Thoughts on the Game

[smuphy72wde 0]

Now that I have settled down, got home, and thought about the game for a few minutes I feel like I can post an accurate thread about my feelings.

Offense -

The Good

Appears to be better than last year at this time.   

Cam is an upgrade at Quarterback

Onterio looked better with his added weight,

Dyer was faster than I expected

Offensive play calling seemed very "vanilla", but that is to be expected.

Oh and Did I mention Cam is a freak of nature.

The bad

Had a few penalties (Ziemba) and TZach's pick was pretty obvious.

Fannin has got to hold onto the ball against MSU this week.

Too Many plays that went for a loss.

Overall I give an the offense a Grade of  a B+

Defense

The GOOD

Front 7 looked better than last year even without Stevens in the lineup.

Zac didn't seem afraid to hit people at all.  Savage also played decent.

The two freshman at DT both played well.

Got Steady pressure on the QB all night.

Halftime adjustments worked.

THE BAD

Gave up too many little dink and dunk plays.

The defensive backfield as a whole played poorly, except on run plays.

I still noticed a good bit of Arm Tackling.

I'm still not sold on Roof.

Overall grade a B, but only because the front 7 completely stopped the run game.

Special Teams

The good

Byrum was money as always.

CRAIG SANDERS!

No Dropped punts.

Kickoff Coverage was head and shoulders better than last year, as was punt coverage.

Parkey kicked the ball deeper than anyone else did last year.

Washington had several nice returns.

The bad

Washington's fumble

Special Teams grade, A-

Overall the tigers looked decent, about what I expected for the first game. As most of the players said in post game interviews, they need to work on the little things if they want to become a better team.

[kbtiger151345162906 0]

I didn't get a chance to watch the game because I was in Ireland, looking foward to seeing the replay if I can.  What exactly was the problem with our secondary?  Were they playing off the ball too much or not responding quick enough when the pass came?  How did the safeties look, I'm just as proud as the next guy that both these guys are back from injury, but I hope to shut down teams passing games more than we did today.

[Bunn1 0]

As I said in my other post, I don't understand and really can't even fathom why you would burn Parky's redshirt to make him kick off, Byrum was far better on the 2 he kicked to start the game by 9 yards on average. I think your grade for the starting defense is a bit much, the second string with the freshman did excellent as they played the vast majority of the meaningful snaps in the second half and were deserving of your grade, the starters deserve no better than a C IMO. they failed to tackle when they had opportunities to get off the field and almost religiously gave up the the bubble screen and short underneath rout to the back or tight end  in the flat(always to the left).

[Bunn1 0]

Safeties played ok, Savage finished the game with seven tackles and Ethridge was definitely not hesitant to rough it up. Both played very good in run support as well

[lionheartkc 6,150]

Good list.  I'll add "the *accurate* long ball" to your good things on offense list.  And I'll swap "not utilizing Lutz or any real short/mid passing routes" for the Fannin fumble on the bad list (seriously, if 2 guys hit me that hard, I wouldn't be able to hold onto a football either... I wouldn't be surprised if he blacked out for a second... it looked like helmet contact to me).

I'll add  "Bates 10 tackles during his first game as a linbacker" to the defensive good list and "lack of turnovers vs an overmatched team" to the bad list.

I think you nailed it on special teams other than maybe our punt protection unit needing to get down field faster, so Carr has some blocking.

And on the "hope for the future despite the naysayers" list, I'll add that we have one of the best defensive coordinators in the country, over the past decade... and his name is Gene Chizik.  The D will only improve.  

[smuphy72wde 0]

I didn't get a chance to watch the game because I was in Ireland, looking foward to seeing the replay if I can.  What exactly was the problem with our secondary?  Were they playing off the ball too much or not responding quick enough when the pass came?  How did the safeties look, I'm just as proud as the next guy that both these guys are back from injury, but I hope to shut down teams passing games more than we did today.

Playing a good 7-8 yards off the ball which I don't have a problem with against the Bamas, LSWHOs and the Georgias of the world, but we were physically better than them and there was no reason for us not to jam a little more. IMO.

The safeties looked good in run support and kind of slow and lagging in pass protection, but again it was the first game for Savage in two years. 

I think the reasoning behind Parkey's redshirt being burned is having Byrum out there possibly taking a big shot when there is no need for him to be on the field possibly having to make a tackle.

The only reason and I repeat the only reason the D got a B was because of this Statline, 35 rushes for 42 yards.

[AUFan1 0]

Just my thoughts on the game, but my overall impression of the game plan was to keep the offense basic, and to see how a lot of the new guys would react in certain situations. it wasn't as crisp I would have liked to have seen, but I think it was a great game to get our feet under us. Lots to work on, but there is definitely a lot of potential with this team.

Offense

Cam: Really impressed me with his running ability, and showed great touch on the deep passes. I would have liked to have seen him work the shorts passes, and screens, but over all a great first game.

Fannin: I was really surprised to not see him running the ball very much. I wasn't even sure he was in the game until he made that nice TD catch. I really expected us to pound him a lot him, just to establish him at the position. Hated to see that he coughed up the rock, but that was a really weird angle the way he was tackled.

Dyer: He impressed me the most out of all of the backs. The one thing I noticed is that he is always moving forward north and south, no dancing around, just hits the hole really hard. Showed really great footwork too.. He is the real deal, and is gonna be a superstar here in the future.

Defense:

Take away the 2 fumbles deep in our own territory, that put us in bad position, and I think for the most part out D did a nice job. The thing that jumped out the most to me was the tackling. It was so nice to see us make some great open field tackles. Once the new guys get settled in, we should have a pretty solid D. We gotta work on defending the short passing game though. Arky St burned us several times with short passes that turned into 10 and 12 yard gains. We did a good job stopping the run, but I want to see how we react to a team that lines it up, and tries to run right at us.

Special teams:

Minus the fumble on the kick off return, which would have been a big return, I thought special teams looked really good. Nice to see Carr not only catch the punt, but also get north and south with it. Night and day improvement over last year