§ I guess the team and coaching staff didn’t read my blog or anything else published about coming out fast and strong. Outside of an opening defensive 3 & out, CU did everything we said they could not afford to do: gave up a big kickoff return to open the game (one of many nice returns to come); Tyler came out for three incompletions on the first drive (those were our scripted plays? to come out and pass?) and they blew a chance to grab a touched punt again, leading to an all-run TD drive for OSU; next Tyler fumbled and lost the exchange with Rodney; they topped it off with a holding penalty (though only penalty of half) on the third possession. Four 3 & outs offensively to start the game before …
§ …they finally put together a nice drive, with Rodney very involved, and scored on another Tyler zip to the endzone on 4th & 1, this time to Clemons, to make it 17-7 with 2+ minutes to go. But they couldn’t just leave it at 17-7 now could they?
§ On the following kickoff Justin Castor kicked it out of bounds AGAIN!?!? What is his problem? How hard is it to kick a squib that doesn’t leave a FIFTY-FIVE-yard strip of grass?! If they want him to angle it, maybe they need to do some basic geometry so he understands its not a 90 degree angle they are looking for! The defense then made another nice stop (and Embree brilliantly called a timeout with less than 30 seconds)…only to have Rodney call for a fair catch at the 13, and actually try to catch it, when he should have been coached to just letting it go, with almost no time left in the half. To compound the poor decision, Terrell Smith bumped into Stewart who coughed it up (still should have caught it!) and OSU recovered. Very lucky to only give up field goal here.
§ In fact, they were very lucky, with all the mistakes, giving up so much rushing yardage, letting freshman QB Miller off way too easy, to only give up 20 for the half, down by less than 2 TDs and set to get the ball back to open the 2nd half.
§ Embree said this game was a measuring stick, to see where they stand and how they match-up against a big-time program. And I guess we all got the answer: The Buffs are still too small, too slow and just not quite good enough to keep up with the big boys yet. They have a very long, steep road to climb and I hope the younger players are ready to keep working for awhile. Remember, this was a team that beat us handily, who is no longer ranked or in that top echelon of the NCAA, and was still missing numerous suspended starters, and we are a couple of steps down from them.
§ Special Teams resembles a Special Ed Pop Warner scrimmage with no coaches. Outside of Wil Oliver’s perfection (6-for-6 on FGs and perfect PATs) there is not much to like in this phase:
1. 1 out of every 3 of Darragh O’Neil’s punts are boomers…but the other 2 are usually downright scary! We are running scared with O’Neil and he can’t be at his best trying to learn from scratch three different ways of kicking the ball. He said on his two rugby styles kicks he was trying to “tag” the OSU guys. Is that what he is being coached to do? If so, the rest of the team needs to know that, as he did get another “tag” but no CU player was aware or anywhere near to recover.
2. I hope if we ever need to do an onside kick that they will tell everybody to be ready and try to get the ball. Oh yeah they did and OSU recovered easily.
3. The coverage is awful, especially the 90-yard kickoff return that set up easy TD.
4. We can’t buy a return yard of our own. Kickoffs rarely are getting back to the 20, even when we are receiving it at the 5 or 6 (12.6 yd avg on 8 returns).
5. Punt returns are scary and have never netted more than 10 yards and are usually accompanied by a penalty if not dumb decision or blunder.
6. That play at the end of the half with Rodney and Terrell Smith says it all.
7. Special teams blunders contributed directly to at least 17 points.
8. Our field position is unbelievably bad! OSU started 7 of 12 drives inside CU territory, plus 3 more beyond their 40. I believe they ran more than half of their plays from our side of the field.
9. We are becoming a total joke in this phase and Pac-12 teams will be licking their chops and game-planning to take advantage of us here every week.
10. JD Brookhart may be an old friend of Embree’s with a lot of coaching experience but this is completely unacceptable at this level. 35 minutes per practice is obviously just not enough.
