Saturday's Game

[ASU85Grad]

There has not been much talk about the game. What did you like or not like? I like the fact that after we got rolling Taylor was Taylor and Marcus was Marcus. Both back to end of last season form. The defense was flying to the ball and making plays. One big take away for me is that JP is a good quarterback. Everyone knows that soon or later almost every QB has to leave a game if only for a few plays. As JP continues to learn the system, he will only get better and better. To me it looks like he would be able to come in and keep us moving if Taylor was injured and needed to come out for several plays.

[sixtoes9134]

He seems to be a stronger runner in the read option looks than Taylor. I'm not saying better, just looks more like a running back. That said, his passing is solid too.

[AppSt94]

I thought that play was solid all around. For me, in a matchup like this you look for the intangibles. How does the team execute the little things that will make a difference in games against a even level opponent. I thought the defense played pretty close to perfect. Aside for the horse collar call early on, there weren't too many mental mistakes from any of them. They played their assignments and flowed to the play. Howard has some big offensive lineman and our d-line was able to move them out of the way so our linebackers could make the plays. They may not be as talented as some of the other O-lines we will face but big is big. Secondary played well maintaining coverage. On offense, we played very well. We have some good players coming up through the depth chart.

Lamb was in mid season form in game 1 which is a good thing. I agree that Caruso looked good. I was impressed with his accuracy. He is a beast in a football uniform. He ran the ball well but I would have much rather him not run at all in that game situation. I feel good with him as our backup.

If you remove the opponent, we looked further along than a lot of teams that I watched this weekend. I am treating this week in much the same way as I looked at last week. How did they execute and how is our mental toughness. If this week's performance is any indication of what we will see at Clemson, then regardless of what the scoreboard at the end of the game reads, I think that App is set up for a successful season.

[YesAppCan]

94, I agree with your assessment. I was pleased with what I saw for our 1st game. One thing, and I came home to watch it again first, was our 1st punt seemed too close to being blocked... I still hate that 3-man back layer protection.

[Yosef84]

I agree with the comments above about Caruso. He looked good, and it appears we have a solid backup. That's GREAT for obvious reasons but also because it allows Lamb to play more aggressively. The offense yesterday was pretty vanilla, and we didn't really have to show our hand on either side of the ball. We got a LOT of players who had lots of reps, so the game accomplished what it was intended to accomplish and it appears that we're on track. We'll know more after the next couple of weeks.

Most of the teams in the belt had extremely tough games and the outcome was basically as expected (losses to Florida State, Georgia, Florida, Southern Cal). Of those games, I think Tx State showed the most and they could make some noise this year.

I was really disappointed in Georgia State (looked worse than last year in a very winnable game), Georgia Southern (terrible performance although they were missing their starting QB to suspension...they're feeling the turnover at OL), and Louisiana (losing to a very beatable Kentucky team).

The most interesting of the disappointments IMO was Louisiana. Their fans are dismissing it as losing to an SEC team, but that games should have been a WIN. Kentucky is a bottom rung SEC team and that was a missed opportunity. I'm not saying UL is terrible, and a lot can change from game one to game 2, but the early signals indicate that they might not have improved significantly from a down year in 2014.

[AppSt94]

94, I agree with your assessment. I was pleased with what I saw for our 1st game. One thing, and I came home to watch it again first, was our 1st punt seemed too close to being blocked... I still hate that 3-man back layer protection.

Good point on the punt protection. I have a question for all of the coaches on the board. Is there a formation rule for punts? You can't have 5 in the backfield in an offensive set, can you only have 4 in punt formation?

[/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09]

94, I agree with your assessment. I was pleased with what I saw for our 1st game. One thing, and I came home to watch it again first, was our 1st punt seemed too close to being blocked... I still hate that 3-man back layer protection.

Good point on the punt protection. I have a question for all of the coaches on the board. Is there a formation rule for punts? You can't have 5 in the backfield in an offensive set, can you only have 4 in punt formation?

Yes only 4 in the backfield for punts. Teams switched to that new crap for better coverage. It allows more gunners while putting usually big men in the back to protect the punt. I saw something a long long time ago that talked about the change to college special teams. Statistically there are less returns for touchdowns. Also less blocks. The traditional formation allowed defensive teams to load one side and come off the edge.

Wow. That's the longest I've ever written anything about punt teams.

[TurfMonkey]

Best part, No turnovers, no celebration penalties (Guessing on both)
Not Best, Please put some queue rails at concessions on West. I will pay for them
if they are that hard up. scott

[proasu89]

Best part, No turnovers, no celebration penalties (Guessing on both)
Not Best, Please put some queue rails at concessions on West. I will pay for them
if they are that hard up. scott

We did lose a fumble, josh Boyd, i believe after a nice catch and run.

[97grad]

There was certainly a lot to like Saturday, and I'm glad that a lot of guys got some PT in. That said, I really don't think we learned a whole lot about this team. There are cupcakes, and there are cupcakes, and Howard was the latter. Great for warming up on but Clemson is going to be an order of magnitude more difficult. We may not learn much about this team until ODU. For now I'm just hoping we reverse our recent trend of very poor showings vs P5 teams this weekend.

[SpeedkingATL]

Matics looked solid in the kicking game. He was really striking it on kickoffs and was perfect on extra points. Special teams improvement is a must this season.

[Rekdiver]

It was obvious the the S&C program is paying dividends. Clearly the biggest difference between this and last year.

[EastHallApp]

It was obvious the the S&C program is paying dividends. Clearly the biggest difference between this and last year.

That's a good point - one thing you could tell was that Howard seemed to suffer from a lot of cramps, while we had very little of that as far as I could tell.

Overall I had no major complaints. We did everything we wanted to in a warm-up game.