UC Davis game 2013

[jimmer]

Our wide recievers need to get open. I was very disappointed with their efforts, and when they were open they'd drop bunnies

[canislatrans]

Hat tip to notkiotees on calling the Defense to shine, and they did.
The O Line and the Bruise Bros were quite impressive. During the pre game radio the press from UC Davis mentioned their D Line to be one of the teams strengths. I was especially impressed with. Our running game late, when everyone in the building knew we would be running and they were still very effective!
Great start, this is still a building process, but good signs of future success, even for this year!

[88grad]

Another bit of good news. I read in the Davis newspaper that the young man from the Aggies who was taken off on a stretcher is fine. He was taken for xrays and was found to have a neck strain and was able to make the bus with his team mates.

[94grad]

Sept 1, 2013 7:48:11 GMT -6 88grad said:

Another bit of good news. I read in the Davis newspaper that the young man from the Aggies who was taken off on a stretcher is fine. He was taken for xrays and was found to have a neck strain and was able to make the bus with his team mates.

That IS good news. I checked the aggies website and couldn't find anything- that was a long, scary break in the action.

Also, if anyone else was perplexed by the "turnover" in the box score, the botched punt was technically a rush for -14 yards and a lost fumble.

[cinemalover]

88grad, you're a good man.

BTW, did you notice how well the Aggies moved the ball with their new backup QB? He threw a TD pass that was called back b/c of holding.

[88grad]

Thank you sir. I don't think he'll be a back-up for long!

[obc]

QB - JVM looked more poised and did a good job making decisions. One bad throw into double coverage deep but other than that did not take many risks. His reads on the Pistol formation read-option looked really good. That should improve with more reps throughout the season. Needs to put a little touch on the ball for his short passes.

OL - best OL performance in over two years. The UC Davis defense is formidable and disciplined. They are little changed from their team last year that held SDSU to 182 net rushing yards and 12 points. This was good preparation for the MVFC defenses. The Center is really playing well. Congratulations to coach Harvey and strength coach Bowman. Your work with the group and their resulting progress was good to see.

RB - efficient runners - quick feet - good forward lean. The blocking by this group needs to improve - going back and watching the replay they were getting either run over by LBers or just whiffing on them too much.

TE - good blocking efforts by the TEs that played. They were the one position group that looked not covered well on pass situations by Davis. Not sure if JVM threw it their way once.

WR - good blocking by the group. They struggled to create separation from the tight press coverage Davis ran all day. Too many drops by the group.

DL - interior DL is improved. Their pad level was low and were not letting the OL establish a good push. Drew Iddings is playing extremely well. Having Greer, Jacobs, Praska, Davis rotating at the interior is a real strength. Praska will only get better as he learns the position.

OLB - Starr was getting the attention of two blockers when he approached the box. Lage was all over the field making plays.

ILB - solid play - really impressed how well true FR Wessel played. New addition Johnson played well - seemed to let OL get on him a little too much. Guziec was a good run stopper, but is probably the weakest of the group in coverage.

Safeties - Taverna and Swift are playing fast and aggressively. Both hit hard and stepped up on runs.

Corners - really solid play. Good speed. When both Knox and Bryant got beat deep they disrupted the respective passes. Bryant's late hit out of bounds did not prove to be fatal, but that was a bad one.

Special teams - this was glaringly the weakest area. Kickoff coverage were out of their lanes and it cost the team lots of yardage. Low snap on punt team hurt us. (I still think having someone as vital as Bouma play long snapper is a huge mistake). I fear this weakness will be exploited again by the MVFC teams.

Really solid improvements in many areas. Realistically this is going to be a very tough year. This team has a long way to go to be competitive with the top half of our conference.

Fans need to learn how to cheer and if the students could survive to see the second half, it sure would be nice.

[sdyotefan]

obc--I was at the game and agree with most of your comments. Under special teams, however, you neglected to mention our FR kicker Miles Bergner. While he didn't have a perfect game (missed 30 yd FG and had a low line drive KO), he nailed 3 punts inside the 20, had what proved to be the game winning 39 yd FG followed by a monster KO out of the endzone in the last of the 4th Q!! A very good start overall for a true freshman and congrats to him for being named the MVFC special teams player of the week!!!

