ISU Game Thoughts

Just watched the DVD of the ISU game. Saw a couple of good things and a few areas that still concern me. The ISU team I saw on the video did not resemble the team that beat NU in Lincoln IMO. Maybe the NU offense is just that slow. ISU defense looked much quicker in that game. In our game they reminded me a lot of the UAB defense. JJ could have passed for 400 yards in this game if we wanted him to. The ISU secondary was hard hitting, but played off our receivers a bunch. There were holes in their zone coverage all day long. The ISU coach was correct in his pregame statements that they simply do not have the athletes right now. On defense, they were outmanned. Our defense struggled all game long IMO. That is still a major achilles heal of our team. If we want to stay in the game against OU and even tu, we need to really pick it up on that side of the ball.

 

Too many missed tackles. At times we look like an average defense out there, other times we resemble last years unit a lot with the first guy never making the tackle. It may just be that we need another year in the S&C program until out athletes are where they need to be. 

For the second game in a row, Cyrus Gray ran very strong. He is dancing less and running vertically more. There were three or four instances in the game where he was pushing the pile forward at the end of the play; he was refusing to go down. He has really improved as a running back this year.

Second game in a row the OL opened huge holes for the running game. We are going to need our OL to play like that in every game the rest of the year if we want to win them.

Jeff Fuller, Kenric McNeal, Uzoma Nwachukwu, and Brandal Jackson are starting to remind me of the OU WRs in Rhett Bomar's first year. They are going to struggle with being consistent this year, but the next two or three years should be a lot of fun.It was nice to see Fuller back and almost to full strength.

Kyle Mangan played the run well in this game. He is starting to become more of a complete LB.

Our LBs as a whole need to get a lot better as a unit. Garrick Williams is improving, but too many times RBs break through the LOS and it is a free run into the secondary and a 10-15 yd gain.

Defense as a whole just needs to play better. We cannot play defense like we did on Saturday and expect to win any more games this season.

Special teams were very poor in this game. Too many long kickoff returns.

Jamie McCoy seems to have grown into his role as an H-back. Hopefully that will make him more enticing to the NFL scouts.

JJ had a nice game, but had two balls that should have been intercepted. He needs to continue to play within himself and not force the ball down the field. Tannehill is a hell of a playmaker, but that does not excuse throwing into triple coverage.