orange100
April 17th, 2005, 08:31 AM
Headed up to memorial yesterday, got my knees, right arm and right side of my face sunburned. oh yes, watched a preamble to the zook era.
Bear in mind, I am not an insightful judge of football talent and strategy, so don't take my critique too seriously. Mostly just observations.
Negatives: we do look painfully slow. The linemen and linebackers are not quick. This is not really news. Upside: zook's position changes will help. Switching Walter Mendenhall to DB helps. He had a blocked punt and can definitely fly to the ball. Defensively he was impressive. The Dline may have the better of our Oline. Our O line's protection was not strong. Several sacks.
Offensively: the QB's look good in this order: Brasic, Flakes, Garza, Pazan. Brasic has a decent arm and seems the most comfortable behind the line. He reminds me of Kittner in his style (and because he wears #15). Nothiung special, he just seems to be the most solid that we have at the moment. Flakes reminds me of dee brown for a couple reasons, he's small, quick, and wears number 11. I would have put him first on the depth chart but he does have some freshman issues. He may very well steal the starter position by the first game if he is as smart as proposed. He looks comfortable behind the line, he makes good decisions as far as I can tell, and can run the best of the qb's. He had a 35 yard run that should have been over at 10 yards but just as a he was about to slide he saw an opening and juked left for another 20 yards. He is fun to watch and may be a star here before long. He tends to whip the ball a little hard and overthrow on the long ball. These are minor issues that I am sure he'll overcome quickly. Some longer receivers will help that as well. Garza looks good, too. Built like Deron or the departed Bower, he likes to whip the ball around. Don't think he knows the offense as well as the first two, and has accuracy issues, I think. Has a good arm though. Pazan did not impress me at all. He got flushed from the pocket numerous times, had trouble hitting receivers, doesn't scramble well and seemed to have poor timing. Plays to the sideline typically just went out of bounds. Maybe he had an off-day.
Running backs is where we're loaded and it shows. Halsey is the leader of the team and he got some good runs today as well. You know him. Pierre Thomas, same deal. Good as ever, great runs today. Consistent 10 yards out of these guys 75% of the time they get the ball. I really wanted to see Rashard Mendenhall since he was so highly touted coming in. I was not disappointed. He is small but he is strong as a bull and lightning quick. He's gotta be the fastest of our backs but he doesn't have their bulk so if he hits a wall, he's going down. Give him an opening though and he will slice through it like a knife and be gone. If memory serves non of our backs coughed it up, either. A goal line play got a roar from the defense on the sidelines. The offense lined up Mendenhall to punch it through; he took the handoff and leaped like Luther to pile over the line into the endzone. He hit a wall about 6 feet in the air and got thrown back on his a$$! The defense on the sideline went nuts over that one. Pretty cool.
Wide receivers, Hurst made a great one handed grab. I honestly don't remember much from the receivers. Not many dropped balls, but a few that should have been caught.
Coaching: Probably the most fun to observe. The hurry up offense is the priority. Any time a play ended and the guys were down, the assistants were all screaming "GET UP! GET UP! MOVE IT! LINE UP!" Lots of: "You're Not tired!" I would not want to be a player that is on Zook's bad side. Three times I saw Zook not happy with the hustle of a player: Zook would literally run to the player and get in the guy's helmet and physically propel him back to the right position while chewing him out. Hustle and hard work are definitely expected 110% of the time. The plays were called by holding up number placards.
Punting doesn't look good, fieldgoal kicking does. Special teams looked pretty good over all. The offense ran several two point conversion plays which didn't work.
Defense, it's hard to say how good they will be. The DLine punched through the OLine a lot, the linebackers look a bit slow. The cornerbacks and safeties are improving i think, there was an interception and a good run back. We have some better speed on that side of the ball now.
It was hard to judge, for me, whether the offense was good or the defense was bad, or vice versa, depending on the play. I see some improvement and changes from last year, but I don't know how we'll stack up against tough competition. Also, it is just spring ball, so the summer and august camp is where the major changes and gelling will take place in making this year's team what it will be.
next saturday is the spring game with the merch sale after (always some good deals there). attendance better be good. I attribute that to the poor showing today which was probably 100 people, including Guenther, Turpin and Tate.
