Texas Tech at Washington State game highlights ~ 9/7/24
- Thread starter M-I-Coug
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That first pick was 90% Hutson giving up on the ball because he flinched when he felt the DB's presence. It was not a good throw by Mateer but an actual good wide receiver goes up and gets that. Our receivers in 2001 when Gesser was QB caught those balls 90% of the time.
I just watched the whole thing and agree 110% on the pick. Which I missed last night, was late turning the game on. WTF was Hutson doing? He sensed the DB and basically stopped. Hell he could have caught that ball. Or gotten a PI call. Even offensive PI would have been preferable. Add in his drop(s/) and he is not on my list of guys who should be out there.
Couple of other thoughts:
- Love the under-center plays, especially the I formation. I think we saw under center and I formation under Leach - let's see - never?
- Mateer beating the defenders to the corner twice was amazing. Kid has some wheels
- While Mateer seemed to bail and run a little often, hey if it's open take the sure thing. F- 'em. As he said postgame, "I don't think they'll be dropping 8 anymore"
dafuq with the squib kicks? was that some kind in homage to CML to give all the fans ptsd again?
Always cringe when your kicker can blast through the end zone
Hutson is actually quite good, electric. And MOST of the time he is pretty semi good, decent, ok, semi awesome, etc.
But at occasional semi uncommon to semi rare times, he is going to drop balls, not do what he should have done to prevent that INT, etc.
That's the price WSU will pay for the PSU Hutson that made amazing catches, ran good routes, had awesome speed, shiftyness, YAC, etc.
Especially since the Kicker Ryan Harris can, does kick the ball either 7 yards deep into endzone, or out of end zone or out of stadium.
I understand, get that if he pooch it right, and if the special teams coverage is good enough, etc, that can put it on the 3 to 23 yard line. But that can be very risky. Especially when the other team has one of the best kick returners in the whole entire nation.
I would rather Ryan, WSU, Dickert, special teams coach boot it to either 1 yard line, 6 yards deep into end zone, out the end zone, out of stadium, and have opposing offense start at 25 every time, then to pooch kick it to 13 to 25 to 33, and have offense start at 33 to 43 to 53 to in FG range, to in the red zone, to a kick return TD, etc.
Pooching it just does not make sense most of the time, so don't get why it was being done a lot.
Way past time for WSU, coaching staff, Ryan to stop doing that, stop pooching it.
Just blast the thing into the end zone, out back of endzone and beyond, have opposing offenses start at the 25, etc.
I have zero complaints when we win games and have stuff to learn from mistakes. I complain more when the mistakes cost us the game. And I complain most when the mistakes cost us and then we fail to learn from them.
So far we are on the good side of the ledger....
So far we are on the good side of the ledger....
Their return guy took 2 of them back 60+ yards in week 1, so my guess is we just weren’t kicking to him. Worked out ok on the opening kick, but after that we were really just surrendering decent field position.
I remember one of the squib kicks, the guy who received it had plenty of opportunity to lateral to their returner, who had a lane. Fortunately he didn’t notice.
I agree. He’s a good player, he just got alligator arms there. It might happen again, he may not be the right guy to be sending over the middle on routes where a guy has to be willing to take a shot. Some guys go for that ball, some don’t doesn’t mean they aren’t good players. Gabe marks woulda gone for that with zero consideration of his body. Marquis Wilson probably makes the same decision Hutson did.
Disagree. In person it looked like Mateer air mailed it and was quite late delivering the ball and needed to put it on a line into the hole in the zone. On TV it appeared Hutson was closer to the ball, but I'm sticking with what I saw in person. Hutson is also pretty dang small. The 2001 - 2002 WR corps was not.
I believe it was three pooch kicks. Getting turnovers on 1 out of 3, and no significant returns all game is a big fat W in my book.
Mixed results, IMO. No significant returns against us, no blocked punts, no blocked FGs or PATs. Janokowski has pooped the bed thus far and Faberer is out.
They should change the holder. Mateer should not be doing it, IMO. No reason to risk any injury, and whatever time he is spending practicing holding needs to be spent on O. And obviously Jano needs more work on FGs and PATs. Plenty of guys on the bench. Find someone.
Watch the video below and tell me that Hutson didn't give up on that ball and allow the interception to happen. As someone else said above, it wouldn't matter if he had just decided to play DB and knock it down...that would have been better than just giving up.
Jump in the Hot Tub Time Machine, go back in time, buy a ticket, and go to the game in person.
So you're saying that you didn't watch the video? FWIW, you can see things on TV that you can't see in the stands (and sometimes vice versa)
If you do watch the video, you'll see that Hutson realizes that there is a DB in front of him at the 12 yard line and takes his eyes off the ball with the DB at the 9 yard line tracking the ball. By the time that Hutson reaches the 10 yard line, he's got alligator arms as he avoids contact and the DB is about one yard away from him at the 8 1/2 yard line getting ready to catch the ball. The ball passes less than a yard above Hutson's head as the DB catches the pick at the 8 yard line and Hutson is at the 9 yard line. He made a half-assed attempt to swipe at the Texas Tech DB and even failed in that.
It wasn't a great throw by Mateer and he definitely threw into coverage, but if Hutson continues to make plays like he did there...and continues to drop other balls the way that he did in this game, he will be playing at an FCS school in the not too distant future. To quote our basketball fans after an opposing player misses a free throw, "He let the whole team down!".
Mateer needs to do better as well, but that pick would have never happened if it was one of our historically good receivers in that same spot. Hutson is not a good receiver based on his play Saturday. He has the talent to be, but he's not going to get the chance to get paid on Sundays if he doesn't work harder than he did this weekend.
EDIT: I will be in Fresno watching the Cougs with my family....so I'll be judging in person then.
Scott Lunde is my go-to for an example of someone who'd go over the middle regardless of the consequences. That guy took some man-sized shots.
While I’m disappointed in the attendance or lack thereof, flat lives in Kansas and I believe makes it to at least a game every year and usually the bowl game if it’s not a nightmare to get to. Kind of a dick response when there’s thousands of fans who live within a couple hours drive of Pullman and don’t make the effort for a relatively easy day trip.
It's definitely clear on video. In person, it didn't look like he made an effort to play defense, but in real time I blamed it more on Mateer than Hutson. Looking at the video, the only effort I see from Hutson is the effort to avoid getting hit. He didn't try to make the catch, didn't try to play defense, and barely tried to make a tackle. Still wasn't a good throw, but Hutson made it an INT.
There's no such thing as a relatively easy day trip for a game that starts at 7 and has 12(?) stoppages for replays and injuries, in addition to all of the timeouts.
With the number of suicidal deer along 26, there's no relaxing from Colfax until you get to 395, and I had to be up for the kid's football practice in the morning. Functioning on 4 hours of sleep isn't as easy as it used to be.
I just rewatched the video. Agree with the above - in real time it didn't look so bad (on Hutson) but in slo mo it was clear that he felt the DB, took his eye off the ball and pulled up. If he had kept going and ran smack into the defender, that's defensive PI, correct? Or at worst offensive PI. And the DB was just standing there - who would have gotten the worst of it, the WR going full speed or the DB standing there? It's like he was fielding a punt.
1 turn over, 1 good result, 1 returned to the 40ish(?), maybe 45?
Not sure I would call that successful, but I guess if the goal is absolutely no returns past the 50 then you're ahead.
But to reiterate what many have said - we have a kicker who can put it out of the back of the endzone - 100% success in preventing a long return.
