Saturday, September 20, 2008

A win with plenty of questions

This might be the most misleading score in recent BC history. We have the best D in the division...and the shakiest QB. At this point I'll take the "W."


Aside from the D, I loved what I saw from out WRs and the offensive line. Montel Harris has great, great potential.


As for Crane and Davis. There's plenty to talk about over the next week.


I'll have second viewing thoughts and grades Sunday nightish.

15 comments:

bc1900 said...

UCF offense looked awful and that is a team that gave USF trouble. We definitely have a great defense. Sometimes Crane has zip and looks good, then he plays like a jv qb. I just don't get it. His decision making MUST improve.

Anfield10 said...

I agree with ATL, that was a massively deceptive score. My dad called and was like "wow you guys must have been awesome" and I was like uh...no but there were bright spots. I like smith and haden, but harris really has "it"...he makes people miss, has great hands and has real speed. i think he'll be the starting rb and we should look to smith on screens and the like. the defense looked seriously stout, and gives me hope for a good season as long as crane can limit it to one turnover a game or something

CatabEagle said...

Great game for the defense, they should keep us in every game as long as we limit the turnovers in the opposing team's redzone.

Really frustrated with the game calling by Logan. The spread offense demands a qb with accuracy. That is not Crane's strength. I think if we adjusted back to a TOB type offense we'd make less mistakes and win low-scoring affairs. We have the OL, RB(Harris), and TE(Purvis) to make it happen. As Shanahan has done in Denver, you build your team around your QB's strengths and weaknesses. We are not a passing team this year. BTW, I think Davis looked worse than Crane. He's not close to ready.

BCNorCal07 said...

Bostonfoodie: I'm going to have to disagree with you on Davis. Davis got very limited playing time and wasn't asked to do much in the passing game. Also, his decisions on the read-option were not the best. However, he only threw one bad ball (that I can remember) and it was actually the right read, just slightly underthrown.

Crane, on the other hand, was awful. He threw nearly a dozen balls directly to defenders. Two of the interceptions were awful throws and then there was the horrendous screen pass that should have been pick-sixed. Yes, Crane had a handful of good pass plays, but I don't think he could have made the read on the TD to Anderson that Davis did.

It's just an opinion based on one game, but Davis is less mind-numbingly awful right now than Crane is.

bill said...

My favorite Crane-bash play of the game was his almost pick on a screen pass. Seriously?!? When I was a freshman we used to get on Tim Hasselbeck's case, which in retrospect was an over-reaction, but I'm amazed we haven't heard any "We Want Davis" chants yet.

Joe Bags said...

Bill - I didn't hear a "We Want Davis" chant, but I'm pretty sure I heard "Crane Must Go" coming from the student section in the second quarter.

Bravesbill said...

Maybe the "We Want Davis" chants were drowned out by the "UCF" chants. It's sad that their limited number of fans were able to be significantly louder than BC fans throughout most of the first 3 quarters of the game.

eagleboston said...

I am not a Crane backer by any means. However, I did not see anything out of Davis that makes me believe we would be better with him at the helm. I think he has tremendous upside and it may make sense to play him as he is clearly the future, but that does not mean he will perform better than Crane.

What we really saw today was that BC needs to go back to the run and use it to open up the passing game. We only gave the rock to Harris 14 times today. We should double that in ACC play. Harris is a pleasant surprise and I would argue he is more productive than Haden. Of course, we need to keep in mind that both are true freshmen. They will only get better.

chicagofire1871 said...

Cue the SNL music, "Lowered Expecations"

Joe Grav said...

Are you guys serious? Davis was pretty bad... and Crane had a decent second half.

Also, I know people are frustrated, but for the love of god, don't boo Chris Crane. It seems pretty obvious to me that he has a confidence issue. We're there to support our team, not to rattle them.

Eagle1 said...

I'm not a Crane fan (yet), but swapping him out for Davis is not the answer at this point. Davis was good at running the option. That's it. He threw a couple of deep passes that were so slow and wobbly, that I thought they were on their way south for the winter. I've seen teenage girls with better arms.

Big Jack Krack said...

I'm on the record as saying that we need to support Chris Crane as well as all of our players and coaches.

To those of us who boo Crane, who do we think we are? Yes, he had some bad plays - and yes he had some very good plays. If the coaches want to go in a different direction, or platoon or whatever, that's one thing. But Davis hasn't knocked Chris out of the starting position yet, with all due respect to him. Until then, support this college quarterback - he's playing his heart out.

And for those who want to look to the future, Tuggle may emerge as our best QBnext year anyway.

Eagle in Brighton said...

QB issues aside (and why we don't gear the passing game around Purvis), I couldn't get over how good Montel Harris looked- a complete and utter surprise.

Going into the season, we knew QB would be a Q-mark, but to a certain extent, so was RB. To see that thunder and lighting dynamic perhaps becoming established (along with Haden/Smith)was really nice to see.

The game Saturday was far from perfect, but all is not gloom and doom at the Heights.

BCNorCal07 said...

Harris looked fantastic and really took over in the second half. His decisiveness and quickness through the hole are really special. Hopefully he'll get the plurality of the carries going forward and the Smith-Haden combination gets used like Maurice Jones-Drew: change-of-pace on the ground and great hands coming out of the backfield.

I know that it sounds like I'm really down on Crane, but this team is still full of potential. The D is special, the O-line looks good, the receivers showed they can carry the offense and the running backs are really coming along. A lot to look forward to in the coming weeks.

Bravesbill said...

Whether booing Crane is right or wrong is debatable. However, if you can't handle being booed, then you shouldn't be playing sports.