au302

Guys on the bench, walk-ons, HS recruits, Juco recruits, portal recruits..... maybe people called down from the stands. I don't know, but what I do know is that we're losing like 4 starters, so unless we plan on forfeiting the season due to having no OL, there will be new people playing on the OL

Alright guys always like to end my week on a positive so gonna try and pump, lol. For the record I was depressed last night like most of you. 1. Offensive adjustments were made. According to Pink and others we changed up the run approach in the second half by going to a two right set, and it changed everything. 2. While it was our yearly bad game against a bad opponent, I was not having a stroke in the fourth quarter like usual. I was holding my breath, but it wasn't as bad as usual. 3. Upon rewatching the film, TJ played solid football. The pick was bad, but apparently it was the right read but bad throw type of deal. A pick is a pick, but I can live with that over the types of picks he had last week with staring down and throwing into double coverage and stuff. About all I can muster up. Anyways, flipping the page to this week. Real season starts now. I am pumped about Penn State. Regardless of our personal opinions on the staff, the players deserve our support. WDE beat PSU!

Any knowledgeable QB guys, a question. Did it look like TJ and Robby ever come off their first read? I'm not a coach or know much about QB mechanics, but to me it seems like they each stare down their first target too much and decide they're throwing to him no matter what. DB reads their eyes, and bam, easy INT. TJ has improved in a lot of ways. His balls have more touch and he's a calm leader out there. But if he can't go through progressions in this offense and find the right man I am afraid it will continue to be pick city unfortunately.

Agreed, but more so, what do you think our talent is best suited for? To me it seems like we basically gotta go under center and be a run-first play-action team. Outside zone runs to create cut-back lanes. I think if we had a better OL and QB situation we could run what Harsin wants, but we don't. I am curious to see how/if they adapt in the meantime

@DidbaI know it's still early, but in your opinion, what do you think our offensive identity is?

Next year will finally be new offensive personnel pretty much all over, but definitely at OL. We'll probably trot Geriner and the new OL out there together to build chemistry. Tank will be gone. It's gonna be a new era whether BH is still here or not

QB- C. Awful start, but Finley played well the rest of the night. RB- B. Would be A if not for Jarquez'a boneheaded play at the end. They follow the scheme better this year. Can't get over Quez's mistake though. That's just poor coaching and falls on both Harsin and Cadillac. WR-B. Hard to judge this group besides Var, who is really good. They at least seem to line up better and catch what hits them in the chest, so that's good I guess. TE- F-. About as bad of a game as a TE can have from Shenker last night. Single handily destroyed our first two scripted drives. Deal with a weak drop. Just all around pitiful. Bedell needs to light them up today in meetings, as most of the issues were focus and poor discipline by Shenker and Deal. They can bounce back by locking in. OL-C. Seemed to struggle in first half, but made holes in the second. The left side is definitely the better side, with Zierer being our best lineman. Offensive coaching: D. The first half was a **** show due to how disorganized we looked and dumb penalties by veteran leaders. However, according to Pink on On3 they switched things in the run game in the second half, going out of that single back set, which he says totally changed things and helped the OL out. DL- B. Very solid group in the run game. Have trouble getting home in the pass, but the SJSU and Mercer QB's are Nix-esque with escapability, and their OC's are combating Eku/Hall with quick passes. Good news here is that Joseph and Bragg seem solid, which is more than we expected. LB- C-. Riley apparently got hurt and missed some tackles. Pappoe has simply been a major disappointment. He has never been great, but he is not good at MIKE. But in fairness to him that's not really his natural position either. Steiner played well though. I think he needs to push OP for that spot. CB- C-. The scheme sucked, but we are also starting the wrong guys here. James and Scott are still inconsistent, but they are more talented than Simp/Pritch. If we switch that room up it can improve, but I'm afraid they won't. S- C. Admittedly didn't focus on them much. So busy watching CB's get lost. Don't recall any huge busts over the top, but we also can't defend the middle. I guess that falls on a Safety. Not sure. Defensive coaching- D. Schmedding=Mason. Expected him to live more on the edge. Not helping his corners out with the soft zone stuff. I don't know, maybe he's been trying to be vanilla. But all offseason I wanted him to go big or go home and either look like an idiot or a genius. Instead, like Mason, he just seems "ok" at best and frustrating as hell at worst with the stuff he runs. Special teams-B. I love Anders, but the man needs help. It's not his fault, as he had a huge injury in addition to losing confidence last year. Think they need to make Mcpherson the kickoff man or we'll get burnt due to Carlson not being able to kick it through the back of the EZ. Overall though, so far, this unit looks better coached. Let's see if that continues.

Yea but with those oil guys that's drinking money, and they all seem to be united most of the time.

What an insane day. We see the final, final nail in the coffin of Scott Frost, and likely the warming of two seats in Jimbo and Marcus Freeman. I think Freeman deserves time, but starting 0-2 with a loss to Marshall after the team went 11-1 the year before and is loaded is not going to play well with the big money folks in South Bend, unfortunately. Jimbo on the other hand is stealing his ridiculously overpaid salary. Maybe we see a market correction with these coaching salaries.