[goags72]

Sept 1, 2013 12:24:53 GMT -6 88grad said:

Thank you sir. I don't think he'll be a back-up for long!

Laughrea is the real deal at QB for the Aggies but we have a recent tradition of sticking with starting players even when someone else is proven better. Laughrea had better stats in one quarter than Wright (our 4-year starter) had in three quarters. Hopefully the coaches catch up with what 100 percent of the fans on our web site have been saying since early August. Congratulations on the win.

[obc]

Sept 1, 2013 22:11:07 GMT -6 sdyotefan said:

obc--I was at the game and agree with most of your comments. Under special teams, however, you neglected to mention our FR kicker Miles Bergner. While he didn't have a perfect game (missed 30 yd FG and had a low line drive KO), he nailed 3 punts inside the 20, had what proved to be the game winning 39 yd FG followed by a monster KO out of the endzone in the last of the 4th Q!! A very good start overall for a true freshman and congrats to him for being named the MVFC special teams player of the week!!!

Very true - he will be a very good one for years. He was a huge field position advantage for the Yotes.

Also regarding the Davis back up QB (transfer from Boise) I can understand why he did not play more. He is a better athlete but he looked confused at times. My sense was he is still learning your offense. The Davis coaches perhaps thought if they had a seasoned QB that wouldn't get rattled and potentially turn the ball over your team would most likely win. I would guess the new QB will be a good one for you. On the Aggie board there are several fans pushing the panic button. There are frequent messages to the effect of: losing to a 1-10 team - can't believe we lost to such a bad team.
Those fans most likely didn't watch the game or know our history. The Dome is a tough place to play - has been for years. It is striking after watching the Yotes play NDSU, SDSU, N IOWA, ILL ST, and even W ILL in person last year - they were all more physical than UC Davis. Strength and Physical play seem to be the Strength of the MVFC. Colgate (a playoff team last year as well as the only team USD beat at home) was a decent team, but not better than the Davis team we just saw. I am sure they are built for success in their conference and your team will be built for yours. USD got a wake up call last year from the MVFC and will do everything they can to build a winner for that style.

Good luck the rest of the year.

[yoteforever]

Sept 1, 2013 22:11:07 GMT -6 sdyotefan said:

obc--I was at the game and agree with most of your comments. Under special teams, however, you neglected to mention our FR kicker Miles Bergner. While he didn't have a perfect game (missed 30 yd FG and had a low line drive KO), he nailed 3 punts inside the 20, had what proved to be the game winning 39 yd FG followed by a monster KO out of the endzone in the last of the 4th Q!! A very good start overall for a true freshman and congrats to him for being named the MVFC special teams player of the week!!!

What you say is very true, but the point OBC was making is that we were inches away from having some bad things happen not the fault of our kicker. The delivery of the ball from the center to the punter is slow compared to most teams, and when it is slow and also low, that's lethal. If you remember from last year, that did us in in 2 games. The lanes were not adequately filled therefore allowing big returns. Again, not the fault of the kicker.

I will say I thought he did a decent job overall. He did sorta shank a couple of balls off the right side of his foot, but in all fairness to him, that's maybe how he does it. Regardless, we got the win, and that's something we needed awfully bad.

Lastly, I don't want this to come off as criticism, but rather comment or debate, but does anyone else but me think our offensive line is so tight together? Maybe it's by design, but the spacing to me looks really tight.

In closing, kudos to Wesley getting the troops fired up to run out the clock. Those guys upfront were special when they were needed most. I like Bouma as a runner, he's gonna break one this year. 1-0 feels a lot better than 0-1. Good win guys.

[canislatrans]

In defense of JVM throwing into double-coverage, it looked like it was a stretch the field play. I didn't see another receiver down field. The other option, was to tuck and run (perhaps better) but then you don't get the defense thinking about the pass.
I loved Wes' offensive plan, and utilizing Terry, Roberts, Bouma, JVM heavily in the read-option is a winner. How do we get more WRs involved and stretch the field? It seemed at times, that UC Davis was filling the box.
If we can add that dimension, I think the offense can be really good!

