A Few UNM Thoughts

by miketag on Sep 15, 2009 2:32 AM CDT

Finally got a chance to sit down and watch the DVD of the game. Was mostly impressed with what I saw. Was pleasantly surprised by how well the OL played, compared to my perception of their play from the radio broadcast.

Overall what struck me was how lean our team looked. Obviously the time spent in Dave Kennedy's S&C program is having an effect. We definitely look quicker on defense, especially at the LB position. I was particularly impressed with how well Kyle Mangan and Sean Porter run. Mangan offers a quantum step up in play from last year at the MLB position. Ricky Cavanaugh looks bigger but can still run.

I love the effort I saw from Spencer Nealy. As I predicted after watching him in the All Star game, his motor will quickly make him a fan favorite. Still want to know why the son of an NBA basketball player, who is the San Antonio area POY, no less, received so little recruiting attention. I think Nealy and Matt Moss will provide adequate pressure opposite Von Miller. Miller obviously had a great game.

I was pleasantly surprised with how crisp our tackling was. We had a lot of gang tackling. We did not see any of the diving for the feet that we saw under Fran. That is because we are faster as a team. Our DBs play in run support was very impressive.

I was surprised by Danny Baker's play. It was not nearly as bad as I expected. The only OL's play that stood out to me as particularly bad was Kevin Matthews, who had a couple of bad plays in the second quarter. He rebounded and had some very nice blocks in the second half. Matt Allen was impressive when pulling in the second half. We are a noticably right handed team, and ran sweeps and QB keeps to the right side behind Allen and Grimes.

The freshmen do not look or play like freshmen. We may well end up with more wins than I expected, because the freshmen are playing like sophomores and juniors.

Jerrod Johnson had a tremendous game. If we can protect him, he should be one of the top QBs in the league without question.

UNM may not being a very good team, but I thought our execution and effort were very impressive, esp[ecially for the first game of the season.

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Any comments on how our safeties played? nt

by maroonblood on Sep 15, 2009 10:07 AM CDT reply actions

Trent Hunter was his usual badass self. Pugh got called for PI on a bang bang call. He went over the top of the guy and it was not a bad play IMO. Our safety play was definitely good IMO.

by miketag on Sep 15, 2009 1:11 PM CDT reply actions

Thanks...

I am looking forward to see Trent Hunter play. The fact that we managed to put up points on board last year inspite of a godawful O-line and a nonexistent running game makes me feel a lot better about the potential for this years offense. However, I think its the defense that will probably be the key for us to get to a bowl game. If Joe Kines manages to pull off the extreme makeover…boy oh boy….

by maroonblood on Sep 15, 2009 3:57 PM CDT reply actions

JJ and Fuller looked downright scary good at times in that game

i hope we can just protect JJ enough that he doesnt turn the ball over alot. He’s an accurate QB, we just have to hope we can run the ball well enough and protect him well enough to make the offense good enough to compete in this league with so many really good offenses.

Feliz says his greatest thrill was striking out Boston Red Sox DH David Ortiz, one of his heroes. Yet, when he called to tell his parents, his mother had a request: Strike out New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, too.
"So when I did that," Feliz says, "I told my mom, 'There you go. There's your present. Don't ask me to strike anyone else out, OK?'

by blalock84 on Sep 15, 2009 7:57 PM CDT reply actions