Executive Summary: Vintage Sochor / Hawkins > Vintage Gould

Our D was extremely effective in the beginning of the game, offense not. Play calling baffling. Penalties worse. Defense on the field too long.

Did we have more than 1 player ejected, or injury bug? At one point we probably had 5 or 6 Defensive Sophs + RF on the field ... Rodgers, Jamison (stud predictions true), Bennett, RF Wilson and Airey.

Hard to compare the EWU game vs NAU. If Cookus was on, they would have buried us. The league has tape now. Great effort by players.

OldAggie is right about the D. We gives up far too many big plays which reflects lack of athleticism. Every game features a routine play or plays where a ball carrier gets a little space and then its a TD or huge gain.
On offense we seem to have the horses, except on the offensive line, and are somewhat deficient compared to conference foes at running back.
Movielover, I think we played a lot of players on D due to the altitude.

Under Gould, our D routinely kept us in games and weather many storms caused by poor offensive play calling. However, just like last week, they were not athletic enough to hold down teams for an entire game. This is not our problem, our conference very offense heavy, but It's even harder for us. We need to be open on offense every week!

We are much improved. Just not yet at level of our last two foes. Now we have an easier schedule so let’s see how we fare. Winning against Poly and Sac would make the season a success and we have a good chance of doing that.

Good point. But if we had gone up 14-0 or 17-0 early on, defense had more rest, everything changes. Maybe a few less penalties and calmer heads.

We have a dominant passing game, but went with Vintage Gould. How did that sound good to Hawk & Speckman?

Really confused me. It felt like we wasted the first several drives of the game by refusing to call anything but runs. We have done well in games where we opened up on opponents early and often.

Agree. Apply pressure immediately via the offense.

"Easier" schedule.

As a person who watched more football years ago before they got so protective, the penalty that resulted in ejection looked pretty questionable to me. A defensive player collides with a passer who is also running toward the defender. The defensive player is reaching out with both arms to interfere with the pass and then they have a pretty innocuous collision. They call targeting based on the bumping helmets. Roughing the passer maybe but an ejection was kind of extream.

I’m also in favor of being pass oriented. However, they probably thought we could successfully run the ball based on film. They were wrong in the sense that we couldn’t when it counted. We have to look at ourselves and see if we were too predictable in certain situations. We were not terrible statistically for the game as a whole but got stuffed whenever it really counted. Fourth and inches for example. But overall we were 4/16 on third down, and some portion of those were pass plays. We just didn’t succeed in key situations generally.

I was a pretty decent high school nose tackle, but nowhere near the caliber we are talking about. I bring this up because I was not talented enough to tackle with the current set of rules. I figured as long as I wasn't grabbing a face mask anything else was fair game! :D

Lots of predictable running plays in the 1st quarter, 3 and out. One 6 plays and out. Then we buried them in one series passing, and went back to the predictable running game while they buried us.

Lots of predictable running plays in the 1st quarter, 3 and out. One 6 plays and out. Then we buried them in one series passing, and went back to the predictable running game while they buried us.

Which makes me wonder, as has been commented on previously, whether Maier is banged up.

Two out of the first three series featured an incomplete pass. On the first series we got a first down despite the incompletion. In only one of the first 3 series did we not pass, and that series the qb ran the ball.
Then after an interception we got a touchdown with some productive plays. So we were unproductive in the first 3 series, but not because we didn't pass. We didn't complete the two passes we tried.

5 of our first 6 plays rushing, all 5 to one RB.
10 of our first 12 plays (3 series) were rushing.
8 carries by one RB.
84% rushes

Series 4 we open up passing, we score. Fast.

Coach Plough addressed the running plays in the coaches show. Essentially NAU was top 10 against the pass so they went for the running plays. It would seem though that you need to be more dynamic during the game when plan A doesnt work.

Exactly. We threw the ball against SDSU! We have Doss, throw the rankings out the window! Are they gonna double Doss and leave someone open?... Point 2, we have no running game. Point 3, when we slice through them on series 4, in the air, then move to Plan B. ... Maybe someone is hurt, but I don't think that gameplan shows confidence.

We can agree to disagree with Plough & Hawk.

I'll have to rewatch the program.

