Maryland: Soggy Defeat

Sometimes, you just can't win for losing.

BG had used all its promotional muscle on getting a crowd out for this game.  Everything, tweets, elementary school visits, signs...every lever was pulled trying to create a huge gameday atmosphere for what will quite likely be the last visit by a Big Ten team to the Doyt.  There was reason to think it would have succeeded....the Minnesota and Indiana games had huge crowds. 

Unfortunately, a tropical storm decided to sit over the stadium starting in the morning and continuing through the game.  BG had a very typical 16K in the seats and a typical halftime diaspora and by the time I left, it was the normal no traffic at the exit. 

I feel really bad for everyone involved.  It has to be very disappointing.  We just don't have a fan base that will sit in a rainstorm to watch us play. Hope there were at least some advance ticket sales.

On the field, it was less of a surprise.  What you saw on the field was a fundamental of the game of football:  if you control the line of scrimmage, you control the game.  Coach Jinks said that Maryland "physically kicked our tails" up front on both sides of the ball, and he's 100% correct.  You don't need any stats, you could see it.  BG could not run the ball at all...there was just nowhere to run.  And Maryland ran the ball at will.  (You don't need stats, but here are a couple anyway.  Clair had 2.8 yards per carry and Maryland averaged 8.4 as a team).

BG also had trouble protecting Doege, who was sacked five times, leading BG to throw mostly safe passes or max-protect fades in other to have a shot at getting the play off.

We've seen this before.  I remember in East Lansing, BG was doing well at half-time and MSU came out and stopped trying to throw the ball and went into a 13 formation and just ran the ball down our throats to get the win.  Those guys are bigger and stronger than our guys on a good day, and our personnel issues on the dline are well known.

Even with that, BG was ahead deep into the 3rd quarter.  As Coach mentioned after the game, BG had played "clean" without turnovers or stupid penalties and was leading 14-10 well into the 3rd quarter. 

That's true, it's a slightly misleading way to look at it.  The reason the game was close at that point was that Maryland had not played clean football (which reinforces Coach's point).  Maryland finished the game with 14 penalties for 139 yards and had 13 of those prior to finally taking the lead.  In fact, they seized the lead by scoring on a 3rd and goal from the 22 that was penalty-induced.  But there was no doubt that they were dominating the game well into the 3rdQ, score notwithstanding.

Anyway, Maryland kept the game close with those penalties but ultimately the one-sided nature of the play on the field was too much to hold back and when it broke it broke big.  Maryland scored 5 touchdowns in the last 19 minutes of the game....35 unanswered points to get a 45-14 final.

Coach gave the BG defense credit for staying in it, and I would as well.  They were getting punched in the mouth on every play and they seemed to punch back.  Over time, they just wore out from the beating and the tackling started to deteriorate and when it was done, it was done.

They were not helped by the offense, a point Coach made.  BG had two nice drives in the first half...an 89 yard, 14 play, 6:41 drive for one TD and a 5 play, 1:13 drive at the end of the first half that culminated with Doege scrambling and finding Morris wide open on a blown coverage for another TD.  He showed great QB instincts by keeping his eyes downfield on a very tough night where he appeared by the end to be as disoriented as everyone else did.

Beyond those drives, though, BG's offense won very few of its battles.  BG had 158 yards of total offense (UMD had 138 in penalties).  BG made only 13 first downs and 3 of those were given to them by Terrapin penalties.  Doege was 17 of 27 passing...for only 143 yards, which is 8 yards per completion...play calling forced on BG due to the protection issues.  If you deduct sacks, BG had 81 net yards on its passing attack.  Lastly, Maryland worked hard to take Scotty Miller away and it seems like Doege might be locked onto him a little.  At least a couple of the sacks were plays where he held onto the ball too long.

The last part of the tale of woe is injuries.  Scotty Miller appeared to injure his hamstring and that has to have the staff worried.  Hargrove left the game after a brutal shot on a KOR.  And Coach alluded ominously to defensive injuries and a "next man up" philosophy in his presser.

Coach made one last very odd comment.  He said "we're not satisfied by any means."  The context was having the lead into the 3rd Quarter, which is normally how he talks about the program's progress.

