Positives
We are in Year 5 of the Dykes experiment and I think we’ve seen the same thing consistently – potential on offense to roll up a lot of yards and score unless we really need to and a defense that appears to always be hanging by a thread over the chasm of despair. We can sugar coat it all we want, but under this coaching staff, we will never win a Pac-12 championship. Ever. We had an all-time QB and could not put an adequate enough defense or line play around him to capitalize, resulting in 8 wins. Now we have an above-average QB (and next year, we will have much worse), which will result in far fewer. I said we’d win 3 at the beginning of the year (and saw with utter astonishment all of the prognostications of us winning 8, 9, or 10 games – amazing) and I stand by that. Frankly, I think we could put it all together for one game this year and beat a good team, like an Oregon, Utah, or SC, but Stanford is absolutely going to kill us as many are, especially as they scheme better to take away our offense throughout the year.
It’s sad to see, but I’m growing numb to it…maybe if I just give up on being competitive and winning, I can grow to enjoy watching this team, as they actually are pretty entertaining in the car crash sort of way. I’ll have to try that, as expecting competent and consistent coaching and play making likely is not in the cards for a while.
- Matt Anderson played an awesome game; his FGs were perfect and his onside kick was a thing of beauty. By the end of the year, he might be amongst the best in the Pac-12.
- Chad Hansen is incredible. He will be drafted, and, frankly, I think he could start right now for the NE Patriots and do great. He's that good.
- Say what you will about Luke Rubenzer, but he has a nose for the ball. His fumble recovery was impressive especially as getting TOs is an absolute must for this team to win.
- Cameron Saffle had a good game, although it may just be in comparison to the rest of our sad-sack DL.
- DRob is a superstar waiting to happen, if only we knew how to use him. Even if we don't (as it appears), he will still find a way to be dangerous I'm thinking. I sure wish they’d try to get him in space.
- Our conditioning. We actually looked fresher than SDSU at the end, which should have been the difference maker. Shoulda, coulda, woulda…
- Penalties were kept to a minimum, which is always good to see.
- Starting slow. Again. This has been a bad tendency in most of Dykes’ coaching tenure, especially with the offense. They just don’t come out ready to play. I think it is largely because we are an execution team instead of a scheming one; the former takes a while to warm up, while the latter often catches the other team off guard early. As we never seem to design any plays especially to attack the other team’s weaknesses, they don’t really have to adjust and can take advantage when we come out flat until we hit our execution stride. This is why I think it is critical for us to defer the kickoff in every game, as we need the ball more in the second half.
- Spavital called a terrible game (his play call on the two-point conversion, for example, was an utter abomination), falling in love with the pass and forgetting the ground game (we did not even have a remote semblance of run-pass balance), which has been totally wasted so far - SDSU was exhausted in the 4th quarter and we still didn't try to consistently run at them. It’s like he thought “we’ve thrown over the top a couple of times and it worked – so let’s do it every time!” Madness. Plus, we had zero creativity – no fly sweeps, little misdirection, no trick plays, reverses, etc., which can be particularly effective against an overly aggressive defense. So far, despite the ton of total yards and the 90+ points we have put up, he has not been an improvement on TF IMO.
- The decision to punt at the end of the half was dumb for so many reasons, it is inexplicable to me. If it had been blocked and run into the end zone, I would have fired Dykes on the spot.
- Davis Webb blew it, plain and simple. He has a lot of talent to be sure and will certainly put up big numbers, but he does not appear to be a winner - perhaps my calling him a choker was a bit extreme, but he looked tight at the end and made bad decisions and bad throws when it mattered (I may not sleep for a week because of his overthrow of Hansen at the end, who was so wide open it was scary). An especially egregious example was when he overthrew Hansen by a mile thinking he'd go deep on 3rd and 2, when it appeared he could easily just run for the first down. His gunslinger nature has been costly - he often goes for the big throw instead of the easy one, which can cause TOs and long third downs, which are bad things for this team. He also does not use the center of the field well - I saw numerous receivers open that were bypassed in the middle - preferring to wing it outside instead. He has a long ways to go and I fear he will not be able to carry the team, which appears to be necessary given the defense and coaching.
- I've said this often, and I'll say it again: we spread the ball too much and do not use our special playmakers enough. DRob's complete absence early was mind boggling considering his apparent ability (inexcusable, frankly); meanwhile I get to see Rivera miss blocks on screens (yes, I know he caught a TD, but so did Vinny Strang – do you want him back, too?), Veasy make critical fumbles, and Worstell drop balls. They also have not bothered to get the ball to Stovall, who was supposedly the dominant player in practices, consistently. Plus, I’m not a fan of using three RBs; no one develops any consistency if carries are spread too thin. Shorten the playing roster for WRs and RBs I say.
- Our LBs are simply awful, every last one of them. There is nothing else to say on this matter.
- I’m not sure what to say about our defense other than they are about the worst tackling team I’ve ever seen. We had runners for losses on numerous occasions only to see them squirt through for big gains. The kickoff return was especially bad (how many arm tackles were broken on that play? A hundred??). Not sure what to do about it, but since I’ve seen it for 5 years now, it’s either coaching or the players we recruit – or both. It’s sad, really.
- No pass rush. Again. Ibid. Repeat. Never. Ugh.
- Enough with Wharton returning punts. He is awful. The reason he is back there is supposed to be for ball security, but he’s already fumbled twice and has shown little elusiveness or playmaking potential to boot. Enough. Give someone else a chance.
- Kickoff returns were also woeful. Why can’t we take advantage of our supposed exceptional offensive talent for kick returns? I’ve never been a fan of Muhammad doing returns as he just runs straight ahead, which is great if you have a special teams that can block – which we’ve never had in the Dykes era. At this point, at least try Stovall and DRob to see what they can do.
- Defensive play calling. Do our coaches even know what that is? For example, have we ever heard of a run blitz? They ran the ball 47 times and not once did we send a safety early. We need to understand that this defense cannot keep teams from scoring; they must create TOs for us to be successful. Period. Take chances to accomplish this, at the very least to try something different as what is going on now, ain’t working. If they score on big plays, so what? They are likely going to score any way.
- Forgotten man (part 1): Tre Watson – at the end of last season, he was amongst our best players. Now he gets 8 touches a game. C’mon. Forgotten man (part 2): Khalfani Muhammad – he had a great first game and is virtually unused in this game. Wtf? Forgotten man (part 3): Brandon Singleton – I thought he was supposed to be all that. He did not appear to even play – is he hurt? If not, where is he?
We are in Year 5 of the Dykes experiment and I think we’ve seen the same thing consistently – potential on offense to roll up a lot of yards and score unless we really need to and a defense that appears to always be hanging by a thread over the chasm of despair. We can sugar coat it all we want, but under this coaching staff, we will never win a Pac-12 championship. Ever. We had an all-time QB and could not put an adequate enough defense or line play around him to capitalize, resulting in 8 wins. Now we have an above-average QB (and next year, we will have much worse), which will result in far fewer. I said we’d win 3 at the beginning of the year (and saw with utter astonishment all of the prognostications of us winning 8, 9, or 10 games – amazing) and I stand by that. Frankly, I think we could put it all together for one game this year and beat a good team, like an Oregon, Utah, or SC, but Stanford is absolutely going to kill us as many are, especially as they scheme better to take away our offense throughout the year.
It’s sad to see, but I’m growing numb to it…maybe if I just give up on being competitive and winning, I can grow to enjoy watching this team, as they actually are pretty entertaining in the car crash sort of way. I’ll have to try that, as expecting competent and consistent coaching and play making likely is not in the cards for a while.
