whatshouldicareabout
Active poster
LIPO
Two games, two pretty discouraging results. Some guy named Joey ran up and down the field on us and Eastern played pitch-and-catch all day against our defense.
The positives?What positives? The half-time adjustments.
Whoa, what the fuck are those? Last time I remember those is when Neu was here. Kwiatkowski and his minions must have some magic potion brewing in the locker room during half-time because our team plays completely different in the second half of games.
Against Hawaii, we gave up 424 yards. In the second half, we only gave up 146 total yards (34% of total) on 45 plays (3.2 yard per play) and held them to 2-10 on 3rd down conversions. Yeah, 278 yards and 8-13 on 3rd down in the first half versus 146 yards and 2-10 in the second half. The two times they score were because they had the ball on our 41 and our 36 to start the drives. If we had decent punts (or moved the ball on offense), we likely would have shut them out in the second half instead of giving up 6 points.
Against Eastern, it's a bit more challenging to see the positives in the half-time adjustments, especially if you only go looking for them in the box score. We gave up 236 yards in the second half out of the 573 total (41%), but held them to 0-3 on 3rd downs compared to 6-9 in the first half. Wait... only 3 3rd downs in the entire second half? How did that happen? (Hint: zone coverage). But we did better in zone coverage than we did in man and that was the adjustment we made. We forced Eastern to throw the short or underneath routes and gave our players a chance to make a stop or create a turnover. We did make a stop with Shaq's sack on 3rd down (until Peters decided to headbutt an Eastern WR). And we made a stop when Shaq caused the fumble in the Q4. And we almost made a stop had Dixon not tipped the ball into the hands of the Eastern receiver. Of course, coulda, woulda, shoulda didn't happen...
The point is, the defense has performed much better in the second half of both Hawaii and Eastern, and I am confident in the staff to identify weaknesses during the game and how they address them. Petersen hired these coaches to be teachers and it seems they're able to do that during half-time. The problem, though, is getting them to realize these weaknesses before the games start and to address them then. That's the main issue I have with Kwiatkowski and that is where I want to see the team improve before the Stanford game.
Two games, two pretty discouraging results. Some guy named Joey ran up and down the field on us and Eastern played pitch-and-catch all day against our defense.
The positives?
Whoa, what the fuck are those? Last time I remember those is when Neu was here. Kwiatkowski and his minions must have some magic potion brewing in the locker room during half-time because our team plays completely different in the second half of games.
Against Hawaii, we gave up 424 yards. In the second half, we only gave up 146 total yards (34% of total) on 45 plays (3.2 yard per play) and held them to 2-10 on 3rd down conversions. Yeah, 278 yards and 8-13 on 3rd down in the first half versus 146 yards and 2-10 in the second half. The two times they score were because they had the ball on our 41 and our 36 to start the drives. If we had decent punts (or moved the ball on offense), we likely would have shut them out in the second half instead of giving up 6 points.
Against Eastern, it's a bit more challenging to see the positives in the half-time adjustments, especially if you only go looking for them in the box score. We gave up 236 yards in the second half out of the 573 total (41%), but held them to 0-3 on 3rd downs compared to 6-9 in the first half. Wait... only 3 3rd downs in the entire second half? How did that happen? (Hint: zone coverage). But we did better in zone coverage than we did in man and that was the adjustment we made. We forced Eastern to throw the short or underneath routes and gave our players a chance to make a stop or create a turnover. We did make a stop with Shaq's sack on 3rd down (until Peters decided to headbutt an Eastern WR). And we made a stop when Shaq caused the fumble in the Q4. And we almost made a stop had Dixon not tipped the ball into the hands of the Eastern receiver. Of course, coulda, woulda, shoulda didn't happen...
The point is, the defense has performed much better in the second half of both Hawaii and Eastern, and I am confident in the staff to identify weaknesses during the game and how they address them. Petersen hired these coaches to be teachers and it seems they're able to do that during half-time. The problem, though, is getting them to realize these weaknesses before the games start and to address them then. That's the main issue I have with Kwiatkowski and that is where I want to see the team improve before the Stanford game.
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