But, that's an odd thing for a man in his position to think he had to say.  I would certainly hope he isn't satisfied, at 6-20, with a six-game home losing streak that appears to be the longest in school history.  BG hasn't won at home in over 600 days.  Also, overall BG is on a five-game losing streak.  And while these last two games were certainly difficult assignments, they have both proceeded according to what you would have expected.  Until BG starts doing better than expected, the team is on track for a pretty long year.

So I would hope he isn't satisfied.

25 Turtle Questions

What is their body of work?

Maryland has never been great in football.  They brought DJ Durkin in to try and turn that around and it hasn't gone terribly.  As for 2018, they have had a pretty rough summer, as you know, but were extremely well-prepared to play and beat Texas in their opener.


How many seniors and juniors on the two-deep?

They have 30, which is a lot.  Big sophomore class sprinkled throughout the depth chart.

Who were their statistical leaders?

Last year, Ty Johnson was #15 in yards per carry. 

What was their turnover ratio?

They were +2 last year.

Offense:

 How is their QB play expected to be?

Well, that's interesting.  They used 2 QBs against Texas and say they will do the same in BG.  Kasim Hill played most of the snaps and Tyrell Pigrome also was in.  They were effective in both sets.  Hill completed 59% of his passes at over 13 yards a completion.

What was their scoring and yards per play?

They scored 34 points against Texas on 5.1 yards per play.  They definitely started out hot and then Texas adjusted over the rest of the game.  They were 100th in scoring offense and 119th in offensive yardage last year, so what we saw last week was a huge improvement.

Can they run the ball?

They struggled to run the ball against Texas.  They averaged 3.1 yards per carry.  Last year, they averaged 4.5 yards per rush.

Do they pass the ball?

As noted, they had good success with their passing game against Texas.  Also, note that their true FR Jeshaun Jones threw for a TD, ran for one and received one on his first three collegiate touches.

How was their run/pass balance?

Despite their struggles, they were committed to the run.  They had 58% running attempts against Texas and that was their percentage last season as well.  Remember, Durkin is a  Harbaugh discipline and Matt Canada coached at NIU with their rushing offenses.

Did they convert on 3rd Down?

Last year, they were one of the worst teams in the country on 3rd down and they were only 33% against Texas.

Did they score in the red zone?

They had 5 points per trip last week and were 3 points per trip last year, which is awful.

Did they protect the quarterback?

Gave up only one sack on 36 attempts against Texas.  Last year was terrible, they allowed sacks on almost 10% of passing attempts.

Defense:

Topline: Scoring and yards per play.

They were not good on defense.  They were #119 in the nation in scoring offense and in total defense. They allowed Texas 29 points and 5.4 yards per play, which would be considered an improvement, I would think.

Did they defend the run effectively?

No.  They allowed 4.7 YPC which was #92 in the nation.  They held Texas to 3.9 YPC.

Can they be passed on?

They were decent last year, ranked #62.  They allowed 59% completions for 11.4 per completion, both of which are pretty good.  23 TDS over 10 INT won't help your case.  Texas completed 54% but 12.5 per completion.

Did they get off the field on 3rd down?

They were bad last year, allowing almost 50%.  Held Longhorns to 3 of 15.

Do they defend in the red zone?

They allowed 5 points per attempt, which isn't great.  Texas scored TDs on both of their attempts.

Did they pressure the QB?

Not very good.  They had sacks on 3.8% of their pass defenses and had 1 against Texas.

Special Teams:

Punting?

Their punting game is not great.  Lees was #97 last year.  His average against Texas was only 38, but it included four inside the 20, which can impact your yardage.

Punt Return?

Their PR from last year is gone and they had one for 9 yards against Texas.

Placekicking?

After struggling last year, they have a new kicker.  He was 2-2 against Texas.

Kickoff?

Their coverage was not great.  They started the game against Texas on the 29.

Kickoff Return?

They started on the 24 against Texas.

Miscellaneous: Overall atmospherics and intangibles.

All right.  There's a lot here this time.

First, we're all aware of the turmoil at Maryland.  That said, they appeared very ready to play against Texas and much improved over last year's 4-8 team. 

Second, though, is that this is a classicly difficult situation for them.  They win week 1 in the Jerrydome and then the next week they are running onto the field at the Doyt.  This will be a test of Coach Canada's ability to get his team mentally ready.

