Second viewing thoughts and grades: Central Michigan

[UPDATE: Sorry for the chopped copy and typos. I wrote it late Sunday and pushed out a draft instead of the final.]

Addazio thinks his issues are injuries. The reality is that it is offense. This game reinforced that. Addazio waste scoring opportunities and that is a primary reason why these games can be frustrating live and rewatching. This week the place to point was the FG attempts. But there was more than that. Fumbles on potential scoring drives. Bad execution on a few critical plays. If anything, Addazio's recruiting (i.e. superior talent) is what won this game. Not some sort of brilliant game plan or great adjustment.

Offense: B-

They kept it simple for Brown and he was fine. Mostly short passes. He is still not as accurate as we need. There were times when he threw behind guys and they had to stop or adjust. I did appreciate that he was more willing to tuck and run as needed.

Dillon was over 100 yards for the first time. Much of that was behind good holes from the line but he did make a few reads and cuts that were good. Hilliman was productive too. The TDs are a big deal, although it felt like it was less about him making a big play. More like it was his turn on the drive. 

The OLine was good. The only big mistake -- the safety -- seemed more like an unaccounted for corner rushing in. I don't think that was a missed assignment on Montiero. Petrula had a snap issue, but in general played well. There were lots of big holes on the right side.

I don't know why our WRs can't break bigger plays. I guess, I am glad they are showing solid hands and pulling things in, but where are the big runs after the catch? The three main targets -- Sweeney, White and Smith -- were fine but we didn't open things up nor break anything open. Thadd Smith got swallowed up on his one sweep. Sometimes he might need to read and cut up field. 

It seemed like BC wanted to run the ball and given the field position, it made sense. BC never really put Brown at risk and did what it needed to do. But that doesn't mean the Loeffler didn't have some issues. There were some slow developing plays -- the first 4th down, the safety -- that are so frustrating given the time and place of the game. In those moments, execution is primary and we continue to look sloppy. 

Defense: A-

Landry is basically our defensive decoy. I understand moving him around. I don't love the idea of him getting snaps at LB. Anyway, while he is getting all the attention, it enabled the rest of the DL to have their best games. Ray looked good. Allen had some big plays. Ray Smith was solid.

Bletzer keeps playing better than I thought he would. He's blown up that quick pass to the flat multiple times. He's making tackles. Lamont is very active too. New LBs sometimes seem a step behind the play, but Lamont is pursuing with authority. Schwab was good. 

Denis is having a great year. I know many of his INTs are just bad throws that he is waiting on as sort of a center fielder. But he is still tackling well. Still doing well in coverage. Harris was fine. He's active but I still feel like he is also missing some guys too. Yiadom and Moore were both good. 

One thing that bothered me -- and I feel like it is becoming an issue -- was the continued missed tackling. How many times did Central Michigan extend a play when the initial tackler didn't make a stip and no one helped? Reid and Addazio need to fix that issue. Reid didn't need to do much creatively. Central Michigan played that poorly.

Special Teams: B+

The only reason for the lower Special Teams grade was due to the missed field goals. I hope they don't become an issue.

Walker really shined. I know CMU screwed up the punts and coverage, but Walker still made good decisions on fielding them and was very aggressive on the returns. Those returns calmed the O and changed the game.

Knoll was good. The kickoffs were fine. It didn't make a difference but I thought it was interesting that BC elected to kick after the safety instead of punt.

Overall: B-

I hope he learned his lesson on 4th down, but my fear is Addazio did not learn anything. I think he still views game plans as those reserved for powers and those used against weaklings. What he should see on 4th is that good things happened on one of the drives, leading to a score. And on failed attempt, it did not lead to CMU points directly. 

If Dillon is really banged up than keeping him on the field late will be viewed as another mistake. I actually have no quibble with Dillon getting caries late. He's young and the idea is to help him grow and develop. More snaps does that.

Beyond strategy and player usage, the one thing that I do give Addazio credit for is not doing a full panic when Central Michigan got the safety early. When things are going poorly, a moment like that can seem like "here we go again." But it wasn't. Instead the team stuck with the game plan and overpowered Central Michigan.

BC should have scored more. BC should have tackled better. But in the end, they did enough to win. I don't feel better about Addazio, but I hope this serves as a boost to the team.

In-game comments post: Central Michigan

We need a win in the worst way and we are playing a bad team. Let's do this.

Leave your thoughts and comments below.

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Game Watches: Central Michigan

Here are this week's game watches. Add any others that might not be listed.

