Shutting down Reesing and the spread

[Jake_Ryan]

My thoughts on the Defense so far this year:

First the Good for USF

George Selvie.  Don't let the lack of sacks fool you, the guy is very active evry play and you will need to have two guys on most plays to keep him away from the backfield.

Defensive Tackles. The DTs this year are bigger (Harris at 275, Genus at 300+ and McClain at 300+) but as active as always.  The center of the DL is no longer being pushed backwards.

Tyrone McKenzie.  He is very fast, and will finish a play.  He will stay on the field in all situations.

Nate Allen/Carlton Williams/Louis Gachette/Danny Verpaele.  The safeties are very experience and Gachette/Verpaele can drop the hammer.  Allen is always in the right place at the right time.

Not giving up yards.  Except for the last 4 minutes at UCF, the D has made tackles and stops.  To the extent the yards are being gained they are in small chunks, or on a busted play like Mike Greco's 32-yard run.

The bad for USF:

Production at DE other than Selvie.  We haven't had any.  Jarriet Buie is not getting to the QB, and his backup, Craig Marshall, appears to be more productive.  However, neither has had a sack yet.

LBs.  This is odd for this team, but Bruce Mompremier and Kion Wilson seemed a little lost out there, and Mompremier looks a step slow.  The enigma that is Chris Robinson has not done anything when he has played, albeit sparingly.

Depth at CB.  We have played a lot more zone this year, and are mostly in a nickel package.  However, the only 2 CBs you will see are Jerome Murphy and Tyler Roberts, as the 5th DB will be one of the above safeties and the backup CBs.  

Lack of turnovers.  We have forced 2 turnovers this year, which is very low for this team.

Good post, I can't remember C-Rob on the field at UCF. vs Tn Martin though, he was a beast when he got in. I don't know what his story is, but it needs to get worked out. This guy is an absolute stud on the field, seems to have work ethic issues I guess.

Brouce is doing fine, I think our LB production is changing because we are running a lot of Nickle D, it's just something we fans aren't used to seeing at USF, but I don't think there is anything wrong with what Brouce is doing on the field.

Actually didn't notice Kion on the field much on Saturday, could be because he didn't do anything, or, it just seemed like we ran a lot of nickle D...which by the way, I hate.

C-Rob played DE some against UCF, but no LB, as far as I could tell.  He doesn't seem to be as effective at DE to me.  I like him at LB where he is more of a disruptive force.

The only bad play I recall from Brouce was on the 31 yard scramble by Greco.  Brouce took a bad angle and let Greco free.  He did look slow in space on that play too.

We did play a lot of nickel, but when he got in I thought Kion looked better vs UCF than he did vs UTM. 

[feardabull]

MAN!!!!  The more I read about this game, the more freaked out I get over how similar we are!!!!

Quite frankly, this may be the game I have the most fun watching, whether we win OR lose.

[usfgrad84]

Is it just me or am I the only that doesn't really fear KU's offense and Reesing?  I think the guy is a good game manager and a decent QB, but I look back at the defense that he put his big stats up against and then I look at the other offenses we are used to playing against and shutting down the last couple of years and I respect guys like Brohm, Rusty Smith, Teel and Pat White just as much, if not more and for the most part we held all of those guys in check.

Reesing's a nice player and I like Kansas (pretty much because I had a great time and was treated real well 2 years ago out there), but he wasn't that impressive in the Orange Bowl (the defense was the reason they won that game). 

As I read more about them, I am thinking that Leavitt and the coaches better be ready for just about as many trick plays, etc than we saw against Rutgers.

[Jayhawker]

As I read more about them, I am thinking that Leavitt and the coaches better be ready for just about as many trick plays, etc than we saw against Rutgers.

Not from a Mark Mangino team. You'll see some tricky formations, but not too many extraordinary plays. One of our top receivers, Kerry Meier, was our starting QB two years ago. He still handles the #2 QB duties. You might see him on an end-around pass option, but I've only seen them execute it once.

The offense can be repetitive at times. There was one stretch in a game last year where Reesing threw six or seven straight passes across the middle on the exact same crossing pattern.

[Guest]

As I read more about them, I am thinking that Leavitt and the coaches better be ready for just about as many trick plays, etc than we saw against Rutgers.

Not from a Mark Mangino team. You'll see some tricky formations, but not too many extraordinary plays. One of our top receivers, Kerry Meier, was our starting QB two years ago. He still handles the #2 QB duties. You might see him on an end-around pass option, but I've only seen them execute it once.

The offense can be repetitive at times. There was one stretch in a game last year where Reesing threw six or seven straight passes across the middle on the exact same crossing pattern.

Meier did that against us in 2006 all night... pissed me off to no end.

UCF did it very well last week as well ... although some of it was a WR in motion rather than a drag route across the middle.

