Almost done with AC - thought or two...

[Loyal Coug]

I can't believe that the replay was on Root and Pac-12 at the same time last night. Wanted to sit through the 60 minute Pac-12 version but couldn't do it.

Couple of things that could be tweaked IMHO for situations like Friday. Particularly when the mutts had no one in the middle of the D-line.
A. As I mentioned elsewhere, act like you are changing the play, then step in and assjab the center. He takes the first linebacker, and you pick up 5-6 yards. Maybe more. We did it at least once this year.
B. Go under center period. Have a play or two where the QB quickly goes under center, and runs a quick dive to the back up the middle. Our slow developing run plays let them get in from the outside, and let the LB's react.
C. Direct snap to the back for a quick dive. QB in effect is in motion, moving around as if changing the play. Ball gets snapped, boom.

You aren't going to run these 20 times a game, but (and correct me if I'm wrong) on multiple plays there was no one over the center or guards. That should be an automatic 5 yards. More if a LB misses, and tailor made for a north south, accelerating runner like Borghi.

Beyond that, we had a few pass plays that did work (or would have with a throw), one over the middle to Borghi, several times where the receiver did more of a hook or floated into an open area vs hard sprints and cuts.

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

I got nervous after Minshew's first pass. It was nearly an INT as I recall.

 

[CougEd]

I got nervous after Minshew's first pass. It was nearly an INT as I recall.

That set the tone

 

[kougkurt]

That set the tone

It was his slide.

 

[CougEd]

It was his slide.

That was a critical play . To that point our center was having problems with the snaps . But we moved the ball. But Gardner clearly was having a tough time gripping the ball. The non first down changed the momentum for sure . The. Came the snow

 

[kougkurt]

That was a critical play . To that point our center was having problems with the snaps . But we moved the ball. But Gardner clearly was having a tough time gripping the ball. The non first down changed the momentum for sure . The. Came the snow

Yeah. Forget about the bad snap on 4th. It never should have gotten to that. Gardner goes headfirst and picks up the FIRST DOWN. Cougs go up 7-0.

 

[Coug-Vandal]

It was not the blow out some want to portray it as. We had the ball at close to mid field with a chance to take the lead late in the 3rd quarter. A couple of blown defensive assignment changed the game and we messed up a couple of opportunities. If we take the field goal after the Minshew slide on the 2nd possession and take the field goal at the end of the first half instead of forcing a pass into the end zone it is 14-13 and the half. I know you can always play the what if game but my point is simply that this game (despite the conditions) could have gone quite differently.

 

[CougEd]

It was not the blow out some want to portray it as. We had the ball at close to mid field with a chance to take the lead late in the 3rd quarter. A couple of blown defensive assignment changed the game and we messed up a couple of opportunities. If we take the field goal after the Minshew slide on the 2nd possession and take the field goal at the end of the first half instead of forcing a pass into the end zone it is 14-13 and the half. I know you can always play the what if game but my point is simply that this game (despite the conditions) could have gone quite differently.

We blew a golden opportunity when they fumbled the kick off . Get at least three

 

[Coug-Vandal]

Yeah. Forget about the bad snap on 4th. It never should have gotten to that. Gardner goes headfirst and picks up the FIRST DOWN.
I hate this rule. It encourages the QB to go head first to get the first down which flies in the face of the alleged reason for the rule to protect the QB. At the very least the rule should place the ball where the knee hits not when the QB starts the slide.

 

[Loyal Coug]

I got nervous after Minshew's first pass. It was nearly an INT as I recall.

And Tay was open in the middle. Who was GM even throwing to? And Tay was open on third down, another almost int. Those two plays really threw me.

It was his slide.

As soon as he started sliding I was crying - knew it was a yard too soon. Don't want to see him get smacked by the 2 or 3 D guys but dang. It is the Apple Cup.

We blew a golden opportunity when they fumbled the kick off . Get at least three

Yeah that pseudo Hail Mary was a play too soon. Try to get 6-10 on he sideline then kick or throw it up.

But but, what about my great ideas that started the thread?