Chicago Game Watch
Tobacco Road Tap Room
2249 N Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL 60614

San Diego Game Watch
Striders
100 J St
San Diego, CA 92101

BC-Central Michigan preview

There's nothing like having a must win game against a MAC team five weeks into the season! But that is where we are. I don't think Addazio would get fired right after a loss, but like we've all been saying, he needs this win to keep the season from falling apart. Maybe that pressure and facing a MAC team will finally get him to take some chances.

What's on my mind (not totally related to this game)
Earlier this week I mentioned that a friend (and major Addazio critic) sitting among BC players' families and coaches' families at Clemson felt that the mood was still positive. Since then another friend who was at Clemson and spoke with some players' families said his/her story was different and there are signs of frustration. Could both be right? Sure. Last year when I went to the Wake Forest game, I saw and heard some parents openly critical of Addazio and others who were still happy. My concern with all of this is that when you lose your locker room or coaches' room, the season can fall apart quickly. (Look at Spaz's final two years.) While I think Addazio has lost majority of the most passionate BC fans, it does seem like there are still plenty of players and coaches on board. They have their respective playing and coaching careers in his hands...so a lot more skin in the game than the typical fan. Let's hope their trust and faith pays off.

Three Simple Keys
1. Keep Brown healthy and productive. There is talk that Brown might not be 100%. (And given how Addazio dealt with Callinan, I don't expect a straight answer.) To win this week, he needs to play well, be given easy decisions and needs to stay healthy. It wouldn't hurt if he tried stretching the field a bit more.
2. Stop the zone option read. Every QB this season has run on us. That can't happen this week.
3. Do not punt from CMU territory. BC needs scoring opportunities and can't waste possessions. I am sure Addazio can rationalize punting against Clemson, but you can't this week. I also think playing ultra-conservatively against CMU will upset the home crowd.

Gambling Notes
-- BC leads the series 3-0
-- Addazio is 14-3 against non-Power 5 while at BC
-- Addazio is 16-20 coming off a loss while at BC
The current line is BC-8

Factoid
The last time BC started 1-4 was in 2012 (Spaz's last year.) The fourth loss was the embarrassment to Army.

Scoreboard Watching
Florida State-Wake should be very telling. The 'Noles have been hit with injuries and a hurricane-based schedule change. Even though they haven't looked great all the time, Wake is standing at 4-0. If they can beat FSU, it will serve notice that they are for real. It will also mean that Florida State is really broken down.

What I hope to see...
Some explosive plays. BCI touched on this earlier this week, but it is incredible to me that we don't make big plays. The talent passes the eye test. They look bigger, stronger and faster than previous BC skill guys, yet we can't seem to generate big plays. Either our talent is highly overrated, or our coaches are really misusing them.

BC is in trouble if...
The OLine looks sloppy. Last week they were very, very good. This week's nagging injuries might mean more shuffling. If they do move guys around, those guys better adjust quickly. A sloppy game will be bad for us.

Overall
Despite all the injury concerns, I still think this game is going to be fairly uneventful. I think BC controls from the start and unlike our previous win, the game does not get close late. Instead I see BC closing the deal with a fourth quarter score.
Final Score: BC 27, Central Michigan 17

National outlets picking up on Central Michigan game

BC subtly included Central Michigan in a scheduling email last week. Based on the email, Richmond was out and a one game series with Central Michigan was set for 2017.  According to FB Schedules BC is paying CMU $650,000 to come to Alumni.

Like some other scheduling moves, adding Central Michigan is an improvement, yet not exactly where BC needs to be. The good news is that BC won't play an FCS game next year. That's a huge change in recent strategy and a change in how other Power 5 teams are scheduling. While BC's 2017 won't include numerous non-conference heavyweights, there won't be one cupcake. That should earn some praise from the national critics who mocked our 2016 schedule.

The only downside is that although it is a huge improvement over Richmond, I don't think many BC season ticket holders care about Central Michigan. In 2009 a good BC team facing a very good Central Michigan team only drew 34,000. Can we expect anything better next year? I hope so, but wouldn't count on it.

Second viewing thougths and grade report: Central Michigan

I missed watching the 4th quarter live while trick-or-treating. I watched the whole second half back after the kids went to sleep and then the whole game back after the wife went to bed. Through all the viewings I couldn’t put my finger on why the second half was so much better than the first. It was a series of little things that clicked, that didn’t click in the first. You can chalk it up to being “flat”, but that's sort of subjective. Ultimately I think we stopped trying to force things and took what they gave us. Hopefully any "flatness" doesn't come out in the final three games.

