1) Turnovers- Our margin right now has to be horrendous. I thougth Taito ran the ball a lot better today. But, I'll be surprised to see him get much more playing time after the two fumbles today. The speed of the game has not slowed down for Cory. I think we'll continue to see INT's. Turnovers alone led to a 10 point swing in the game today. With the number of points that we are putting up as an offense right now, we are not going to win games because of this alone.
2) Penalties - More then the number of penalties we are getting, the timing of these things has been atrocious. Two touchdowns called back, a third time we were in the red zone and a holding penalty negated an eight yard gain (almost a 20 yard swing on that play alone). And on and on and on.
3) Offense -
A) I liked that we were running the ball today (even if a lady in the beginning of the third quarter behind me said out loud "why are we running the ball? We should be passing! Passing sets up the running game"
). I thought there was a decent commitment to it and success was achieved at times. B) No offense, but Cory is not getting the job done. He seems to lock on one person from the get go. And, a lot of times it's the short pass he goes for. I saw plenty of receivers moving downfield today that had openings; I really question as to whether he saw them a lot of the times. At one point (on third down) Cory locked on Jefferson, who was double teamed the entire play, and threw the ball to him even though it was clear he was not even close to open; almost intercepted. My perception is that Cory just does not look comfortable during the play. I saw this in fall camp and had Rolovich penned as the starter as he seemed more relaxed to me. But, when Cory had that solid game against CU, I thought perhaps the game speed had come around for him; it hasn't. I may get lambasted for this, but I pin a lot of the offense's ineffectiveness on the lack of progress that has taken place at this position.
C) That catch of Jefferson's that was a touchdown called back was a thing of beauty.
4) Defense
A) In my opinion this one's easy. CAN WE GET A FRICKIN' PASS RUSH? How many times this season am I going to have to endure two strong efforts on first and second down and then a four man rush (and a straight up rush at that) that gives the offense 6+ seconds to find an open guy. I know it's easy to get pissed at Fuller and Austin and the others for letting a guy get open. But, asking them to absolutely blanket somebody for that long is not realistic. Now don't get me wrong, there are times they seem out of position. Did anybody else take note of how much Eastern was blitzing today? Am I the only one who thinks we should be sending a minimum of two extra people at the quarterback on passing downs? I realize there's a risk that comes with blitzing in the form of potentially giving up big plays. But, isn't that what we allowed all afternoon on third down? AAARGH!!! As a defensively minded person, this was brutal to watch. It honestly feels like we're taking the teeth out of the defense and then telling them to go ahead and have some steak. Papich going down sucked, Kolone is going to have to throw a little anger into his play (I watched him get blocked downfield at least three yards by a smaller player on a second down run at one point), completely took him out of the play.
4) Special teams - Everyone still hate the rugby style punt? Great job Bolton! Austin's punt return was a beauty also (did I mention those d*m penalties?)
5) Coaching
A) Offense - I don't think that Bailey's play calling is to blame. I think a lot of the right calls were made today (except the 3rd & 10 inside screen). But, with the fact that we have so many players that have not played together for years, it may be too much to ask them to be in synch with each other if everybody has a decision tree to go through every time they step to the line. I don't know, I'm grasping here!
B) Defense - Again, the only thing I can say here is it looks like there's a total lack of commitment to get pressure on the QB. I just don't think we blitzed nearly enough; not even close. PLEASE TURN DALY AND LEBLANC LOOSE ON THE QB. Heck, even try some loop stunts with the D line.
In one of the threads somebody described Kramer as a CEO of sorts. I do agree that ultimately everything falls on his shoulders. But, the CEO is also capable of making changes to their staff when the job's not getting done. I really think some personell changes need to be made.
At this point it's hard to be optimistic about the status of the rest of this season (it would be so much easier to stomach if I had thought we were just going to suck coming into the season). I know that mathematically we are not out of the picture for BSC championships, playoffs, etc. but the last three weeks have made it pretty tough to envision.
On the offensive side the lack of rythym and the ineptitude I think sadly lay at Cory's feet. You nailed it, he has ONE reciever in mind and will not check off to any other options. I saw Mason wide open on an option that went to Toliver 10 yards shorter than Mason, but Mason was uncovered while Deon was double covered and did not make the catch.