 

[kougkurt]

I can't believe that the replay was on Root and Pac-12 at the same time last night. Wanted to sit through the 60 minute Pac-12 version but couldn't do it.

Couple of things that could be tweaked IMHO for situations like Friday. Particularly when the mutts had no one in the middle of the D-line.
A. As I mentioned elsewhere, act like you are changing the play, then step in and assjab the center. He takes the first linebacker, and you pick up 5-6 yards. Maybe more. We did it at least once this year.
B. Go under center period. Have a play or two where the QB quickly goes under center, and runs a quick dive to the back up the middle. Our slow developing run plays let them get in from the outside, and let the LB's react.
C. Direct snap to the back for a quick dive. QB in effect is in motion, moving around as if changing the play. Ball gets snapped, boom.

You aren't going to run these 20 times a game, but (and correct me if I'm wrong) on multiple plays there was no one over the center or guards. That should be an automatic 5 yards. More if a LB misses, and tailor made for a north south, accelerating runner like Borghi.

Beyond that, we had a few pass plays that did work (or would have with a throw), one over the middle to Borghi, several times where the receiver did more of a hook or floated into an open area vs hard sprints and cuts.

Because we line up in the shot gun with no TE, their ends got to our RB’s before they hit the line of scrimmage. With our wide splits not really sure how. But they did.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

I can't believe that the replay was on Root and Pac-12 at the same time last night. Wanted to sit through the 60 minute Pac-12 version but couldn't do it.

Couple of things that could be tweaked IMHO for situations like Friday. Particularly when the mutts had no one in the middle of the D-line.
A. As I mentioned elsewhere, act like you are changing the play, then step in and assjab the center. He takes the first linebacker, and you pick up 5-6 yards. Maybe more. We did it at least once this year.
B. Go under center period. Have a play or two where the QB quickly goes under center, and runs a quick dive to the back up the middle. Our slow developing run plays let them get in from the outside, and let the LB's react.
C. Direct snap to the back for a quick dive. QB in effect is in motion, moving around as if changing the play. Ball gets snapped, boom.

You aren't going to run these 20 times a game, but (and correct me if I'm wrong) on multiple plays there was no one over the center or guards. That should be an automatic 5 yards. More if a LB misses, and tailor made for a north south, accelerating runner like Borghi.

Beyond that, we had a few pass plays that did work (or would have with a throw), one over the middle to Borghi, several times where the receiver did more of a hook or floated into an open area vs hard sprints and cuts.

I don't know about any of what you suggested being effective, but considering our locale CML needs to have a contingency plan for crap weather. Asking GM to recalibrate his timing AND throw in blinding snow is a bit of a stretch, espeially when the fcking dawgs kept getting pressure with 3 guys... again.

"But Browing could throw just fine!" Browning wasn't asked to stand in the pocket and make reads, his were scripted plays with zero reads, just drop back and fire. Easy to put a little extra air under the ball to account for the lack of speed when you know from the snap where you're going to throw to, but I digress.

My point being, asking GM to go out and play business-as-usual was extremely unfair to him, and the rest of the O.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Again I probably have a slightly different take on things.

GM had big timing issues with the receivers for more than one reason. The WR's were not running their normally crisp routes. The deeper routes were at least a second and sometimes two (depending upon initial contact with the DB) later developing than normal. And GM had a bit of difficulty handling the snap even when it was on target. However, having both snapped and thrown footballs in the snow, I'll tell you that snapping problems are not particularly snow related if the center has the right grip. The arm motion in particular is not impacted. Feet may be another story; if you have the wrong shoes and are slipping as you snap it can be an issue. But that is pretty easily handled if our line has the right shoes, and I have to assume that they do. Handling the snap when it gets to the QB, on the other hand, can be tough. And throwing is mostly a problem because of the slight extra time required to get a grip than it is because it is hard to throw a wet ball. So yes, the snow is an issue, especially big, wet flakes. But I'm not sure from the comments this week that people understand just how the snow effects the whole center to QB to WR process. I think (seriously) that our team needs some soaking wet field practice to understand what it does to timing...because most of the problems that I saw in our passing game were timing related. And those things that weren't timing related (the snap problems) would also benefit from wet conditions rehearsal. That is something that is easy to do on artificial turf...it never occurred to me that this hasn't been practiced quite a bit from mid-October on...any NorCal, Oregon or WA game could reasonably be expected to be wet. Seems like there are usually 1 or 2 games per season with some mix of rain, sleet or snow. And as they say in the Postal Service...neither rain, sleet nor snow shall stay the courier from his appointed delivery!!