OK, Preece out was a factor, and Plough admits we should have changed things up earlier, and we got down too far. Wanted to keep Cookus off the field.

Reviving this thread.

Ags have a great shot at a winning season. The prospect of going 7-4, 6-5, and even 5-6 at the start of the season was the best case scenario.
Hawkins and staff have done a great job with the guys they were given, and who they brought in.

In the later art of the season, Hawkins and Plough seem to have identified that we are unable to run the ball effectively, and have utilized our strength in the passing game. We have enough talent there to keep us in games and even win.
There is ingenuity in the passing offense again (first time since early-to-mid-career Biggs). Hawkins seems to have a talent for identifying players who can make an impact, AND get them into the game to do so.

D-Line and O-Line need attention, but overall I don't think there is one fan unhappy with where we are at!

Santa just needs to bring us a large handful of defensive studs, and we have a strong shot at the playoffs.

Back to an elite passing program!

With 2 games left in the season, as a whole, I am happy with what Hawkins and company have done with the program. There are some issues that need to be addressed, but they are things that can be worked on. Playoffs are still a possibility! Who would have thought that would be the case?

Not sure why the fly offense didn’t work out. It’s not exactly experimental, Montana’s coach is big proponent and it’s worked at all levels of college football. And our assistant head coach is often credited with inventing it. Any thoughts? Not supposed to require overpowering linemen.

i think the linemen are still the key. if they can't keep the DL from penetrating 2-3 yards from the edge, it throws off the timing and the path of the runner. seems like our sweep always gets spread to the edge, and inside help plus the sideline kills the play. we have some big guys on the line (the right side are both 6'6" 300-lb guys) who might have been killers in gould's power run game; quickness might not be their forte.

that being said...its all a guess. my eyes follow the ball carrier, not the linemen (like 99.9% of the fans!), and i'm not spending anytime reviewing tape!

I think in theory the runner is supposed to occasionally cut back upfield with the linemen influencing the defender to continue movement in the initial direction, and not just get strung out to the sideline. I wonder whether we’ll give it up or get it to work.
Anyway I think the season is a success already but I’ll be twice as happy if we win one of these next two games. Southern Utah because it announces to the league that were back and can beat top tier teams and Sac would be the California sweep. Both will be challenges so I’m not counting chickens yet.

if Sac beats Poly (i think they will, but they did struggle a bit last week vs. UNC for 3 quarters), they will go into the Causeway 5-2 in the Big Sky. SUU is 5-1 now. a victory over either would be a win over a upper tier team. Sac's lost to Weber was non-conference, so we have 3 common losses (EWU and NAU) vs BSC teams.

Forgive my lack of experience, because I've never seen the fly before this year, but my understanding of it was that it has a secondary goal of spreading the defense out and forcing them to cover another option on each play. (Effectively making it the equivalent of the FB dive in the option offense -- the QB can hand it off at the start of any play so the D has to be aware of it at all times.)

In that regard I'm kind of witholding judgement on whether it's working out or not, because we can't exactly redo all the big plays that started with play action to the fly sweep guy to see how they would have worked out otherwise. I really should be looking at the defense during those plays but like DrMike said, that's hard in practice.

That being said I still wish we could break off a big run off the fly sweep at least a few times a game.

It's not working for us and here is why...

In simplest terms the jet/fly sweep is designed to get to the edge quickly (before LBs) and turn upfield. That requires speed!

That doesn't fit our run game. We have between the tackles, off tackle and up the middle type runners.

I could be wrong but I don't think we have had one runner make it to the edge all season. In fact, most of the time (I've been watching) we've been tackled for a loss!

There is enough film out there for our opponents to know that and shut it down before it gets started.

If we have someone on the bench with speed it would be cool if he was put in the game just to run that one play and see what happens!

Brandyn Lee? Supposed to have jets. Isaiah Thomas?

I don't know the specs on these guys but if they can go from "0 to 60" in two steps why not try it for one play and see what happens.

The opposition won't have film on them and know what adjustments to make.

Maybe return man Thomas or another skill player, but with a seldom / never used player, there could be another issue... hands, timing, ...

BTW, great to see some senior role players get some PT last week.