Second viewing thoughts and grades: UMass

I was in my car and following the game on my phone, so by the time I watched the game Saturday night, I was calm and knew BC crushed UMass. Had I watched live, the first quarter might have been a little more tense and upsetting. Watching with the outcome known was very calming and reassuring for the season. Brown had been the big question mark (and he looked pretty good). There were a few spotty areas, but this was the start to the season BC needed.

Offense: A-

Statistically Brown was great. Considering his limited preseason, Brown was great. When you factor in the injury, Brown was great. But his passes were a bit off target. I know his completion percentage was good, but he still threw behind some guys or not exactly where the ball should be. Against a better team he will get burned with that stuff. I thought his decisions were good in the passing game. I think he will need to present himself as a running threat in our more challenging games. With the way UMass was biting on the end arounds/sweeps, there could be huge plays for AB if he fakes the handoff.

I know a lot of people wanted Dillon to pad his stats, but I was fine with his game. He didn't get his usual viral highlight, but the pass catching alone showed major improvement. Levy and Bailey were fine. Jones got the TDs, but we had such a size advantage against UMass, I don't know how much of that was him vs our OLine.

Two of White's catches were beautiful. I felt like Smith could have done more after the catch and handoff -- he had space and just didn't get the right hole. Marten had a career day for him. I was a bit surprised none of the other guys turned their catches into big plays.

The OLine was fine. It is hard to judge this game because of two factors that made the whole area muddled. UMass stiacked the box a lot but also was undersized on the DL. We were winning battles but not exploding because of how their back seven played.

Loeffler called a good game. I think it was good to move Brown around. He needs to get used to rollouts and bootlegs since so many teams are going to focus on our run game. I had no problem with the subs in the second half.

Defense: B+

The only surprising part to me was that our defensive line starters didn't dominate in a more pronounced fashion. Allen was fine, but not speeding by the UMass guys. Smith had a nice INT. Ray was fine.

Strachan is another guy who looked good coming back to action. Jones made some nice plays. DePalma got extended playing time.

Sebastian had the biggest coverage breakdown of the game (the first UMass TD) but was ok after. Denis' INT was nice, as was the runback. Harris was fine. Torres was fine.

This was a very vanilla scheme and that's fine. No need to do anything special unless the opponent and game situation calls for it.

Special Teams: B-

I know you can excuse some of the special team's issues to losing our long snapper (Martin), but there were some other issues too.

We allowed a long kick return. We were not aggressive with our own returns...including punt returns.

Overall: A-

I could get nitpicky about the start or letting UMass get some garbage time points, or hammer Addazio for Special Teams but it was a pretty darn good showing. He had the more talented team and they played that way. It was a relatively vanilla approach, but probably what we needed for the start. And to Addazio's credit, the depth and talent improvement is more obvious in a blowout. The second teamers come on and BC still looks better than their FBS opponent.

Next week should be an even easier game, but I think we can trust Addazio not to screw it up. He certainly didn't screw up this game.