also thought, for the most part, our special teams played well. We had pretty decent field position on our kickoff's. Our punt coverage was tremendous (mostly thanks to Bruton who is one of the best gunners I've ever seen and could earn his way on a NFL roster solely for this skill) and we kicked the ball well on our field goals and PAT's. This was a significant concern coming out of last week that Weis and company addressed. Let's just hope it can continue.
The Bad
Despite being aggressive, fast, and determined, the defense tackled poorly at many times during this game. To me the difference between a great defensive performance (which this wasn't) and a good defensive performance (which this certainly was) is the word stifling. We were fast, we were aggressive, we played hard and physical. But many times we played ourselves out of position to make the play. I think some of this was playing so fast and aggressive. I'll take that over the alternative. But a truly great defense doesn't miss those tackles, give up the extra yards, and allow the offense the occasional first down.
The penalties were still present in this game. I think we gave them a handful of first downs off of penalties. And how can we not set up a punt return without committing a hold or a block in the back?
Our running game was non-existent against a team who fielded a defensive line averaging 30 lbs lighter per man. This is on top of the fact that their defensive ends weigh in the 240-250 lbs range, just a shade over the weight of Hughes and slightly under the weight of Schwapp. In both this game and against Purdue I thought we would utilize wham blocking techniques to get Schwapp paired up with their smaller defensive ends and allow our tackles to get to the next level. You should be able to consistently run the ball against under-sized defensive lines like we have faced the past two weeks.
This game was more of the "keep seven in and release three" type of offense we run. It can't work against teams with a good front four and it certainly won't work against teams with a good front seven. Give UCLA credit, they are a very good defense. But we played right into their hand much of the time.
The Ugly
This game was one of the worst displays of offensive play-calling I've ever seen. About half way through the third quarter I actually called for Weis' head and wanted him fired. I know we won, but I'm even more leery about his abilities as a coach now than I was before this game (and I was skeptical before this one started). First and goal on their one yard line and we throw three straight passes? That's asinine. We can't score at all, they gift wrap us a touchdown, and we throw three passes? Never mind the fact that Carlson should have caught the second one for a touchdown, if you can't score, you have the ball on the one, and it's first down, you run four straight plays and take the will of the opposition. I've said it a million times, if you can't make a yard you don't deserve to win. If you can't make a yard in four straight running plays you don't deserve to be a D-I college football team.
That's only the beginning of my worries. I know we got ahead in the second half, I know Weis was probably playing conservative to not turn the ball over and allow the defense to win the game for us, but 6 turnovers (I don't count the return for a touchdown) and only 13 points (I don't count the seven from the return for a touchdown) when two of those turnovers came inside the opponents five yard line. That's insanely ludicrous! How can we only score three times having six possessions gift wrapped for us?
It was almost as if Weis had said we were going to try and get Tate matched up on the outside and go deep to him. The problem was that UCLA watched the Purdue game, we didn't have any threat opposite Tate (we always used two tight end, two back or three tight end, one back packages when we tried to isolate him) to keep the safeties honest, and we tried the same thing 4-5 times when it wasn't open the first 2. I understand we needed to try it, if we hadn't I'd be sitting here complaining about why we didn't try to go deep to Tate after his performance in the Purdue game, but when it doesn't work get away from it.
And could someone, anyone, for the love of God please explain to me why we insist on wasting time running play action when we can't actually run the ball? It delays Clausen's ability to make the reads, it makes our offensive line hold blocks longer, and it inhibits our ability to get multiple receivers and tight ends out into routes. Why don't we spread it out and make them defend the whole field instead of trying to fool them by making our passing game look like our completely inept running game? If you were a defensive back would you bite on play action when playing us?
