USD/UNC GAME ANALYSIS

[yoteforever]

My son came up from kansas City to Ames today so I went to the Iowa State/Kansas game and missed my first USD game today.

I know we won, but how did we look? Strengths? Weaknesses?

How was the crowd, the tailgating, the overall atmosphere?

Fill me in as I am dying here. Thanks to you guys that texted me and kept me informed.

Fill me in now. Not tomorrow. haha

[88grad]

I'm afraid the crowd support was pretty poor and it's really too bad 'cause the 'Yotes brought their A game today. First series resulted in a TD and they immediately kicked an on-side and got the ball back. Badda-boom, badda-bing 14-0 Yotes. That's playing to win!

[usdfbalum]

USD came out ready to take some chances offensively to win the game and that is what they did.

USD was more physical on both sides of the ball, seemed a step faster, and seemingly had all the breaks today. For the third home game in a row USD's Kick return team knocked a defender senseless - the kickoff right after half in case you want to watch a replay on MidCo. USD can really hit when they decide to get after it.

Had some good pressure on the QB at times, but missed the QB a few times with poor tackling - think the OL of UNC was rather unathletic and had a hard time adjusting to our undersized quicker DL/DE/LB coming at them from a lot of different directions.

Our offense after getting up on UNC went back into control the clock, conservative style, until they needed a big play. Pretty much any jump ball thrown up longer than 20 yards was going to be caught by a USD receiver today. When USD decides to take some chances and gives their play-makers a chance to get the ball in space - they are really dangerous. I still think Dante can take off and run more if he wants and he would have tons of success.

Special teams was solid - that onside kick was a fantastic call! Great call by the coaches there.

USD looked to be clearly the better team in the way they played and how they looked from just looking at them in warm-ups.


I have not been this disappointed in attendance in years. It was embarrassingly empty. I would guess that 4000 were there today. (even though 6856 was reported.) Pathetic! Get with it Coyote fans. Why did this happen? I really think it amounts to the fact that both NE and Iowa had big games on TV at the same time and that kept many of the casual fans at home.

Kudos to the Band - that was their best performance I have seen. They did a special Halloween Halftime Show - really entertaining. They are a great group and always some of the best Coyote fans in existence. They know how to have fun - wish the rest of the student body shared even half of their passion.

Let's all do our best to get the Dome full of Coyote fans for Cal Poly. This will rank up there with UNI in my opinion as our best home game of the year.

Still have a chance at a winning record, but beating Cal Poly is the only way to do it.

[Coyote Fan]

yoteforever

Start of the game UNC fumbles the kickoff. USD scores on a 30 yard touchdown pass. USD kicks onside kick and recovers. A few plays later and it's 14-0 with barely over a minute gone. That was pretty much the beginning, middle and end of things for Northern Colorado.

The Bears did not show up for the game. Give the Yotes credit as they made sure they didn't allow UNC any hope. It was 24-0 at halftime and it was all coasting downhill from their. USD played well but honesty all they needed to do was play an average game to win.

The crowd was ok in size, maybe 8,000 but not as good as the UNI game. Other than the big plays, third down and scores it was a fairly quite crowd. The large Betty White, Lee Corso's TV friend, Sue from Glee and others showed up in the student section again. That is rather humerous to me. USD better sign the guy that was playing the halftime field goal kicking contest. He made a 30 yard field goal that would have been good from 45. If you didn't know he wasn't a kicker you could have easily been fooled.

I can't really speak for the tailgating during this one but by looking at it after walking by it seemed just a bit down this week as well. Not majorly, just a bit. The halftime performance by the band was interesting and entertaining. They did a tribute to halloween with Michael Jackson's Thriller and other creepy songs. The Adams Family was featured and the flag team was dressed in their halloween costumes.

It was interesting that for the first time they mentioned the Big Sky scores. Of course they had to sneak in a few MVFC scores including Indiana State's win that nails shut the Jacks body in their non-playoff coffin.

The USD defense was really, really good. I really can barely ever remember an instance with a USD player out of position. Chuck is making a definate impact. He has figured out most traditional offenses. Now we will see if he can find out a way to stop a spread passing attack which has been USD's achilles heal it seems like forever. At one point in the game USD had something like a 200 to 20 advantage in yards gained. UNC did absolutely nothing on offense during the times in the game were it was in doubt.

One of my biggest complaints is the continued insistant of Meierkort to give Ganious the majority of carries. Sims looked excellent. He hits the hole, fast and hard and runs north and south very well. Ganious always has to studder step and it almost always results in him getting fewer yards than he would be just running into the hole. Sims needs way more carries, like twice as many as Ganious instead of one-fourth the amount that Chris gets.

Warren looked good today and I advise you to find the replay of the downfield catch by Powell and you'd know exactly what I wam talking about. He is amazing, like hopefully someday NFL amazing. I don't know if I have seen a receiver make the amazing catches that he has been making that is at any level. Back to Dante, USD used him more effectively in moving outside the traditional pocket. He thrives in those situations.

IMHO I don't think this cures all ills for the Yotes this year. I do think that the most positive thing we have seen by far is a much more consistant defense. Really USD's offense has barely done a thing to help the D for quite awhile until this week. USD's D is really starting to find itself. That is with talent that I think isn't as good as what the offense has to work with. That shows the Morrell is doing a good job.

