Just wanted to make a post about the progress of the offense and defense. Finally got a chance to re-watch the UConn game. Someone uploaded to youtube yesterday.
On offense, there was a couple of times Drew Lock checked down to Ish Witter a couple of times. One on the flat and one as Ish was running a crossing route. The one on the crossing route was nice where ish juggled a ittle bit, it was 3 and long and if you watch the replays, he checked his first route to his right, second route to his left, and then went to ish. Now maybe better competition is a little closer to ish but those plays were open against SEC opponents last year too. That was a Chase Daniel level play.
Another Chase Daniel level play was the second touchdown of the game. Where it was a jump ball to Albert O. They got the play call, Drew lock presnapped moved Albert O over to the right side and figuring out that it was man coverage and threw a nice touch to his TE who was well covered. That ball was exactly where it needed to be.
This leads to the 4th touchdown of the night, the same possession with Witter’s crossing route. After that catch, Witter ran down the middle and kept his feet up and got down to the 4 yard line. Here I give Heupel credit and which I hope works well against florida is that there have been 5 Albert O touchdowns in the past few games, same route concept. Well, this play was called for a run as Albert O got to the second level and pulled the linebacker, who didn’t want to get burned again, into the middle which helped Albert O seal him and Ish to run to the outside for a touchdown. That’s just great play calling from Heupel.
On defense, I thought it was going to be a lot of touchdowns for UConn. I thought their offense has clicked and they scored 24 points against Memphis before the half earlier in the year. In the first couple of drives, Mizzou did give up a lot of yards to the pass but here is what was different the whole game compared to other games.
The players were all in position to make plays. Minus a few plays, every time the ball was thrown, the correct player was there to tackle in a second or less. Better tackling. The times that the RB did get to the secondary, they tackled very well. This shows that the coverage is there, players are in the right spot to make the tackles…which allows the pass rush to get to the QB. He was pressured most of the night which forced him into worse throws.
I don’t think the defense is all mighty yet…but they are getting close to being average. The UConn offense I thought was really good even for an AAC team, a lot better than Missouri St. I think average and progress game by game will be good enough for the rest of the year. Being in the right place, tackle well, get pressure. AJ Logan’s presence and Beckner’s confidence (he said Georgia game was when it finally clicked him with) has really helped them get pressure. Our defensive front is getting their hands up too…something they did not do at the beginning of the year.
There was a tip that Beckner had that he almost caught…he went inside and couldn’t beat his man but he didn’t quit, read the QB eyes and he started moving to his right (the WR was a step ahead of our linebacker) and timed his jumped perfectly. Defense is playing with confidence and Odom is getting his defense playing better.
Now, you can say oh its just UConn and its just Idaho. I thought the defense played well at certain aspect of the game against Georgia. They got them to multiple 3rd and long multiple times. Unfortunately, the secondary is still young. But they were without AJ logan, Acy was hurt, TJ Warren was out, and confidence was still low. UConn, if we had played them instead of Purdue…might have beaten us. That -11 spread fit that game more than what was played last Saturday.
Bad football teams like the first half of the season Missouri tigers doesn’t beat these two teams easily. They play them like Missouri St or like Middle Tennessee. They barely win against UConn 9-6. Bad team looks bad. Tigers right now doesn’t look bad.
Just have to be consistent and they were consistent the past two weeks.
