GOLDEN HORSESHOE 2023 Week 5: UC Davis (2-2) @ Cal Poly (2-2) Hastings has made some mistakes for sure this year but I don't think the offensive struggles are primarily due to to him by any means. He's been under tremendous pressure in every game except the opener at TAMC forcing him to throw on the run or very quickly to avoid being sacked. I think Hastings is really quite an accurate passer and better protection from our OL would help a lot.
Hastings has thrown some picks on balls that should not have been thrown. There's no arguing about that but those picks have generally been when he was feeling the heat from a heavy rush and he was trying too hard to make something happen.
Folks are commenting also that we are predominately relying on short stuff in our passing game and the EWU game was a prime example. Again, with Hastings under heavy pressure, he has to get rid of the ball quickly and, consequently, our receivers really don't have much time to get open on the deeper routes either. We also don't seem to have the kind of tall, speedy WR's like Doss and others we've had at times in the past who could really stretch the field quickly.
Our receivers have made some spectacular catches in tight coverage especially Tompkins who seems to be able to make a play on the ball no matter how heavily he's covered. So, from my perspective, we're seeing a lot of short, possession type passes and swing passes that go for short gains primarily because Hastings is not getting enough time to wait for our receivers to get open on the longer routes.