That are preventing us from being a good football team.
- Thought Kittley really called one of his better games of the year, especially in the 1st half. In Kingsbury protege' fashion, he struggled a bit in the 3rd quarter after Gillespie made halftime adjustments (penalties didn't help), but found his stride again in the 4th quarter.
- Speaking of the little things, Kittley has me extremely confused with creating complementary offense. The plan currently consists of going from a commitment to power running with Tahj, then transitioning back to an Air Raid commitment for a pass. With Brooks' success, it is baffling that Kittley has failed to build a playaction passing game off our run game. We are either going to telegraph a run at you or telegraph a pass at you taking away the element of conflict for LBs and safeties, the primary purpose of developing a run game. When we did run a playaction and took a shot play, we were so unfamiliar to the concept that Tahj ran right into the back of Morton. However, just the threat was so effective that it still worked and 9 games into the season and a 1000 yards later, we finally got Drae McCrae behind the defense. Kittley would help himself out immensely if he were to implement playaction to the TEs and slot receivers on 1st and 2nd down. He's not collecting dividends from teams overplaying Brooks on running downs and it continues to bite him in the ass, although this game was a big improvement.
- The run defense certainly came out of the locker room last night, specifically in the 1st half. They dinged us a little in the 2nd half, but overall the DLs effectiveness against the run was the biggest difference in the outcome of the game. Well that, and Taylor-Demerson leading TCU in targets.
- I have really appreciated that DeRuyter has made a commitment to zone coverage this year. I'm biased a bit because I'm a big pattern-matching zone advocate versus man or spot zone. I've just seen it work too well over the years against us. It eliminates big plays and makes it harder for QBs to make reads. It also helps cover deficiencies in speed from the back 7. We are still extremely slow across the board in our back 7, outside Owens and Rabbit (who plays much faster than he really is making him a perfect zone player). Our CBs have been largely effective for the most part despite being the size and speed of LBs. Speaking of, our LBs have been the albatross all year for this defense. Roberts and Pierre have been abysmal all season in their zone drops, so much so that Ramirez has replaced Pierre (maybe he's injured?) and been an upgrade, which is still not good. Ramirez is not someone who projects well for coverage. Rodriguez has potential (and I think he'll be an amazing player here), but the rust showed last night. Roberts just can't figure out the angles and doesn't have the make up speed to recover. The book is out on our LBs in coverage (I would include Baskerville in this group) and any time an offense needs to bail themselves out, this is where they are going. It's not going to change this season. We're not cursed to this fate for the long term as speed will help. We're seeing that at CB with Maurion Horn, who shows a ton of upside and just keeps getting better. Roberts is going to struggle holding off Dingle and Horne over the course of his career with his lack of speed and change of direction, which is currently the scab that's being picked in the middle of our zone.
- The red zone field goal kick in the first half seemed to be a huge step forword for McGuire in his comprehension of game theory and gave me a huge relief. Only to see another failed 4th down attempt in our own territory with a lead breathe life back into the TCU effort. He's not making these decisions based on analytics, but more on gut feel which is much more effective at Cedar Hill when you have better players than everyone else. One constant over time is that the law of averages will always remain undefeated and, the longer you attempt to defy them, the more your decision making will be exposed. Not just in football, but life as well. I don't know exactly what book to recommend here, only that I'm certain it exists. But, I'm hopeful we're flexible enough here that we're one book reading away from the copy of "Russian Roulette with a Football" that we appear to operate with.
A complementary playaction game, more reps in zone drops by our LBs and a game theory book......the good news is that's not really much. But, until those adjustments are made, every game will be touch and go through this season and some on the wrong end of a 2 score deficit.
- Thought Kittley really called one of his better games of the year, especially in the 1st half. In Kingsbury protege' fashion, he struggled a bit in the 3rd quarter after Gillespie made halftime adjustments (penalties didn't help), but found his stride again in the 4th quarter.
- Speaking of the little things, Kittley has me extremely confused with creating complementary offense. The plan currently consists of going from a commitment to power running with Tahj, then transitioning back to an Air Raid commitment for a pass. With Brooks' success, it is baffling that Kittley has failed to build a playaction passing game off our run game. We are either going to telegraph a run at you or telegraph a pass at you taking away the element of conflict for LBs and safeties, the primary purpose of developing a run game. When we did run a playaction and took a shot play, we were so unfamiliar to the concept that Tahj ran right into the back of Morton. However, just the threat was so effective that it still worked and 9 games into the season and a 1000 yards later, we finally got Drae McCrae behind the defense. Kittley would help himself out immensely if he were to implement playaction to the TEs and slot receivers on 1st and 2nd down. He's not collecting dividends from teams overplaying Brooks on running downs and it continues to bite him in the ass, although this game was a big improvement.
- The run defense certainly came out of the locker room last night, specifically in the 1st half. They dinged us a little in the 2nd half, but overall the DLs effectiveness against the run was the biggest difference in the outcome of the game. Well that, and Taylor-Demerson leading TCU in targets.
- I have really appreciated that DeRuyter has made a commitment to zone coverage this year. I'm biased a bit because I'm a big pattern-matching zone advocate versus man or spot zone. I've just seen it work too well over the years against us. It eliminates big plays and makes it harder for QBs to make reads. It also helps cover deficiencies in speed from the back 7. We are still extremely slow across the board in our back 7, outside Owens and Rabbit (who plays much faster than he really is making him a perfect zone player). Our CBs have been largely effective for the most part despite being the size and speed of LBs. Speaking of, our LBs have been the albatross all year for this defense. Roberts and Pierre have been abysmal all season in their zone drops, so much so that Ramirez has replaced Pierre (maybe he's injured?) and been an upgrade, which is still not good. Ramirez is not someone who projects well for coverage. Rodriguez has potential (and I think he'll be an amazing player here), but the rust showed last night. Roberts just can't figure out the angles and doesn't have the make up speed to recover. The book is out on our LBs in coverage (I would include Baskerville in this group) and any time an offense needs to bail themselves out, this is where they are going. It's not going to change this season. We're not cursed to this fate for the long term as speed will help. We're seeing that at CB with Maurion Horn, who shows a ton of upside and just keeps getting better. Roberts is going to struggle holding off Dingle and Horne over the course of his career with his lack of speed and change of direction, which is currently the scab that's being picked in the middle of our zone.
- The red zone field goal kick in the first half seemed to be a huge step forword for McGuire in his comprehension of game theory and gave me a huge relief. Only to see another failed 4th down attempt in our own territory with a lead breathe life back into the TCU effort. He's not making these decisions based on analytics, but more on gut feel which is much more effective at Cedar Hill when you have better players than everyone else. One constant over time is that the law of averages will always remain undefeated and, the longer you attempt to defy them, the more your decision making will be exposed. Not just in football, but life as well. I don't know exactly what book to recommend here, only that I'm certain it exists. But, I'm hopeful we're flexible enough here that we're one book reading away from the copy of "Russian Roulette with a Football" that we appear to operate with.
A complementary playaction game, more reps in zone drops by our LBs and a game theory book......the good news is that's not really much. But, until those adjustments are made, every game will be touch and go through this season and some on the wrong end of a 2 score deficit.
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