This loss is on Leavitt

[smazza]

As much as I hate to agree, I too think Leavitt was outcoached last night.  It was the reverse of when we pulled out all the stops against #9 Louisville  two years ago at home. 

Those kids have played a great season so far and I will keep rooting for them as I have for the past 10 years. 

WASNT EVEN CLOSE

SCHIANO REMAINS BEST COACH IN BIG EAST

[smazza]

The good news is, even at our WORST, we still had a chance to win this game.  Can you imagine once we have this thing on cruise control and start getting more of the recruits we want vs the left overs? 

This is seriously going to be an incredible program and Leavitt will get better.  Plus, as the athletes get better, they overcome more coaching mistakes based on talent alone.  Where we will see the biggest difference will be on 3rd downs.

We need a dominant offensive player who can still succeed even when you know it's going to him.  Right now, we don't have anyone on our roster who you can truly say that about and it also shows up on big plays.  We have VERY FEW over 40 yards on the year despite having a QB who can keep things alive longer than most as well as keeping a defense honest.

Most teams would kill to have the problem Grothe poses for defenses.  We're just not maximizing his potential yet though a few tweaks to the starting lineup (getting Bogan, Hester (been saying for weeks) and Edwards in there more) and maybe we'll see something.  Cedric HIll even looked great on that one catch and run.

Got to stop going AMarri's way on third downs though as he's not clutch.

USF STILL DOESNT HAVE A GO TO RECEIVER OR RB (LIKE UNDERWOOD AND/OR RICE

GROTHE HAS 2 MORE YEARS-WILL LEAVITT SURROUND GROTHE WITH LIKE TALENT?

[usfgrad84]

The good news is, even at our WORST, we still had a chance to win this game.  Can you imagine once we have this thing on cruise control and start getting more of the recruits we want vs the left overs? 

This is seriously going to be an incredible program and Leavitt will get better.  Plus, as the athletes get better, they overcome more coaching mistakes based on talent alone.  Where we will see the biggest difference will be on 3rd downs.

We need a dominant offensive player who can still succeed even when you know it's going to him.  Right now, we don't have anyone on our roster who you can truly say that about and it also shows up on big plays.  We have VERY FEW over 40 yards on the year despite having a QB who can keep things alive longer than most as well as keeping a defense honest.

Most teams would kill to have the problem Grothe poses for defenses.  We're just not maximizing his potential yet though a few tweaks to the starting lineup (getting Bogan, Hester (been saying for weeks) and Edwards in there more) and maybe we'll see something.  Cedric HIll even looked great on that one catch and run.

Got to stop going AMarri's way on third downs though as he's not clutch.

USF STILL DOESNT HAVE A GO TO RECEIVER OR RB (LIKE UNDERWOOD AND/OR RICE

GROTHE HAS 2 MORE YEARS-WILL LEAVITT SURROUND GROTHE WITH LIKE TALENT?

I agree on the point about having go to receivers and a RB. 

We outweighed the defense by almost 60lbs per man.  A decent RB on his worst day pounds the ball for 3 yards on first and 2nd down and puts you into 3rd and manageable.  There was nothing magical about what Rice did.  He was a workhorse.  Give him the ball 38 times and let him grind it out and keep the chains moving.  Every once in a while he may break one, like Rice did for 10 or 12 or even a long one.  Smash mouth hard hitting football.  Ford has shown glimpses of what he can do.  My question at what point do you make a determination about sacrificing a missed block or two during a game for productivity running the ball.  Take him out during obvious passing downs.  Week 9 next week is more than enough time for him to be acclimated to the college game.  Le's see what he can do.  He did pretty well against a tough Auburn defense.

I am tired of hearing how athletic our receivers are.  Who cares.  I'll take a consistent guy that makes all the catches over azn athletic guy that catches 4 out of 6 and a highlight real play.  It's not backyard football.  The idea is move the ball up the fleld consistently.

