That’s my feeling after the rough loss to Louisville — disappointed because we had a chance for a win, but content with the way the team looks moving forward into the future. Sure it took almost 45 minutes into the game for things to look upward, but it looks promising.
Notes from Papa John’s Stadium**:
— Brock Bolen was clearly in the endzone on Louisville’s last drive, and it’s amazing that I can see it every time I watch the replay but the officials on the field and in the booth can’t. Makes me wonder…if they had given UL the touchdown there, would it have kept them from reviewing Oderick Turner’s possible touchdown? Did the refs only take another look just to even out what had happened at the other end of the field?
— For the record, it’s hard to say Turner isn’t down:
Clearly looks like one or both knees are down short of the goal line.
— Looking at “the play”, you see two very nice plays made by Louisville defenders. First, #14 (Rod Council) who is circled in yellow. Also look at #22, Lamar Myles, who stormed right through the defensive line. Both players did what they needed to make McCoy think too much and try to make a decision without ever grasping the ball.
Also, a nice job by Council to securely recover the fumble.
— As many of the comments said in the live blog, we saw McCoy crying on the sidelines, and locker room interviews talk about him and Bostick being upset. There’s nothing wrong with this — it’s good to see that this team’s core players really do care. And honestly, it is very hard to be upset with Shady. Without him, we don’t pull off that great final drive. We ran the same damn play each time and he still managed to pick up 19, 19, and 7.
— Bostick and McCoy are going to grow from this loss.
LeSean was heading out (to the bus) with his uniform on; he wanted to fly home with his equipment on. I said, `No, you can’t do that. You have to change before you get on the plane.’ His emotions were that strong that he didn’t want to be in the locker room. I think that they handled it as well as could have been expected and neither kid has been in that situation very often. So it was all part of the game and they need to grow up along with that and know that they have my support, the team’s support and know that we wouldn’t be in position to win any games if those two guys don’t do their part — so that’s the other side of the coin. It’s just where we’re at right now.
— I still feel a bit uneasy about the way we scored our first touchdown. Intercepting the ball (nice catch by Aaron Berry) on the Louisville 27, so we had amazing field position. We then pulled off the trick play, Darrell Strong to McCoy. We’re rarely going to get that type of field position, and there’s only so many trick plays to try. We can’t win games living of off trick plays.
— Adam Gunn had to leave the game in the fourth quarter and did not return. I also noticed McCoy limping a bit after getting tackled in the fourth quarter, but he looked to be okay on the final offensive drive.
— Aaron Berry started the season slow, mainly because of some injuries, but is evolving into the player he was expected to be.
— On McCoy’s touchdown run to tie the score at 17, did you see the blocking by our offensive line? Especially tight end John Pelusi, who lead the charge by pushing the pile ahead for 3-4 more yards into the endzone.
— Speaking of tight ends, I wish we would see more balls thrown towards Nate Byham. Getting WR’s Maurice Williams and TJ Porter involved in the passing game is definitely a huge step forward. Both are very good athletes, and it seems like Bostick likes to find them.
Syracuse, noon, Saturday. Hopefully a win since it’s probably our best chance to get one the rest of the year.
**Is it worse to play in a stadium named after ketchup (Heinz) or a pizza chain (Papa John’s)?
Ok, you’re giving LU ENTIRELY too much credit here. Watch from the reverse angle, you can see CLEARLY what happened. McCoy was looking straight ahead, instead of worrying about getting the ball in his stomach. The frame you show is several seconds after he already dropped the ball. Their #22 was sealed off on a block from our #30 until well after the ball is already on the ground. As you can see there, ball has already been on the ground and kicked around, and #14 is just getting past the line – he wasn’t anywhere in the play until the end. Literally, this was 100% on the exchange from Bostick to McCoy – he never gained posession, not even for a milisecond, it hit his stomach, and bounced off before he closed his amrs on it. It was 100% us, 0% them. The only thing they did was fall on it a few seconds after it was on the ground. But in the end, we screwed ourselves. As Chas said, we wanted to lose more. It was one of those bonehead freshman mistakes.
Does it make anyone feel better that the Broncoes lost tonight to the Packers because of essentially the same mistake, just earlier in the game?
DW is in the position of having to “dance with the devil” this season when it comes to deciding which kids will get playing time. Us fans clamor for all the youngest talented freshman and sophomores to get in the games, then criticize the HC when they make mistakes that experienced upperclassmen might not make (Berry’s giving up the TD pass in the MSU game for example).
So, as it stands now it looks like DW will be putting more and more rookies in the lineups, and what we can expect are more plays like this one – interspersed with some excellent positive plays hopefully. But I do hope we keep in mind that there is the risk/reward side of that decision.
Let’s just hope they get all of their mistakes out this season so that we don’t have to see any the next few years. Better to lose one now than ruin a run next year…
I’ll take PITT vs the Orange this week. It’s a game that I think we’ll be able to put some of these different aspects of our game together and win.
Thank you for clarifying your “we wanted to lose more” statement first of all. I’m glad you didn’t mean what I initially thought you meant there.
The only thing I disagree with you on is when you said Shady was looking straight ahead instead of worrying about getting the ball in his stomach. He should be looking straight ahead when he’s taking the handoff. The handoff should be almost automatic based on repetition; the back should make sure the ball is secure, but he is still paying almost all of his attention to reading the line blocking there. You don’t want taking his eyes off the line to look down and watch the handoff for much the same way that you don’t want a hockey player looking down at the puck while he carries it into the offensive zone; he needs to see things developing in front of him and he’s bound to get lit up if he’s looking down.
I said in the gameday thread that when I watched the replay, it almost looked like McCoy had his head up, saw a bit of an opening to the outside as Myles was coming up the middle at the same time. He made his move to the outside just as he was getting the ball, probably a split-second before he needed to do so and that’s what caused him to lose the ball. If Myles doesn’t at least get that little bit of penetration, McCoy had no reason to bounce to the outside and we tie the game. Just my opinion based on what I saw.
On the other hand, Strong’s toss last weekend was just a flip of his wrist, cross the field, flat trajectory. Plus, Darrell’s big and fast and, indeed, played QB in HS. My 2 cents.
But even at halfback there is much more then just running the ball – hence Shady’s effectiveness at picking up the block on passing plays is, to me, one of the most impressive aspects of his game.
But Bostick’s work has really made me sit up in some ways. It’s hard enough to prepare to start even if the staff has been grooming you over the years and you go into camps as the starter, but to jump from a newbie third stringer (based on DW’s comments his plans were NOT to play Bostick, regardless of what the PITT fans wanted, so he was a possible redshirt) to starter – even while missing half of camp – is unheard of.
Not that there hasn’t been improvement lately, but 12?!?