Where to start... how about the easy stuff.
Defense is about the same. I expected that they would be a little more stout against the run, but run or pass OSU imposed their will on the Cougs. The only thing that prevented them from scoring more was a couple of long and undproductive drives from the Cougs and their own mistakes. LB play was well below what we've come to expect from this fast, exciting defense.
Offense. Can you give someone an F-? Is there a grade lower than that? Lets break it down by position group:
QB: I'm going back to my suggestion that CW should have been given a Prius for his NIL instead of a $75k truck. I won't go on about specifics, because we all saw it and its the same, if not worse, than its ever been. Grade - F
WR: The drops from seemingly nowhere. Not just one player, the entire team/ unit. Something is going on, but I'll get to that later... Grade - F
RB: So, Jenkins seems to be making headway and inexplicably disappears at halftime. Not only that, down 7 going into the second half Morris completely abandons the run game, except in the most predictable situations. Grade - Incomplete
OL: Too many times this year we've seen 4 get home against 5. This unit is not good as a unit, though there are some good individual plays at times. Someone mentioned a Beav DL got home against a double team, almost effortlessly. I saw one play where the RT gave the kid a shove and then basically stepped aside. I have no idea what is going on here, but its not conducive to winning football games. Grade - D
Coaching - Morris is out of his depth. McGuire doesn't seem to be getting these guys on the same page, and their individual skills are poor at best. Don't know who the WR coach is, but this unit has been sub-par as a group all year. LB's before this game have been good, as had the DL. CJD: either your coaching it or allowing it to happen. Overall coaching grade - D+
Everything I addressed above has to deal with X's and O's, but there is another issue I want to address and that's the energy level we saw yesterday. Did anyone else have deja vu of an early CML "zombie" team? I was joking asking if the team had rode the buss all day Saturday and just arrived at the stadium right before the game. The body language, the hustle, the grit - all gone. Which begs the question:
Is there a locker room issue? Bell is out, and it wouldn't surprise me if he was the emotional leader on the offensive side, so that might explain a little bit of it. But, are the players turning on either CW or CJD? Or Morris? You can't convince me that something isn't going on behind the scenes - you don't just go from what we saw the previous 5 games to the complete shitshow we saw last night. I mean, that was BAD, like Doba rolling out the 5-2 then the 6-2 then the God-knows-what bad. Like, CPW ending 2 qb's careers in one game bad.
Whatever the case, I hope CJD has the stones to do what needs to be done and/ or do a little addition by subtraction.
Defense is about the same. I expected that they would be a little more stout against the run, but run or pass OSU imposed their will on the Cougs. The only thing that prevented them from scoring more was a couple of long and undproductive drives from the Cougs and their own mistakes. LB play was well below what we've come to expect from this fast, exciting defense.
Offense. Can you give someone an F-? Is there a grade lower than that? Lets break it down by position group:
QB: I'm going back to my suggestion that CW should have been given a Prius for his NIL instead of a $75k truck. I won't go on about specifics, because we all saw it and its the same, if not worse, than its ever been. Grade - F
WR: The drops from seemingly nowhere. Not just one player, the entire team/ unit. Something is going on, but I'll get to that later... Grade - F
RB: So, Jenkins seems to be making headway and inexplicably disappears at halftime. Not only that, down 7 going into the second half Morris completely abandons the run game, except in the most predictable situations. Grade - Incomplete
OL: Too many times this year we've seen 4 get home against 5. This unit is not good as a unit, though there are some good individual plays at times. Someone mentioned a Beav DL got home against a double team, almost effortlessly. I saw one play where the RT gave the kid a shove and then basically stepped aside. I have no idea what is going on here, but its not conducive to winning football games. Grade - D
Coaching - Morris is out of his depth. McGuire doesn't seem to be getting these guys on the same page, and their individual skills are poor at best. Don't know who the WR coach is, but this unit has been sub-par as a group all year. LB's before this game have been good, as had the DL. CJD: either your coaching it or allowing it to happen. Overall coaching grade - D+
Everything I addressed above has to deal with X's and O's, but there is another issue I want to address and that's the energy level we saw yesterday. Did anyone else have deja vu of an early CML "zombie" team? I was joking asking if the team had rode the buss all day Saturday and just arrived at the stadium right before the game. The body language, the hustle, the grit - all gone. Which begs the question:
Is there a locker room issue? Bell is out, and it wouldn't surprise me if he was the emotional leader on the offensive side, so that might explain a little bit of it. But, are the players turning on either CW or CJD? Or Morris? You can't convince me that something isn't going on behind the scenes - you don't just go from what we saw the previous 5 games to the complete shitshow we saw last night. I mean, that was BAD, like Doba rolling out the 5-2 then the 6-2 then the God-knows-what bad. Like, CPW ending 2 qb's careers in one game bad.
Whatever the case, I hope CJD has the stones to do what needs to be done and/ or do a little addition by subtraction.