[Jayhawker]

There is a key difference since that '06 game. We had a pretty poor offensive coordinator. He brought out the worst in all of our QB. Ed Warinner (former Illinois assistant) was a godsend when he arrived at KU the following spring. His no-huddle attack fits Reesing perfectly, and really limits the turnovers and penalties.

[usfgrad84]

There is a key difference since that '06 game. We had a pretty poor offensive coordinator. He brought out the worst in all of our QB. Ed Warinner (former Illinois assistant) was a godsend when he arrived at KU the following spring. His no-huddle attack fits Reesing perfectly, and really limits the turnovers and penalties.

Jim is right, they did that all night and killed us in'06, but Meier wasn't the QB it was Barrmann who was the QB. 

Trust me, our OC in '06 was worse.  A lot of the kids we had that started on offense that game are now juniors and seniors including Grothe who was making his first start in a road game outside of FL.  One big differencefrom then until now,  When we went into that game our most experienced RB had exactly zero carries coming into the season.

One thing I noticed about Kansas, please Jayhawker correct me if I am wrong, but Mangino's teams are very disciplined.  They don't seem to commit a lot of dumb penalities

[jayhawk99]

Is it just me or am I the only that doesn't really fear KU's offense and Reesing?  I think the guy is a good game manager and a decent QB...

If the only game you are basing this on is VT then you really haven't really seen KU's offense. KU's passing game is a true spread attack, it's NOT based on a short passing attack (that would be KSU, not KU). KU is just as likely to pass to the flat, as they are to pass to a crossing pattern, as they are to throw 20 yards down the field, as they are to run between the tackles. KU truely "spreads" the field and attacks all parts of it. I will say that on the road last year, against teams like aTm and Colorado, we played things closer to the vest than usual. Both games we went with much more of a rush heavy, ball control type of offense. Against other teams on the road, they opened things up more. I think it depends on how they decide to attack a defense. The offense last year was very versatile and could shift gears from a high flying passing attack to a grind it out, power running game. Often mixing the two.

Reesing is a lot of things, elusive, accurate, competitive, strong armed, but calling him a "game manager" is a first to me. There are plenty of clips on youtube of him showing how accurate he is throwing down field; Reesing didn't have one of the top QB ratings in the nation by throwing nothing but short passes. And one thing you might notice on a lot of his highlights... he is incredibly accurate on the move. Flush him from the pocket, and he doesn't dump down to his safety valve- he guns it down the field. Top that off with the fact he rarely makes bad decisions (33TD, 7INT last year) and he often seems more dangerous when the pressure it on.

Understandably this is going to come off as a homer post on your board. I think, though, if you look at the numbers Reesing put up last year, it's justified. As a sophomore, he practically broke every single QB record at KU... not that we've had a lot of "great" QB's, but we do have over a 100 years worth to compare to. It's probably not far off to say Reesing is the best QB ever at KU (older KU fans will argue with me there- Nolan Cromwell, Bobby Douglass, John Hadl, etc...). Judging by the tone of some of the posts here, there will likely be some surprised USF fans when Reesing shows up on Friday. Reesing is a playmaker, not a game manager.

[usfgrad84]

Don't get me wrong because I truly like the kid and as I said in an earlier post I became a fan of KUs after being impressed and being treated really well by the fans out there, but I am basing my opinion on a combination of the horrible pass defenses he put up his numbers against and then his mediocre performance against VT which was the only relatively decent pass defense he played against all season long and then a very average, at best, performance in his biggest game of the year vs. Mizzou.  Personally, although he has had impressive numbers, I can't get a true read on just how good he is.

Just to clarify, I meant that he doesn't make a lot of mistakes and makes pretty good decisions.  That's why I called him a good game manager.

[seanr9ne]

Don't get me wrong because I truly like the kid and as I said in an earlier post I became a fan of KUs after being impressed and being treated really well by the fans out there, but I am basing my opinion on a combination of the horrible pass defenses he put up his numbers against and then his mediocre performance against VT which was the only relatively decent pass defense he played against all season long and then a very average, at best, performance in his biggest game of the year vs. Mizzou.  Personally, although he has had impressive numbers, I can't get a true read on just how good he is.

Just to clarify, I meant that he doesn't make a lot of mistakes and makes pretty good decisions.  That's why I called him a good game manager.

That Missouri game is not a valid benchmark for Reesing. A couple of our line players were banged up, but forced to play because of the prestige of the game. In this first half Reesing really didn't have any time to throw, and he was wearing a glove on his throwing hand due to the incredibly cold temperatures....now i know that is a pretty lame excuse, but he was throwing balls straight into the ground multiple times in the first half of that game, which he never really did in any of his prior games. He came out in the second half and was making some phenomenal throws after taking the glove off. Missouri fans will claim they let off the throttle defensively and played prevent defense all second half, but they were still throwing blitzes and the majority of plays they gave up were deep down the field.