Some random thoughts after watching the Troy game.
The Good
Expectations for kicker Alex Tejada were high, and they were more than met on Saturday night. Even though Tejada’s four field goals averaged just 29 yards and a high snap caused a missed extra point, you could tell the crowd was excited to finally see an obvious talent at the placekicker position.- Felix Jones touched the ball 16 times and gained 291 all-purpose yards. Wow…that’s an insane 18.1 yard average.
- It was good to see Scotty Thurman inducted into the UA Hall of Honor and receive a big ovation from the crowd at halftime. But it was even better to finally see Ben Cowins be inducted. The question is…after holding the school rushing record for nearly 30 years…what took so long?
The Bad
- There’s been no shortage of second guessing during Reggie Herring’s tenure about his defenses depending almost exclusively on man coverage in the secondary. (For his part, Herring has said the personnel on defense dictated that course.) On Saturday, however, the Hogs showed more zone coverage. Unfortunately, the deep middle of that coverage allowed several of Troy’s bigger plays. Herring described it as “horrendous” after the game. Since we don’t have that category, we’ll just call it “bad” and look for improvement.
- How can you call a crowd of over 73,000 bad? Well…it really wasn’t a bad crowd…just maybe not the most football-savvy crowd. Doing the wave while ahead by only six points in the second half against a tough opponent, for example. And having the crowd be quieted by the players right before McFadden’s touchdown pass play was actually kind of funny. It was like the players were saying, “Hey! Quiet down! We’re about to run a big play!”
The Ugly
Can we not find a punt returner that can catch the ball when the lights come on? Michael Smith caught just about every punt to him during the week of practice and scrimmages that we attended. During the game on Saturday, it was a different story. And now, as expected, it looks like Peyton Hillis will be called on again to “secure the catch” if Smith can’t keep the job.- While it was great to see Tejada make all those field goals, it was ugly to see some of those drives stall because of passing accuracy. And not even making an attempt to throw to a wide receiver until mid-way through the third quarter is not going to help us find that elusive “second receiver” for when Marcus Monk returns.
From Nate Allen’s article in the Northwest Arkansas Times this morning on the punt catching problems:
“Fear of fumbling even had Nutt accepting a 10 yard block in the back penalty over a backed-up re-kick when Troy was penalized on a second-half punt that Smith bobbled but recovered. “I really wanted to make them re-punt it,” Nutt said. “But I was scared because of the way we were catching the ball. “I’m nervous about that,” Nutt said. “I want to feel better about that part of the game.”
Scared and nervous…two words you never want to hear a head coach utter…EVER.
I agree with you Tipster, to a point. Casey could have definately thrown a little better. His accuracy was off a bit in the first half, but I do believe the coaches want to save a little of the pass plays for the next 2 weeks. I think they were even a little suprised Casey didn't complete a few more of those balls, because of how well he threw in practice the past couple of games. It's a far gone conclusion we will be a dominate running team, even better than last year maybe, but with the presence of Hillis in the backfield with his talent and exsperience, it would be a waste not to use him as a primary reciever. I don't believe the game plan was to throw it around to the recievers that much, because of the Trojans being so dangerous. Like Houston Nutt said, the overall passing game is still a work in progress, so I don't believe the idea was to exsperiment that much, especially with Monk on the sidelines. With just minimal improvement in the passing from what we seen against Troy, these Hogs will be tough for the Crimson Tide to keep up with. I still think we have improved in the overall offense, and especially special teams, with the arrival of Tejada. The sub-par passing will fade, and the dropped punts will be fixed. GO HOGS GO!!!!! BEAT BAMA!!!!!
I'm sure Micheal Smith was a little more nervous back there than Nutt was. This was his first time recieving those, with his only exsperience being in practice, so hopefully that will be corrected before 'Bama. Now that all of the jitters hve been dealt with, lets go play some football!!
Nice analysis Tipster, you're spot on with our crowd being anti-football savvy. Shouldn't it go loud on defense quiet on offense? I blame the cheerleaders more than anything, obviously they will meet with the punt team this week and work on how to function correctly. As for our passing game, we've had 9 years to make it function with not a sign of improvement in sight. Personally I think it's time to give up the dream and discover our inner '90's Nebraska Cornhuskers. Interesting to notice you said when Monk returns not if Monk returns… Inside sources tell me to be very careful with that statement.
Passing game is still pitiful. And the notion that we need to wait for two weeks until Bama to "show our hand" in the passing game is ludicrous. It's ironic that I'm watching the Clemson-FSU game at the same time I'm reading this and the announcers asked Tommy Bowden about last year and he said quote "We should've worked on the passing game more in the early games when we were scoring all those points and beating teams pretty easily". Wow… that's a novel concept. What was our fearless leader's excuse for a poor passing game last year? "I guess I just gave too much responsibility to a high school coach". And we wonder why there is drama on the hill….
Where was the brand new playbook. It looked awfully familiar in terms of the passing game. Also, what are the up to date odds of us calling a running play after calling an offensive time out?
As for the crowd and my brood of five was there, I was bored. Give me a break, Troy, North Texas and Florida International as three of the home games? I think it was great that we had that many fans show up.
I didn't really have any of my questions answered at the first game. I knew Felix, Darren and Peyton were great. But I still don't know about our passing game, our offensive line against a quality opponent and our secondary when we play teams that can run the spread with four or five quality receivers like the Vols and Florida if we are fortunate enough to play them again.
Hope all had a good Labor Day weekend!