Bear in mind, I am not an insightful judge of football talent and strategy, so don't take my critique too seriously. Mostly just observations.
Negatives: we do look painfully slow. The linemen and linebackers are not quick. This is not really news. Upside: zook's position changes will help. Switching Walter Mendenhall to DB helps. He had a blocked punt and can definitely fly to the ball. Defensively he was impressive. The Dline may have the better of our Oline. Our O line's protection was not strong. Several sacks.
Offensively: the QB's look good in this order: Brasic, Flakes, Garza, Pazan. Brasic has a decent arm and seems the most comfortable behind the line. He reminds me of Kittner in his style (and because he wears #15). Nothiung special, he just seems to be the most solid that we have at the moment. Flakes reminds me of dee brown for a couple reasons, he's small, quick, and wears number 11. I would have put him first on the depth chart but he does have some freshman issues. He may very well steal the starter position by the first game if he is as smart as proposed. He looks comfortable behind the line, he makes good decisions as far as I can tell, and can run the best of the qb's. He had a 35 yard run that should have been over at 10 yards but just as a he was about to slide he saw an opening and juked left for another 20 yards. He is fun to watch and may be a star here before long. He tends to whip the ball a little hard and overthrow on the long ball. These are minor issues that I am sure he'll overcome quickly. Some longer receivers will help that as well. Garza looks good, too. Built like Deron or the departed Bower, he likes to whip the ball around. Don't think he knows the offense as well as the first two, and has accuracy issues, I think. Has a good arm though. Pazan did not impress me at all. He got flushed from the pocket numerous times, had trouble hitting receivers, doesn't scramble well and seemed to have poor timing. Plays to the sideline typically just went out of bounds. Maybe he had an off-day.
Running backs is where we're loaded and it shows. Halsey is the leader of the team and he got some good runs today as well. You know him. Pierre Thomas, same deal. Good as ever, great runs today. Consistent 10 yards out of these guys 75% of the time they get the ball. I really wanted to see Rashard Mendenhall since he was so highly touted coming in. I was not disappointed. He is small but he is strong as a bull and lightning quick. He's gotta be the fastest of our backs but he doesn't have their bulk so if he hits a wall, he's going down. Give him an opening though and he will slice through it like a knife and be gone. If memory serves non of our backs coughed it up, either. A goal line play got a roar from the defense on the sidelines. The offense lined up Mendenhall to punch it through; he took the handoff and leaped like Luther to pile over the line into the endzone. He hit a wall about 6 feet in the air and got thrown back on his a$$! The defense on the sideline went nuts over that one. Pretty cool.
Wide receivers, Hurst made a great one handed grab. I honestly don't remember much from the receivers. Not many dropped balls, but a few that should have been caught.
Coaching: Probably the most fun to observe. The hurry up offense is the priority. Any time a play ended and the guys were down, the assistants were all screaming "GET UP! GET UP! MOVE IT! LINE UP!" Lots of: "You're Not tired!" I would not want to be a player that is on Zook's bad side. Three times I saw Zook not happy with the hustle of a player: Zook would literally run to the player and get in the guy's helmet and physically propel him back to the right position while chewing him out. Hustle and hard work are definitely expected 110% of the time. The plays were called by holding up number placards.
Punting doesn't look good, fieldgoal kicking does. Special teams looked pretty good over all. The offense ran several two point conversion plays which didn't work.
Defense, it's hard to say how good they will be. The DLine punched through the OLine a lot, the linebackers look a bit slow. The cornerbacks and safeties are improving i think, there was an interception and a good run back. We have some better speed on that side of the ball now.
It was hard to judge, for me, whether the offense was good or the defense was bad, or vice versa, depending on the play. I see some improvement and changes from last year, but I don't know how we'll stack up against tough competition. Also, it is just spring ball, so the summer and august camp is where the major changes and gelling will take place in making this year's team what it will be.
next saturday is the spring game with the merch sale after (always some good deals there). attendance better be good. I attribute that to the poor showing today which was probably 100 people, including Guenther, Turpin and Tate.