USD really came out in attack mode but then settled back down to conservative for much of the game. That is fine but I would like to see a bit more of a killer instinct. After the Bears got behind they had a couple of feet of intestine hanging out. I would have liked to see the Yotes completely gut the Bears a bit more but I will take a partial gutting this time around. If this was a more potent offense USD could have gotten into trouble but it's hard to say what the offense would have done had UNC actually scored when the game was in doubt.

[usdfbalum]

No way there was 8000 there. The main permanent seating has 5215 total seats, and that was very empty. More like 4000.

[Coyote Fan]

Oct 30, 2010 20:56:33 GMT -6 usdfbalum said:

No way there was 8000 there. The main permanent seating has 5215 total seats, and that was very empty. More like 4000.

You could be right. When sitting in the grand stand it is hard to see the entire main side of the seating. The fans reflected the teams performance from a week ago. The team didn't show up at S. Utah so the fans didn't show up the following week. Hopefully there will be more for the Cal Poly game.

[Iceman]

First of all, I would like to say that was a big and exciting win. I loved the way the coaches decided to come out and attack right away. After we got the fumble, I would have figured we would have run the ball. We went to the endzone first play. Then the onside kick as well? Those were all huge. Then first play after recovering the onside, a long pass and a heck of a catch by Powell. We were up 14-0 after a minute and fifteen seconds. UNC didn't know what to do. They really couldn't get anything going after that.

The defense played extremely well today as well. They keep stepping up more and more. I think Morrell is starting to feel more confident about his D.

The kicking game is getting better. Most of the kickoffs are getting deeper and his extra points and field goals have been looking good.

I really wish that the coaches took a few more risks like that a little more often.

I was really disappointed in the crowd. I mean come on! If you're a Coyote fan, you're a Coyote fan! Support the team no matter what! I couldn't imagine come a Saturday home game and just say, "Ah, I don't think I will go to the game today." What the heck? Support the COYOTES! This is for the students too! The student crowd was TERRIBLE today. Wow! I don't even know what to say about that.

Anyway, great win for the Coyotes today!

[#1CoyoteFan (Admin)]

I wasn't as impressed with the game as many other people were.

USD was given a gift with that opening drive and used it, which was great. Then the onside kick was glorious and another big play on ganious' run.

But that's when things started to slow down it seemed. During the third drive, USD over-thought itself in the red zone basically. They should've stuck with Marcus Sims plain and simple. In fact, they should've stuck with him a lot more even with Ganious' run. Sims hits the hole hard and has good size and speed.

The offense was hit and miss since that time. It seemed like Dante's accuracy was hit and miss as well. Nowotny and Powell both made some great catches to help with that though. Dante still has some vast improvements to make, especially his Tarvaris Jackson pocket presence. He needs to learn when to get rid of the ball and give up on the pass play and use his legs to get out of the pocket and either run or throw it away. It is REALLY bothering me.

The defensive line took advantage of a poor UNC offensive line, which was good to see. Caused a turnover as well. The UNC defense also gave USD some first downs on penalties on some third downs.

The kicking game keeps getting better. Seriously, four field goals in a row? That has to be a record in the last three years...

Anyway, there are still major lapses that need to be covered before Cal Poly.

However, the offensive line is doing a great job in run blocking and is good in pass blocking. The wide receivers have been great, even though Flanagan is having a bit of a down year than last year, but I think that's with Dante looking mostly for Will and Dusty.

The defense was good despite the loss of Broders. the defensive backs seemed to play tight as well. So there are a lot of positives to take out of the game. Seemed like Morrell was aggressive today, which I like.

[Iceman]

It did seem to slow down a little after those big plays. I agree. I think the coaches got to a point where they thought they had a safe lead, and let up on the accelerator. It would have been a little better to see the coaches keep pushing it farther for a longer period of time. I thought Sims ran really well today as well. The O-line blocked pretty well. I can see the Tarvaris in Dante at times as well.

I agree, I think Morrell was alot more aggressive today. Leon stepped up and had a great game. He was the leading tackler. I really liked aggressive calls by Morrell and I think that really caused some big problems with UNC.

[usdfbalum]

USD was not really given a gift on the opening KO - Marquis Butler (I think it was him) put his shoulder right on the ball and created a fumble. USD then took an aggressive shot and it paid off.

The Onside kick was another great aggressive call.

After you are up on a team 24 - 0 at half and your defense is playing well creating 3 and out situations - IMO it is smart to run the ball and control the clock. Just hope the coaches remember how they got the lead - aggressive play, and getting the ball to all of the weapons on offense. When Dante spreads the ball out to #17, 19, 1, and 5 - that is a lot for anyone to cover. Mix in the TE's and a good running game and it is even more difficult.

The Coyote Defense played a solid game - (the offense really helped them with Time of Possession. But if you think the Big Sky is a good conference keep in mind that UNC has scored the following in regulation so far this year against other D1 opponents: 34, 35, 7, 7. 7. 28. and 35 - the one TD games were against Michigan State, Montana, and Sacramento State. Today USD also held them to 1 TD as well.

As much as I hope USD is turning the corner, I think Cal Poly will be a very challenging match-up for the Yotes.

Let's get some more people in the seats. It is Senior Day and a great opponent.