One other pet peeve of mine.  I commented after the WVU game and it happened again last night.  We do a horrible job of clock management.  At the end of the 1st half.  We ran 8 plays before the missed FG.  We only ran 2 1/2 minutes off the clock.  We gave them enough time to go down the field and kick a FG before the half.  They had no time outs.  We should have been looking at a worse case scenario against a potent offense like theirs.  Goal 1 to score points.  Goal 2 don't leave them time to move the ball if we don't score.  A good offense leaves 30 secs on the clock when they make the kick.  A great team leaves 5 seconds.  We left over 90 seconds.  It cost us a FG.  We did the same thing against WVU.  We had the ball late in the first half after a TO with about 6 minutes or so to go and instead of kiling the clock and worrying about leaving time for them to move down the field, we throw an INT on the first play from scrimmage into the end zone.  They have plenty of time to go the length of the filed and kick a FG righ before the half.

CThe details of clock management, to me, are one of the things that separates the good teams from the great teams.  Maybe a little nitpicky, but it drives me nuts when we do this.

[hightechbull]

Our boys played their hearts out, they really did.  I knew from the beginning this was a TERRIBLE matchup for us as Ray Rice is the perfect storm for a defense like this.  However, we should've killed Rutgers last night and much of that had to do with the **** poor game management I saw last night which has been consistent with Leavitt (my ONLY knock on the guy) from day one.

1.  Special teams.  That's all coaching and all he had to do at those points in the game was PLAY FOR THE FAKE!  They were at midfield on an opening possession and they knew we could score on them.  I WAS SCREAMING, "WATCH FOR THE FAKE!"  I almost took a shotgun to my TV when it happened.  The second one for the TD, again, WATCH FOR THE FAKE!  It makes no difference if they get 3 points!  7?  BIG DIFFERENCE!

2.  A more subtle gross negligence occured on every 4th and 2 we were in around midfield and the FGs.  We have possibly the WORST special teams crew in the country, but have one of the best scrambling QBs, our OLINE was opening up gashes for Matt at will and you know we CAN'T STOP RICE; YET WE DON'T GO FOR IT?????  NOT EVEN ONCE???

You telling me we couldn't pick up at least half of those and probably result in one TD?  That alone was the difference in the game.  Why punt to net 30 yards when all you have to do is pick up two, keep the ball and possibly score?

The difference last night was the coaches.  Schiano was doing everything to win and Leavitt was doing everything not too lose which is exactly how this team has played all year.  Fortunately, we've had the bounces go our way to mask this game management.

3.  RU is bring blitz after blitz, but we don't start any plays in those last three drives with Matt rolling out of the pocket?  We know he can't throw the ball away, so why put him in that position of a huge sack?  Get him on the move and let him have the option to run.  He's not a pocket QB.

4.  Defense.  Yes Ray Rice is good and he owned us, but he could've been limited.  Why did it take 2.5 quarters to stack the box?  Our DBs showed they were more than capable of matching up one on one and Teel couldn't hit em in tight spaces.  We shouldve been blitzing every down UNTIL they showed they could burn us.  Nothing irked me more than seeing the defense put them in 3rd and 8/10/16 only to rush 4 (WHEN WE KNEW WE COULDN"T GET PRESSURE WITH 4/5) and give Teel all day to pick apart our zone. 

I think Leavitt is a great guy and he's great at building a program, but last night showed his weakness.  Everything above had nothing to do with the players and everything to do wtih coaching decisions.  We had the better team last night and even despite the mistakes, we should've pounded Rutgers.  Leavitt played not to lose and when you do that, all it takes is a bad call by a ref (we saw two) to decide it when it shouldn't have been close to begin with.

In closing, it's a young program and that includes the coach.  Just like players have bad games, so do coaches, but I hope he learns from this experience and for now on even in games we're winning, to go for the juglar.  To work on the 2 minute offense so when we need it, it's there.  This is the stuff you do when you're blowing out other teams.  Instead of killing clock, you WORK ON THE WEAK PART OF YOUR GAME!

I had us pegged as a 3 loss team this season due to our inexperience which we saw last night (Matt spiking it highlighted that fact); so I'm not down.  Disappointed?  Yes, but not down.  We still have a shot to win the Big East and even if we don't win that, we can still shoot for a decent bowl game.