Offense: B

Shinskie had trouble with the long ball yesterday. Maybe it was the wind but for whatever reason, his deep passes, which have been pretty good, were missing their targets. What I liked about Shinskie’s day though was his improving feel for the pocket. One time he stood through the rush and then took off on a short run. Other times including the bootlegs, he got rid of the ball at just the right time. He seems comfortable on the crossing and slant patterns. And he made the most of a few broken plays – like the pass to Anderson. We hoped for a bounce back performance after last week and we got one.

Harris didn’t bust a series of big plays, but put together a solid, even day. He also got in the passing game for the first time in a while. McCluskey relieved him on our thin depth chart and looked fine. We should really make an effort to get him into the passing game since he looked good as a pass catcher last year.

Gunnell out of the slot might be the biggest no brainer in football. The past two weeks he has shown the ability to burn the safeties or LBs covering him and he is finding the spots in the zone on crossing routes. Larmond stretched the field, Shinskie just didn’t connect with him enough. Jarvis made a big play. Nice to see Flutie get the ball, but he’s got to get to the first down marker on those third and shorts.

With things shuffled a bit, the offensive line did not miss a beat. There was trouble running the ball early, but that was more due to CMU crowding the line. Claiborne got a lot of attention for his pulling but Cleary had his best game of the year. Richman was fine. Tennant was solid. Castanzo looked good.

Pantale looks good in the passing game but yesterday he impressed me with his blocking. He did a good job getting to the second level and helping Harris extend some of his runs. Anderson had a big play for the first time in a while.

I can’t confirm that we do, but I assume that we are scripting our first few series (everyone does). What bothers me is that our scripted plays seemed to struggle so much. For example, yesterday, CMU seemed ready for our running and crowded the line. Our counter were some deep balls, but the wind probably made connecting on those more difficult. Later, when we were probably off the script, we started killing them with short passes. I was glad we made the adjustment. I just wish we showed a little more flexibility early. But I do want to give the offensive staff for getting more guys involved and for not limiting anything based our limited running back group.

Defense: B

It was nice to have Scafe back. He’s not 100% but looked very good. Although the Dline didn’t get to LeFevour all that much they were able to flush him out. Much of that pressure came up the middle from Scafe. Giles and Rossi were fine. O’Neal looked okay. Newman had a solid game. Ramella was good.

At times this year, Kuechly has probably been a bit overpraised. Not yesterday. He was everywhere and made some big plays, including the INT. Morrissey was a bit more helter skelter. He had some great plays and then some that weren’t so great. And it wasn’t a case of him looking good in the pass game but not in the run or vice versa. He just was a bit inconsistent, but overall he was solid. LeGrande was good. DiSanzo was ok. Thompson and Clancy got on the field late and were okay.

Although Central Michigan completed 24 passes, it wasn’t because the DBs had a bad day. Much of the Chipps success was due to dump offs and check downs. Bowman looked good. Davis was active. Rollins played well as did Fletcher. Gause was fine.

Special Teams: B

Quigley is doing a great job of pinning back the other team on punts. He's really developing well.

The kick offs were good too.

I am frustrated by the continued fair catches on punts. Hopefully we get aggressive soon.

Not much to go on via the kick returns. They were fine but we only had two.

Overall: B

I had a bit of concern when we did not look sharp early and let CMU hang around most of the first half. Then to the staff’s credit, we made adjustments and pulled away. There were no distractions. There was no sense of malaise. We put Notre Dame and the transfers behind us and won. We have now achieved our first benchmark for success. There is still so much to play for. Let's hope Spaz gets the guys peaking at the right time.

Nothing scary

As people know, I am not for lowering the bar when it comes to BC sports. But I do want to congratulate Spaz for getting this team to a bowl. Few outside the program thought we would be in this position come November and even in the watered down postseason, going to a bowl is still an accomplishment. Now let's finish strong.

As for the actual game...those who went trick-or-treating didn't miss much. After a slow start, BC put in a solid effort.

I'll have my second viewing thoughts and grades up late Sunday.

In-game comments post: Central Michigan

This is all the BC football you'll get for two weeks, so enjoy it. Can Spaz rally the troops again? Will CMU give us another scare? We will soon find out.

I will not be online during the game. Leave your thoughts and comments below.

Game Watches: Central Michigan

We are back on ESPN U so some of you need to head to a game watch. I know there are Halloween conflicts for us parents, but you kidless fans out there need to head to your local game watch. Extra points for those who dress like Baldwin for Halloween.