Agree with all of that except LSU. We were absolutely snake bit in that stadium. We could have been undefeated defending champs and they could have been 0-12 in the prior year, and I'd still need to see a win to believe it. I was at that game. Nix's career game and a very good game plan. They were rolling him out and getting him easier completions. Team fought through adversity and made a come back win. Probably gonna be the highlight of this regime, unfortunately.

I love Shenk, but he should be leading the pack during sprints. He cost us a TON in the 1H with his stupid penalties. Pappoe, Pritchett, and Simpson need to be running with him. There's others but those are the guys off the top of my head.

There's been some trash play and coaching all across the landscape. Not to excuse us, but the quality of play has gone down imo. That said, what sucks about this team is that our veterans, our "leaders", are the ones that make the most mistakes. Pappoe, Shenker, Council, Shed, Pritchett, and Simpson all seem to make mistake after mistake. I'm tired of it and ready to see some new guys make the mistakes in all honesty.

I like Marcus Freeman, but things are fixing to get really, really ugly for him

That's funny. I think it was on Tiger Talk last week he was asked about his game-day routine and he said he makes it a point to go for a run on game-days. Sometimes he'll work out as well.

Harsin loves the dude. His arm talent is insane. It's just about putting it together and building him up the right way. I'd love to see him play, but at the end of the day I know in the back of my head that it's best to develop him correctly instead of rushing him and getting a Nix 2.0 situation

It was an ugly game on both sides. Neither coach deserved to win that game. Gus tried to make Rhys Plumlee play like Jarrett Stidham with all the dropping back. He's an athlete back there, not a drop-back QB. Louisville is awful and UCF has way more talent. Kobe Hudson can't even crack the field because Heupel left a ton of skill talent. According to their fans they used to score over 30 just about every game.

Whoever put this together needs a raise and a promotion immediately. Fantastically done.

Hold up everybody calm down about Colton Hood. He's a fine prospect, but it sounds like we never really pushed that hard. We have JC Hart committed and about to get Tyler Scott, who is an underrated monster. You really only need 2 HS corners this year. If you take a third, it should either be a 5 star talent (Hurley) or a plug and play Juco guy. Coincidentally Keith stated last night that we are now evaluating a CB from Hutchinson CC who is like 6'3.

Here's the thing. Gus was a system guy, not a student of the game. For that reason, in his mind, player development was irrelevant. He just cared about finding players that fit the roles his system needed. In his mind, who gives a damn if player A becomes a more rounded ball player for the future if he can run that swing route real good, which is his only duty in my system. Or who cares if Coates can run real routes as long as he can run straight fast and catch a deep ball. This worked for a few years until the league caught on and word spread. That's when our OL recruiting tanked because word got out that the NFL didn't like anything about our OL development/system/etc and suddenly no OL worth a damn wanted to come here anymore.

Good work as always. Actually feel pretty good where recruiting is right now. At least a helluva lot better than a month ago, when I wasn't sure we'd get 10 kids in this class. Still just OL.... always is. Brumbaugh and CRob are finally showing signs of life, but not Friend. Wilson is a lot better than his ranking. He's a monster, so that'd be a great start.

I'm in the minority on this, but I could definitely see ZC getting reps this weekend. I think there's a good chance he never plays here, obviously, but I also think Harsin is currently exploring all options as he tries to save his job. With Finley opening the door, ZC could get a look. I would at least trot him out for a drive or two IF we are winning big late (it's AU so don't count on it) just to get his feet wet and let him get hit with his shoulder. Try to get him some confidence for if/when his number is called at some point.

Hopeful that we'll look back in December and think that this worked out best for both parties with Tate looking like a promising prospect. Nick is a warrior and I appreciate him trying like hell to play this year. Great dude and will be a huge success in life.

Great stuff here. I thought the first call was Kiesau's worst of the night on a night that Kiesau called a good game. Whole drive was a disaster with Trox's hold, etc. Probably should have handed it off and punted. Even still, I think TJ's second option may have been open. Not sure though. In terms of checking into new plays, I'm pretty sure this offense does have that. In fact I'm pretty sure Harsin has said that's a big thing he looks for in a QB and a big reason TJ won the job. Seeing by this breakdown, it seems as if this play should have been checked out of.

He is a one read QB. That can work in some levels of college, and I expect it to work well against Pac-12 competition this year depending if his boy Dilly Dilly can make adjustments. But we saw what the downside of that is, as he locked on his first read and threw an ugly pick when they finally had some momentum there. That said, Finley is the same way. He locked onto his first option twice and the safety read it. The second pick was more of a bad throw, but point stands. He had his second option open on both. We haven't had a solid QB that has the ability to go through multiple progressions since when? Stidham does it in the little NFL action I've watched from him, but it was Gus's offense where things were pre-determined.

Unfortunately it was reported by On3 that TJ had the most interceptions in fall camp. He, Calzada, and Holden were all roughly equal in comp %, and Calzada had least INT's while TJ had the most. RA was behind comp % but made up for it with his legs. Where TJ won the job was on intangibles that Hars likes and knowing the offense the best. The other 3 were apparently struggling with the playbook. It's a complex playbook so I understand. I like TJ. Great person, and he's improved accuracy wise, but it's more of a case right now of him holding onto the job rather than making it his, if that makes sense. Once others catch up playbook wise, he may lose his job. Both last night and in the spring game he had a chance to put his foot down and couldn't