After watching a replay of the Tulsa game, I feel much better than I first thought. My first impressions were not very good.
1. Granted, we still can’t give Ollie the openings he needs to gain yards. But, I now see more clearly that Tulsa was putting 7-8 players in the box to clog all running lanes. As a result, the passing game was electric. I don’t think Tulsa thought Bowman would be as accurate as he was on long plays.
2. As good as Bowman was, there is still room for improvement in the RPOs. On several occasions, he should have kept the ball and passed. Instead, he handed it off to Ollie when there were 8 men in the box.
3. As a group, our wide receivers are very fast and athletic. I don’t think many dbacks can cover them by themselves. Once they begin to double cover Stribling, Owens, and Shettron, that will give Ollie more room to run. We had few, if any, pass drops, and Ford is quickly becoming a receiving threat at tight end. I’m not sure how you cover him, Brennan, and our wideouts at the same time while keeping Ollie from running rampant. But, that’s not our problem.
4. I thought the defense was sound most of the game. The dbacks were very good, and had many dbus. The points Tulsa scored was against our reserves. Given the fact that we lost Oliver to injury, they seem to be holding together enough to keep us in games. We’ll have to have our offense score more points to make up for Oliver’s loss, but I believe we have the skill players to do that. Our online needs to block the run better, but the pass blocking has been very good. Because of that, Bowman has time to survey his options, and deliver the ball to the best option. He’s doing a very good job.
1. Granted, we still can’t give Ollie the openings he needs to gain yards. But, I now see more clearly that Tulsa was putting 7-8 players in the box to clog all running lanes. As a result, the passing game was electric. I don’t think Tulsa thought Bowman would be as accurate as he was on long plays.
2. As good as Bowman was, there is still room for improvement in the RPOs. On several occasions, he should have kept the ball and passed. Instead, he handed it off to Ollie when there were 8 men in the box.
3. As a group, our wide receivers are very fast and athletic. I don’t think many dbacks can cover them by themselves. Once they begin to double cover Stribling, Owens, and Shettron, that will give Ollie more room to run. We had few, if any, pass drops, and Ford is quickly becoming a receiving threat at tight end. I’m not sure how you cover him, Brennan, and our wideouts at the same time while keeping Ollie from running rampant. But, that’s not our problem.
4. I thought the defense was sound most of the game. The dbacks were very good, and had many dbus. The points Tulsa scored was against our reserves. Given the fact that we lost Oliver to injury, they seem to be holding together enough to keep us in games. We’ll have to have our offense score more points to make up for Oliver’s loss, but I believe we have the skill players to do that. Our online needs to block the run better, but the pass blocking has been very good. Because of that, Bowman has time to survey his options, and deliver the ball to the best option. He’s doing a very good job.