Atlanta Game Watch
STATS
300 Marietta Street NW
Atlanta, GA

Chicago Game Watch
Trinity Bar
2721 N. Halsted (Diversey & Halsted)
on the border of Lincoln Park and Lakeview

Dallas Game Watch
Christie’s Sports Bar
2811 McKinney Avenue
Suite 22
Dallas, TX

Denver Game Watch
The Tavern Uptown
538 E 17th Ave.
Denver, CO 80203

Los Angeles Game Watch
Sonny McLean's
2615 Wilshire Blvd.
Santa Monica


New York City Game Watches

Still
192 3rd Ave @ 17th
Manhattan


Pat Obrien's
88st and 2ave


Phoenix Game Watch
Gallagher's Sports Grill
7575 N. 16th Street, Phoenix


San Diego Game Watch
RT's Longboard Grill
1466 Garnet Avenue
Pacific Beach, CA

San Francisco Game Watch
Shanghai Kellys
2064 Polk St
San Francisco


Sarasota Game Watch
Gecko's Grill & Pub
5585 Palmer Crossing Cir.(Clark Road & Honore Ave.)
Sarasota, FL


Washington, D.C. Game Watch
Porter's Dining Saloon
1207 19th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036

BC-Central Michigan preview

Like last week this game doesn’t mean much in the big picture, but has huge implications in our little world. First, we need to rebound from last week’s loss. Second, we must prove we can win despite the distractions of the transfers. Third, we need to avoid any sort of “trap” game. CMU is very good, but we still should win this game at home for a variety of reasons.

Narrative talking point that you’ll tire of by the end of the game.
“Dan LeFevour made his college debut against BC four years ago.” We may get tired of it especially if he is playing well but it is a legitimate storyline. LeFevour is an interesting case. He was lightly recruited, went to a MAC school, was forced onto the field against a BCS team and then nearly led a comeback. Sometimes we see a glimpse in a freshmen, predict stardom only to find out that game was an outlier. Other times, like in LeFevour’s debut, that first game really is an indicator of things to come. It’s BC’s misfortune to have to face the best CMU QB twice in four years.

Three simple keys

1.Establish the run. This is troublesome when we are thin in the backfield, but I do think we should be conservative in this game, limit LeFevour’s possessions and control the ball.
2.Get pressure on LeFevour. Arizona is one of the few teams that sacked the CMU superstar. We need to bring pressure. The kid showed he could pick apart our zones four years ago. He has only gotten better since.
3. Aggressive special teams. We’ve fair caught many punts over the past few weeks. It is time to help out the offense and return a few. Central Michigan has good, but not great punting. Gunnell needs to make something happen.

Gambling notes
-- BC has covered the spread in the four of their last six against the MAC.
-- Butch Jones is 2-7 against BCS teams.
-- Since the DIA split, Central Michigan has never beaten two BCS teams in one season.
The current line is BC-5.5

Factoid
Because of the way the calendar fell and a few Thursday night games, we played on Halloween three times in the ‘90s. This is our first Halloween game of the '00s.

Scoreboard Watching
Clemson has a non-conference game, so they are of no concern this week. Instead I'll be paying attention to how Virginia plays against Duke. UVA is favored at home against a Blue Devil team that has many similarities to ours.

I hope to see…
The defensive line dominate. I know these guys are all dinged up, but no one has really stepped up of late. If we are to make a run, this group has got to make some big plays.

BC is in trouble if...
Shinskie doesn't improve his decision making. Last week was bad obviously. In other games some of his more blatant missteps weren't costly. This week, he should play smart football and not force things and check down when needed.

Bottom Line
Central Michigan is a good team but I think there are too many factors pointed towards a BC win this week. This is their third straight road game. We are their third BCS team on their schedule, yet they haven't played a team as talented or fast as BC in six weeks. Our guys have shown the ability to bounce back from tough losses. I think they do it again this week, contain LeFevour and pull away in the second half.
Final Score: BC 35, CMU 17

CMU's TV slate vs BC's

ESPN U decided to pick up our game against Central Michigan. That's good news. However, the kickoff was pushed back to 3:30. That's terrible news for attendance. Since the game is on Halloween, I think there will be plenty of no shows. I will gladly miss good chunks of the second half live to take my little ones out.

The second issue related to the game was a fact I read in CMU's press release:

With the addition of the ESPNU telecast, 11 of the Chippewas' 12 regular season games in 2009 will be televised either regionally or nationally. Seven of those games will have been produced by the ESPN family of networks.

11 of their 12 games were on TV?!? BC has already had three games relegated to ESPN 360 and may have more. How does that happen? I know we get much of more money from ESPN than Central Michigan. But why doesn't the extra $$$ come with extra TV support? The whole concept is backwards. I agree with Gene in that 360 is better than just radio, but in our new TV deal we need to have guarantees that nearly all our games will be on a true TV platform.