11 Comments

  1. Cameron

    In regard to Oklahoma, it is never a good sign when Gary Patterson winces in pain when watching your run defense.

    As the only defensive guy in the Coaches’ Room, I think it telling that while he found mistakes in Georgia’s play, he was sympathetic to the problems they were facing. He had to play OU twice, after all.

    But Patterson was positively dismayed watching the Sooner defense against the inside run. That’s probably all the indicator you need for a change at DC.

    • ianaboyd

      Yeah, probably also kills him that he was whipped twice by such a bad defense. Whatcha gonna do tho? The OU offense was historically dominant.

      I’ve got a breakdown on the game coming out soon at SB Nation that I’ll link. I think the biggest mistake OU made was not using Mark Andrews more in the second half to move the chains with 1st/2nd down targets on quick routes. Dude is a matchup nightmare and they didn’t target him enough, when they did it was often on downfield stuff where the safeties could help.

      • System Poster

        It seemed like, from watching the film room view of the game, that Baker was locking onto Andrews almost too much. So was the problem the routes Andrews was running versus the amount of attention from Baker he was getting?

        It was also interesting to see OU break a big play, have the Big 12 coaches declare that OU was going to score a touchdown, only for the OU player to get caught. That really illustrates the difference in speed between what the Big 12 is running out and what teams like Georgia and Alabama have.

        • ianaboyd

          LOL at the “that’s a touchdown” moments. Undoubtedly Georgia is at least as fast as B12 teams but maybe also just better drilled in pursuit and defense in general. The big difference in the NFL is often less the speed of the players and more the precision of their movements.

          I didn’t see Mayfield locking in on Andrews save maybe for the third down heaves down the field where he was trying to pinpoint the ball in over coverage because Andrews was his biggest target. On standard downs I maintain that they just failed to properly utilize him as a surefire way to pick up positive gains and maybe a way to get others open.

          It’s the first time I’ve seen a potential Air Raidish weakness in Riley, a failure to work a favorable matchup with the TE.

      • Cameron

        Yeah. Losing to the Sooners twice probably did not make the viewing any easier for Patterson.

        I don’t know if it was a mistake necessarily. OU did send Andrews out on routes a decent amount in the second half, but Georgia was playing a lot of Cover 1 Robber, too. Andrews just kept getting sent into the jaws of the beast (middle of the field), never to be seen again. I could be reading things incorrectly, but I thought (at the time of viewing) Riley knew this, was simply content to see Andrews absorb extra cover guys to give his other guys straight man coverage to beat. Which uh, didn’t work so great. That’s how I was seeing it.

  2. System Poster

    I expect (and hope) that the QB for Tech next year will be Jett Duffey. He has a much more live arm than McLane Carter and is a better runner. From watching the UT game, it looked like Carter had good timing and was making the right reads but just didn’t have enough arm strength to hit the intermediate and deep routes.

    Duffey is an unknown quantity in terms of his mastery of the offense. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Kliff go in more of run-based direction next year. Our rushing offense was significantly better than our passing offense, per S&P and the entire line is back. And for the first time since 2015, we’ll have a majority of upperclassmen as starters. All of that adds up, I think, to a more WVU 2016 style offense.

    • ianaboyd

      I have trouble seeing Kliff going more run-heavy but I guess he may have a mobile QB and less passing acumen whether he rolls with Carter or Duffey so maybe you’re right. He went “run heavy” with Manziel back in the day.

  3. Will

    I understand the skepticism about WVU. They managed to win 10 games in 2016 while still not really looking a contender.

    But I also think it’s worth noting they won those 10 games with Skyler Howard at QB. I don’t want to dismiss what Howard accomplished, but it’s a QB-centric offense that requires a QB who can sling it and Skyler was not Will Grier. They were also performing at a top ~30-35 level in S&P+ this year before Grier got hurt despite (per Bill C’s metric) returning less production than any other P5 school. So I think there is a quality staff in place.

    What made the 2016 team formidable on defense, despite a lot of turnover from the year before, was a veteran front 6-7 and Rasul Douglas. The 2018 team returns 9 of its top 13 tacklers which should at least shore up the run defense. The pass defense and particularly whether there is another Worley/Douglas on the roster is an open question. I sort of doubt it but I also think the defense doesn’t need to be at its peak for WVU to contend next year.

    The offense figures to be possibly the best of Holgo’s tenure with Grier, two of the top 3 rbs, 3 of the top 4 WRs and 5 of the top 7 linemen returning. There will be more depth at QB than Holgo has ever had (headlined by a former 4 star transfer from Miami) and a couple transfers at TE and WR to help fill in any gaps in the passing game.

    If there is ever a year where WVU ends up in the Big 12 championship game under Holgo, and that may never happen, 2018 is the year.

    • ianaboyd

      That all makes sense to me. They need some playmakers at DL tho and probably at CB and they need to figure out some stuff in terms of running the ball. Got away from it too much this year, I think. It could happen, it’s just that they often have a smaller margin than other squads because they don’t always have enough game changing talent on defense.

  4. […] Oklahoma State is probably going to reload in a surprisingly effective fashion. They have a ton of WR talent left on the team as well as Justice Hill and plenty of QB talents that have been developing behind Mason Rudolph. The big question is OL, remember that they fired their OL coach after 2016 when he signed only one player, the butcher’s bill comes due. [Concerning Sports] […]

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