It was yet another beautiful day in the bay but it's clear that fall has arrived. The brisk weather has moved in, making for a cool evening game.
I expected attendance to be much better after a notable win against Auburn and outreach they showed on social media but I don't know if we had any more attendance than the Davis game, apart from the student section(s) which seemed pretty full. They had good energy but need to stop throwing shit on the field as we were penalized twice. I'm curious to see if they stop distributing cards at seats or have some staff ready for enforcement at future games.
One notable attendee was Chancellor Lyons who led the stadium in a cheer with crazy energy. You can tell that not only does he bleed blue and gold but he has that fanatic energy.
As usual, ACC has a condensed version of the game almost immediately on their Youtube channel -- something you never saw from the Pac12.
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My game observations:
- Mendoza continues to shine. Not only does he continue to maintain accuracy within 10 yards, whether it's in the center of the field or to the sideline, but he showed some accuracy throwing 15+ yard passes. On one TD, he had a nice read option run in the TD. On another one, he spotted the safety blitzing and immediately threw to the TE who was in the vacated area. In particular, his chemistry with Nyziah continues to pay dividends as Mendoza can confidently find his back shoulder with confidence.
- The run game is mixed -- showed some good adjustments and progress while some problems continue to persist. We had a good amount of success using 1 or 2 tight ends inside to help with the run or for pass blocking. However, results were mixed with RB's always picking up the right players on blitzes.
- The defense overall continues to play well. How many interceptions will Nohl get this season?? Cade really showed out. It was good for the defense to get reps defending screens and a mobile QB.
- College football needs to reform the targeting rule. I get the intent and I know many of these calls are strict interpretation of the rules but the one from this game (and the last game) happened incidentally because players are moving so fast and obviously can't change their body's momentum in fraction of a second. I'm fine with the penalty but the automatic ejection is overkill -- it should be saved for flagrant cases.
- The refs just ruined the game. The replay doesn't show all the flags but it seemed like they were throwing a flag on every other play last night. There was just no rhythm and the game went at least 30 minutes longer just because of flags.
After watching the condensed version, I'm feeling better than I did last night. Yes, it wasn't a clean game but it felt like refs were just looking to throw a flag for anything which really interrupted any rhythm. It's unrealistic to expect perfect execution all 4 quarters. If there's a game to make mistakes and grow, I'll take it in a game like this one where we can lean in down the stretch and pull out the win. Even though we did not score much the first half, I had some confidence that eventually things would break our way in the 2nd half, similarly to Davis. Against much weaker opponents, I think the quality of our roster eventually makes the opponent give way.