 

[chipdouglas]

It was not the blow out some want to portray it as. We had the ball at close to mid field with a chance to take the lead late in the 3rd quarter. A couple of blown defensive assignment changed the game and we messed up a couple of opportunities. If we take the field goal after the Minshew slide on the 2nd possession and take the field goal at the end of the first half instead of forcing a pass into the end zone it is 14-13 and the half. I know you can always play the what if game but my point is simply that this game (despite the conditions) could have gone quite differently.

The problem with the “we were still in it in the 3rd” narrative:

1. Our offense drove down the field and scored ONCE. 7 points. The other 8 points were on a short field fumble recovery and a botched UW kick. We were feckless when asked to run drive our offense down the length of the field.
2. UW closed the game out with a 9 MINUTE (!) drive and were effortlessly able to move the chains again and again and we could do nothing to stop it. If they needed to put up 35-40, they would have. It’s not clear we had another 20+ points chambered ready to put on the board.
3. Weather held the score lower on both sides.

I do think this year is the turning point in the series though. I don’t think we had the talent and the scheme to win each the last 5, but in 3 of the 5 games you’re breaking in a non-Air Raid QB or playing a backup, and this year a blizzard completely blows up our timing based offense. In good weather we roll. 4 of 5 are jinxed - we turned a corner this year, and you’re just not going to keep having fresh weather, injuries and personnel issues.

 

[HHusky]

The problem with the “we were still in it in the 3rd” narrative:

1. Our offense drove down the field and scored ONCE. 7 points. The other 8 points were on a short field fumble recovery and a botched UW kick. We were feckless when asked to run drive our offense down the length of the field.
2. UW closed the game out with a 9 MINUTE (!) drive and were effortlessly able to move the chains again and again and we could do nothing to stop it. If they needed to put up 35-40, they would have. It’s not clear we had another 20+ points chambered ready to put on the board.
3. Weather held the score lower on both sides.

I do think this year is the turning point in the series though. I don’t think we had the talent and the scheme to win each the last 5, but in 3 of the 5 games you’re breaking in a non-Air Raid QB or playing a backup, and this year a blizzard completely blows up our timing based offense. In good weather we roll. 4 of 5 are jinxed - we turned a corner this year, and you’re just not going to keep having fresh weather, injuries and personnel issues.

Not to be a naysayer, but long range forecasts all say there will be weather for the next Apple Cup.

 

[chipdouglas]

Not to be a naysayer, but long range forecasts all say there will be weather for the next Apple Cup.

Seattle could be wet but it's usually pretty mild, and them are half of ACs. Pullman's riskier, but the Arizona game is more typical of what we would expect to see: freezing temps but more or less clear. And it's not like weather is an automatic loss: but with sustained, miserable wet precipitation and borderline whiteout conditions, we'll struggle with any team over .500.

 

[Coug90]

Not to be a naysayer, but long range forecasts all say there will be weather for the next Apple Cup.

Snow? Or QBs that can’t grip a wet ball? That’s a helluva forecasting system, Doppler might be in trouble!

 

[PINGDUDE4]

Where these game conditions hurt MInshew most was visibility.

He and the offense do not run real traditional throw to a spot type routes.

The receivers were really good this year in finding soft areas in the coverage and Minshew was good at finding them. All of that does not happen when you have a hard time seeing more than 10 to 20 yds down field.

 

[spongewatch]

Should have just kept pounding Borghi and asked questions later.

They had a hard time stopping it

 

[GrayOnGray]

We scored in the third quarter. Completely threw us out of rhythm.