The good news is a Rutgers loss is bad, but not the deathnail.  We'll still be in the top 25 after this which will give us a shot to work our way up with a few more wins as other teams will be taking losses 2 and 3.  There's a very good chance if we win out, we can get back to the top ten bc those wins we had earlier still count.

I'm done mourning over the loss and I look forward to creaming Uconn next week to get back on our game!

WHAT A GREAT POST!

I concur.

I usually skip over posts that long, but that was 100% on the mark analysis.

[BigShoop]

Ruger, you kick ass.

That is all.

[MikeG]

there are some valid observations in that post

those sacks in the second half really killed us

I would add that we need more intermediate and short routes--- middle of the field variety especially during those blitz situations. Play action would be a nice surprise to see again.

And can we try passing to a tight end or RB a little more (what the heck-- I'm asking for the moon as it is). Cedric Hill is unterultized as is Busbee. Those guys are pretty reliable targets (Hill hasn't dropped anything since that one in the endzone many games ago).

[Sitting_BULL]

we also have to remember......leavitt's coaching is what has gotten us where we are.  he's doing this with 2 & 3 star recruits.  Conversly, miami & fsu are stacked with 4 & 5 stars yet are doing poorly.

[USF_Grouper]

we also have to remember......leavitt's coaching is what has gotten us where we are.  he's doing this with 2 & 3 star recruits.  Conversly, miami & fsu are stacked with 4 & 5 stars yet are doing poorly.

Great point.  It seems like we are competing for the bigger recruits more and more, but CJL has certainly done a great job of making the most out of his talent.

I don't disagree that CJL got out-coached this past week.  It doesn't happen often, and I doubt it will happen again.  Even Larry Bird gets schooled once in a while. 

I do disagree that this loss is entirely on CJL.  One of the reasons I am optimistic following this loss is it seemed every aspect of our team had to play poorly for it to happen.  If our special teams play isn't so poor we win.  If this defense doesn't give up 30 points we win.  Obviously the offense had its struggles.  Overall my grades would be…

Special Teams D+ (can't give them much credit for the recovered punts since Rutgers basically gave those to us, but the blocked field goal keeps this from being an F)

Defense C- (only consistent play seemed to come from the safeties)

Offense C+ (Grothe had moments of brilliance, but just couldn't get it together.  Receivers dropped a good number of passes.  Still, 27 points and no turnovers USF should win any game on the schedule)

Coaching D- (Throw some short drops, screen passes, delayed hand offs, something to discourage those all out blitz.  Worse, when only a two man blitz is coming plus 1 spy have Grothe run the ball.  We had 5 line man and a blocking RB, why is Grothe trying to throw into coverage when Rutgers was dropping 8?)

In summary, it seems like all aspects of our team played very poorly and we still almost won this game.  I like our chances the rest of the season. 

[bulls96go]

great analysis

we all hope JL will learn from this.

we made good adjustments vs fau, wvu and ucf and some how did not vs RU. don't know why

[DENVERBULL]

I would add that we need more intermediate and short routes--- middle of the field variety especially during those blitz situations. Play action would be a nice surprise to see again.

And can we try passing to a tight end or RB a little more (what the heck-- I'm asking for the moon as it is). Cedric Hill is unterultized as is Busbee. Those guys are pretty reliable targets (Hill hasn't dropped anything since that one in the endzone many games ago).

Man, you said it.  I have watched the second half a couple of more times and it's amazing how wide open the middle of the field is.  Time after time, our receivers fake a move to the inside, only to turn the route outside.  Rutgers was blitzing extra guys and keeping a spy behind the line of scrimmage which left the middle wide open.  Run a curl, a slant, or read the coverage and break off your route and "sit down"  in the wide open middle.  A short pass behind the spy and a wr/te could have run 10 yds before getting touched.  Other times a CB/LB would be at the line covering a WR and simply let him run by uncovered.  Instead of running to open space, they just run downfield without looking back.  Sending 4 or 5 receivers 20-25 yds downfield towards the sidelines doesn't work against a blitz.  Why could our coaches not realize this?

On the 4th quarter TD drive, almost every play was to the middle and we marched right down and scored.  I don't think we tried again the rest of the night.  Wierd.