Third, BG has put a lot of eggs into this basket.  The school has worked every angle possible to get people into the stands Saturday.  I hope it is successful.  The weather is all right, if not idea. A big crowd really helps our guys, many of whom have never played to a big home crowd. 

Fourth is that the game represents a huge opportunity for the program.  If they notch the big win in front of the big crowd, maybe some momentum turns around.  If they don't, then the opposite happens.

Fifth..beyond crowd issues, BG has a lot of pressure on it for this game. There has been a lot of hype and in front of your peers...it's a different kind of pressure.  A win builds confidence.  Even a close loss helps, if you're talking about a real close loss not a Mike Jinks we were two missed opportunities from being in the game at halftime close game.

Sixth, BG beat Maryland in Maryland the last time these two teams played and one year before Jinks was our coach.

Jinks Labor Day Presser

So, Coach Jinks had his presser.  It started out funny.  He was asked if he had watched the Oregon game and he looked back with a very straight face and said "just the first 15 minutes."

The media sat in stunned silence and Coach looked right at them before conceding that was joking. 

It was pretty good.

A few points.  He said BG got wide-eyed when the stadium was rocking, and of course, that's why it is hard to win there.  He said BG made a lot of mental errors.  The strip sack came off an unblocked DE when BG slid wrong and there was that snap over the punter's head.

He noted that BG moved Scotty Miller around a lot ("where's Waldo") which is something BG did with Freddie Barnes and Kamar Jorden under a previous administration.  By doing that, you can get him into the offense more often, and you need that while your other WRs develop a little.

Presley Motes has a "significant" injury and will miss extended time.  It's a relatively important injury, especially since it happened to a guy most BG fans have not heard of.  Motes was a JUCO transfer from Eastern Arizona who had been a QB earlier in his career.  Because of his Mormon mission, though, he's 23 and a full-grown man and the staff projected him as a TE right away.

The thought at the time was that it would allow BG's 2 TE recruits (Papez and Lachey) to redshirt.  I'm guessing he still wants to redshirt them because in the presser Jinks said he might need to "create a TE" to help BG's running and protection game.  Dorian Hendrix has been listed as the other TE, but apparently they are still looking elsewhere.  Maybe borrow someone off the D-line or one of the backup O-lineman.  Matt Tanner?  Grant Loy is the right size! 

Punting will be an open competition this week, to no one's surprise.

Lastly, BG is putting a lot of promotional weight behind the game on Saturday.  BG players are going into the schools this week to help get the young people excited and send them home bugging their parents to go to the game.  He says BG needs to get more in touch with the community and I think he's right.  When I was growing up, you saw everybody you knew at the football game--and men's basketball for that matter.  It would be great to see those ties be re-built.

Past and Future Opponent Land

Oregon   (NA)
Maryland (1-0) Looked very impressive beating Texas.
EKU (1-0) Beat Morehead State 49-23.
Miami (0-1)  Lost 35-28 to Marshall in Oxford
Georgia Tech (1-0) Beat Alcorn State 41-0
Toledo (1-0) Beat VMI 66-3
WMU (0-1) Lost to Syracuse 55-42 in K-Zoo.
Ohio (1-0) Struggled to beat Howard 38-32, with Maxwell replacing Rourke in-game.  (FWIW, Howard was picked #2 in their conference).
Kent (0-1) Lost 31-24 to Illinois.  They have an Auburn transfer at QB who is good.
CMU (0-1) Lost 35-20 to Kentucky.
Akron (0-0) Game in Nebraska cancelled due to lightning.
Buffalo (1-0) Beat Delaware State 48-10.

MAC vs. P5:  0-5
MAC vs.  FCS:  5-0
MAC vs Group of 5:  0-1
East vs. West:  0-0

In case you were curious, James Morgan started for Florida International.  He had a rough first quarter, was replaced and then came back later in the game and led the team to a TD.  Butch says there's no clear difference between his 2 QBs.

Romping Ducks: Breakdown

So, to take a little closer look at the game last night.

The biggest takeaway is that BG should be able to move the ball in MAC games.  Even if we end up in shoot-outs, at least they are competitive games you have a shot at winning.  And if the defense does improve as promised, then you might have a shot to win some games.  Which would be very welcome for everyone involved.