[94grad]

I agree with obc's analysis. I'd just add a few things:

It looked to me like the student section was about 50% in the second half. I "thought" there were times last year when it was even worse than that. So maybe this is a step in the right direction. How can that be anything but disheartening to the players?

On the alumni/adult/whatever side..... While 90% of the crowd stayed past halftime, our noise level dropped 50% in the second half. Except on our offensive 4th and inches play when the crowd started roaring- get a clue people!

Starr had seemingly a quiet day, but..... It looked to me like he played maybe half the defensive plays. He was in coverage occasionally and double-teamed often as noted. However, he alone stopped the Aggie TD pass. Their RT was isolated with Starr on that play and had he not tackled him, thus drawing the flag, their QB was going down- no doubt. A huge play that didn't make it into the box score.

Let's hope we can be 2-2 (cross your fingers for Western Illinois!) when we get back to the dome on Oct 5!

[chuck]

For the sake of conversation, here are my probably obvious observations from an untrained eye:

The Good:
Even though we didn't have a scoring explosion, I was encouraged by the offense. Offensive line push was much improved, loved the downhill running style and the last clock killing drive was awesome--big chunks of yardage through huge holes when Davis was ganging up for the run. Running backs ran hard, hit the holes quickly, made decisive cuts, and continued to move forward after contact. QB overall demonstrated good decision-making (no INTs or fumbles that I can remember), better accuracy, and a cannon arm on a few deep throws. If we can tighten up some of the execution I could see us continuing to have an offense featuring strong rushing balanced with capable air attack. I agree,though, that the WRs weren't especially open all the time and there were WAY TOO MANY DROPS for D1 football.

Student section was great during pregame and the first half. Loved it!

Also liked the new introduction of starting lineups on the big board prior to the game--gave the fans a chance to see some off-field personality from the players.

Pregame video leading to the motorcycle-led team entrance was improved....but something is still missing at this time. Is it just me or is it difficult to make "YOTES! YOTES! YOTES!" work? To me there should be more of a buildup, more noise from the PA, and some type of unified coordinated effort to get the fans revved up, get loud, make a home dome advantage, appeal to pride in the university, make a difference in the game, etc. It can't be punitive (e.g., get your butts up and yell or else you are a loser), rather something that genuinely inspires the crowd to get the place rocking.

Maybe it was just my mood, but I still think the atmosphere during breaks could be improved. Flex cam etc is fine, but things just seem to die down most of the time. What else can be done to keep the entertainment factor going?

Defense--hard to complain when they only give up 7 points. Awesome job to the D! Seemed like there were quite a few new names making plays. Hope this trend continues.

Overall crowd--it is hard to tell, but it looked to me like the dome was about 90% full. Would love for crowds to keep moving up--what if 1/8 of the people that were at the game invited two people to the next game? We'd be in real good shape! Still would love to see more noise on 1st and 2nd down when USD is on defense, and be up and at it a little more during offense.

The Questionable:

Sorry student section, gotta say it. Would really love it if they would go out to get some "fresh air" at halftime if they need to and come back for another hour or so. Maybe I am oversensitive about it, but I think it really reflects poorly on the U when the student section numbers and energy drop in the second half. It wasn't terrible this week--like it has been during some past games--but it was definitely noticeable. Kudos to all the students that stayed and keep spreading the word that it isn't cool to leave. We really do have the potential to have a great student section--the first half was definitely very good! With a little more endurance we can have a group that affects the entire game and appropriately reflects our pride in USD.

Dome in general: We really should be thankful for the dome--so nice to watch that game on a HOT day in an air-conditioned environment. However, it is becoming apparent that the Dome renovations will really enhance game day experience. The concourse walkways are quite congested and the bathroom and concession lines are getting longer. Will be nice to have an expanded and renewed facility down the road.

OK, hope you all didn't mind my free flowing Monday Morning Quarterback observations--feels good to have a win in the record books and here's hoping we continue to see progress from the confidence gained from the opener.

[chuck]

Oh yeah, and as always thanks to the band for your major contributions to the game atmosphere. Liked the new uniforms.