11. And we cannot just blame this ineffectiveness on lack of speed alone.
§ Turns out Speedy has been bothered by a sore shoulder and is already just playing through the pain (not good and why was he returning punts then?!). I realized we saw and heard very little from Parker Orms and turns out he left with more leg problems and didn’t play much; Deji Olatoye played decent in his place, although he was beaten for one of the TDs. At least three others played through injury. Embree hinted that they might sit some of those banged up guys but, “We don’t have that luxury.” And it’s only the 4th game of 13 in a row.
§ Bakhtiari started at LT, Handler at C, Tau at RT; Ryan Dannewitz came in for Tau(injury or ineffectiveness?) in the 2nd half and was not very good, getting beat easily around the end.
§ The Buff defensive line was manhandled by the OSU big uglies; Jordan Hall and company ran pretty much unabated and Braxton Miller was put under pressure only a few times and was able to make some pretty easy 3rd down and TD throws. While Doug Rippy again made some plays here and there, but nobody else really did much. They just don’t have nearly enough talent on D to keep up with a team of this caliber. It looked like Tony Poremba got the start at DE or Jack and that is scary that no one else is beating him out; Juda Parker did get a lot of PT also.
§ Running QBs can take advantage and even less mobile Pac-12 QBs are watching for their opportunities to take off and run. Miller only need to try a pass 15 times. Darren Thomas and Oregon are salivating.
§ OSU LT Stugarts did get his mandatory false start. OSU had more penalties in the first half but we more than made up the difference in the 2nd half.
§ There was probably enough talent on CU’s offense to compete but they just screwed themselves over and over again. For example, Keenan Canty got in the game, made a 1st down catch, but, oh wait, he was lined up wrong-penalty! He didn’t play for awhile after getting chewed out by Embree, but he did get back in and even got a chance to return a punt late. They also did not get many people outside of the big names (Stewart, P-Rich, Clemons, Deehan) involved in the game plan until very late; Buckeye DBs blanketed our receivers and Tyler didn’t have much to throw to. Tony Jones, Logan Gray and Tyler McCulloch were silent until that last drive when OSU was in a soft zone. Once again they were terrible on 3rd down.
§ Hansen was pretty good, scrambling to buy time, making some good throws. However, he did not have the type of game the Buffs needed, fumbling the exchange with Rodney was all on Hansen, more overthrows and a couple of just bad passes, and just he did not lead the offense.
§ Some of the offensive struggles are obviously also on EB and the coaches, as their game plan was just not that good to go against this defense. We didn’t use the screen that much, especially early, and they were ready for it when we tried it late. The receivers never really got separation. The O-line never gave great protection, even without heavy blitzing, as Tyler had to scramble a lot, nor did they give Speedy much to work with. Most of all, the defense never seemed surprised by anything and played most of the game in its base.
§ Another really weak start all around. In four 1st quarters, the Buffs have been outscored 60-27 so far. That is just too much British Open rough and sand trap to dig out of after every drive.
§ Nine more penalties, 37 on the year. Too many yards to count, plus a ton have also been declined.
§ This game might just be our best recruiting tool for some blue chippers who can come in here and earn playing time immediately. We are graduating 28 seniors, have very few juniors and a ton of jobs are going to up for grabs next year. I hope to see a name or two commit in the coming weeks, citing early playing time as a reason.
§ The Dark Years instilled so many bad habits that this team is not able to unlearn them. Many of these mistakes are being made by upperclassmen that were only coached by that staff for 4 or 5 years. They continue to make the same formation errors, holding calls, horrible special teams blunders and shoddy blocking and the uncanny knack to make the bad play at the most inopportune moment. I think we need to start getting backups some more playing time, some experience before all those seniors filling the two-deep are gone, although I don’t know how many others are truly available to play.
§ I don’t think I will be able to force myself to re-watch this one even though I have it recorded. We’ll just take the check, sign it over to Hawkins and we’ll move on to focus on Pac-12 play and Washington State.
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