Coach said after the game that Presley Motes went out early with an injury.  He's our TE.  The idea was we wanted to play "11" (one RB, one TE) formations to help us block the Oregon DEs but with Motes out we are to go to "10" (one RB, no TE) and that put our tackles basically 1-1 with the Oregon DEs.  Coach noted that it proved to be a very tough matchup for the Falcons.

Doege had a good game but still showed some inexperience at times, especially on the two picks he threw.  He was blind-side strip sacked by one of those DEs who blew by our T untouched. 

He also did a lot well.  He's meant to play QB.  He ended up completing 22 of 38 (58%) for 253 yards, which is not bad.  3 TD, 2INT, 3 sacks.  The offense can still improve and we eventually won't be playing DEs like that all year and we'll have more of our playbook to work with and I think he's going to be very effective.

Scotty Miller had a huge, positively Barnesish game, catching 13 passes for 166 yards and 2 TDs.  He caught 13 of the team's 22 completions.  It is hard to imagine how he keeps getting open when he's the obvious primary threat, but he did.  Morris had 3 catches, Clair 2 and a few guys had 1.  One thing I noted in my offensive preview was that after WR2, BG has unproven WRs in a position where depth is really needed.  Hopefully, that will continue to develop.

The running game was effective, in general.  There was lots of very tough runs.  The new upsized Andrew Clair had 25 carries for 113, which is 4.5 yards per carry.  He did break off some nice runs and then there were plenty of times where there was just nowhere to go.  Denson was 12 for 36, which is a little less effective and Hargrove carried only 4 times for 8.  Obviously, it is harder to run from the "10" than the "11" yet BG was forced to stick to the run because of the protection issues for Doege.

The defense.  As Coach said, "we are who we are."  Here's a number for you.  Oregon averaged 28.1 yards per completion yesterday.  In fact, I don't think most people would suspect that they only completed 11 passes in the whole game and that was on 26 attempts.  BG ran a lot more plays, primarily because Oregon kept scoring so fast.

As Coach noted, Herbert threw some dimes but guys also have to make plays and they did not do it as often as needed.  BG did have 2 picks.

Anyway, Oregon's main RB averaged less than 4 yards a carry and the team as a whole averaged 5 yards per carry.  They were steady---they lost only 6 yards on designed runs in the game--but BG did win some battles.

Brandon Harris led the team with 7 tackles.  Belton and Coleman had 6 each....(remember, Oregon didn't even run 70 plays).  So that's the LBs making the stops, not the D-backs, which I would assume is a good thing.  Josh Croslen had 5 tackles on the inside of the line, something you don't see too often.  Stephens broke up 3 passes and Gregory 2.  Walder had the only Falcon sack.

Anyway, there's a long way to go on defense.

Special teams.

Well, Nate Needham made all the Xps and a 36 yard FG, so that is on the positive side of the ledger.  I thought the KO coverage was really good.  Oregon has a real player back there and the long was only 26 yards. 

As for BG's return game, Hargrove was doing the kickoff returns and had 88 yards in 5 attempts, which is not great at all.  With BG's proclivity for getting penalties in the return game, you wouldn't get any objection from me if you fair caught it to start at the 25 and then let Doege go to work.

So.  Punting.  It was rough, especially early.  Tinnerman averaged 33 yards a kick for the game, which is obviously not very good.  He has punts of 12, 37, 45, 35, 42, 27, which really only puts a couple in the range you'd like to see.  On the other hand, none of the punts were returned, so the net was also 33.  Even so, that is #92 in the nation for the week.

BG did last Mason Lawler take the last kick and he hit a 38 yarder.  Also, there was the snap over the head of Tinnerman and a few other snaps that were not right on target.  Essentially, the punting game led to 16 points for Oregon.

So that's the story.  The result was about what you would have expected and maybe a little better.  As Coach says, it's hard to take positives out of a game like that, but there were a couple but I'm not sure we saw any evidence that this team is ready to break out.  Doesn't mean they aren't or won't, just remains a question.

Romping Ducks: The overview

Things went pretty much as expected, in the final analysis last night in Eugene.  It was obviously an easy win for Oregon, but not nearly as bad as some of BG's previous P5 games in the Jinks era.  Oregon is just much better than BG and that's fine.  There were a couple positive elements that might point to BG being able to compete in MAC play.

The game started off very well for BG, although it was a little deceiving.  BG got "stops" on Oregon's first two possessions, but those stops consisted of wide-open Oregon receivers dropping passes.  Meanwhile, BG did move the ball, and was up 10-0 with 5 minutes left in the first quarter.

On first down Herbert misdirected the BG defense and ran for 37 yards to put Oregon into scoring position.  BG strung together 3 good plays for force a 4th and 14 at the BG 33.  The Ducks went for it and threw a TD pass on the 4th down play.  That's a big conversion for them and a painful one for us and that sort of opened the gates.

BG's offense responded and moved down to the Duck 32 where they had their own 4th and 2 and BG went for it and didn't get it.  Oregon was clicking now on offense and had a 3rd and 2 on the BG 24 when the Falcons actually did get the stop and appeared to have forced a FG but then the Falcons were hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for something like "not obeying a referee's instruction on a uniform issue."  They called Clint Stephens' number.  No idea what was behind that.

Anyway, Oregon converted that into another TD.

In BG's next possession Doege was stripped on 3rd down and that led to another Oregon touchdown and a 21-10 lead.

Coach said after the game that the offense needs to respond in situations like this--which tells you what kind of team we are going to have.  The offense needs to get down the field and eat some clock.  Which they did not do, making one first down.  Then, BG's punter, making his first collegiate punt, shanked a 12-yard punt.  Two plays later it was 28-10.

BG started at their 11 off a penalty on the kick return, Doege was sacked back to the BG 3, BG went 3 and out and then snapped the ball over Timmerman's Tinnerman's (we regret the error) head on the punt for a safety and it was 30-10 and essentially, the issue was decided.  At this point, there was 5:42 left in the 2Q.

For good measure, Oregon took the free kick and scored again and then the Falcons did begin to generate offense again and it was 37-17 at halftime.

Then, BG came out and threw a pick 6 on the 3rd play, were sacked on 3rd and 3, punted Oregon to the 13 yard line and Ducks threw an 83 yard completion on their second play, making the game 54-17 with 9 minutes to play in the third.

As Coach said afterward, hard to have a worse start to a half than that.  BG didn't quit, to their credit, and in fact Oregon didn't score again, though you have to think they pretty much could have named the score they wanted to see.

In his presser, Coach came in jacked up.  You can tell by the speed he was talking at.  He was agitated.  He said what you have to say, which is that the team just has to get better, made way too many mistakes and as good as Oregon is, BG has "a long way to go on both sides of the ball."

More to come.

Season Prognostications: Various scenarios

The OMG-Mike-Jinks-Forgive-Us-We-Were-So-Wrong Season.

8-4, 7-1

Beat:  EKU, Miami, Buffalo, Kent, Akron, Toledo, CMU, WMU
Lose:  Oregon, Maryland, GaTech, Ohio

The Finally-Some-Progress Season

6-6, 5-3

Beat:  EKU, Miami, Kent, Akron, CMU, WMU
Lose:  Oregon, Maryland, GaTech, Ohio, Toledo, Buffalo

No-better-than-before Season

4-8, 3-5

Beat:  EKU, Kent, Akron, WMU
Lose:  Oregon, Maryland, GaTech, Ohio, Toledo, Buffalo, Miami, CMU

The-not-impossible-scenario

2-10, 1-7

Beat:  EKU, Kent
Lose:  Oregon, Maryland, GaTech, Ohio, Toledo, Buffalo, Miami, CMU, Akron, WMU

That's what those things look like. With the 3 P5 games, it is just tough for BG to rack up a huge record.  Conference games are most important, so if you look at that 6-6/5-3 record, you'd have to feel at least OK with that.  If you beat OU and maybe lose one of the cross-overs, you could end up with the East title.

That's going to be tough, though.  Basically, you can only lose 1 game against Miami, Akron, CMU, WMU and Buffalo.  If that can happen, it will be a very pleasant surprise.

Note that I have a win over Miami in the 6-6 scenario.  I can't see us getting to 6-6 without that win.  Essentially, it would probably mean a 1-5 start and I just think it would be very though to sustain that into the second half.

I don't think we go 2-10 but you can't rule it out.

If you want my guess, I think the 4-8 is most likely.  Buffalo, Miami or CMU could be won and BG might be 5-7.  I don't see us getting to 6-6, but perhaps I am wrong.  It would be fantastic, that's for sure.