Second viewing thoughts and grade report: Kent State

(Grades and thoughts are here this week. Still testing what drives traffic here and what moves the needle at Eagle Insider.)

For those of you who have been reading these recaps over the years, there is somewhat of a pattern. I am almost always more optimistic after watching the game a second time. Perhaps taking away the emotion allows me to view things with a more evenhanded perspective. Or perhaps the subtleties make me realize that the plays didn't just go wrong because "BC is cursed." Other teams make plays too. Watching back the Kent State game made me feel better. BC still has some glaring weaknesses, but most are correctable. With some tweaks here and there by the coaching staff, this team can compete and beat every team on our schedule.

Offense: B-

I only marked Shinskie down for six bad throws. Seriously! Sure, he got lucky on Swigert's TD, but overall he improved and made a few nice passes. He still locked in at times (the Lee TD) and still aired some of his early throws, like the pass intended for Montel, but he got better. So now that he has shown that he can spread the ball around, and hit spots, I would like to see him work in more slants and crossing routes. Marscovetra's two series didn't show us much. I didn't like the INT, but I think the limited playing time and the low scoring game (at the time he entered) invite a young QB to take risks and force things.

Harris got the touches, but couldn't find his holes or his rhythm. Most of his troubles were due to the offensive line and Kent State's scheme, but Montel did lose one carry. Fortunately BC held on. The much bigger problem with Harris was his pass protection and blitz pick up. It is so strange too to watch it happen. Since Sirmans took over as RB coach, our running backs have been great at picking up blockers. Saturday was the sloppiest effort since Sirmans has come aboard. Harris was slow to react and didn't do his usual solid job of keeping guys off the QB. Phifer was good in mop up duty. McCluskey got plenty of reps as a lead blocker but didn't get to do much else. (Let's throw him the ball soon.)

The WRs and TEs were excellent. I only counted two drops. Lee especially did a great job of pulling down tough passes. Swigert did a nice job adjusting in traffic on his TD. Pantale and Anderson both played well. Coleman continues to play beyond his years (for a guy who hasn't played much football, he showed a good football IQ in recovering a fumble).

The biggest problem on the whole day was the offensive line. I know Kent State crammed the box and made an effort to stop the run, but there is no excuse for some of the things that happened. Too many times Kent State DEs and LBs were allowed to run freely into the BC backfield while our lineman turned the wrong way and blocked no one. And some of the mistakes came from some of our smartest and most consistent players like Claiborne and Castonzo. What was going on? Were the line calls not getting communicated? Can experienced Seniors be that lost? What ever is wrong is coachable, because this unit has talent. Coaching OLine is probably the hardest job in football. Not because it is technical, but the opposite. The techniques are pretty basic. What is hard is getting five ginormous men to act in concert together. BC did not show that unity this weekend. From the outside and as a long time observer, I think there must be communication issues. How else can you explain guys letting men run free. Communication mix ups would also explain why and how Harris was so out of place on pass protection. One other note about the oline: Spinney looked pretty good when he filled in for the injured Nathan Richman.

I am neutral on Gary Tranquill and this game had all the elements that leave me torn on our ancient OC. I think Tranq does a good job making adjustments, but I think we waste too many possessions trying to figure out what will work. Aside from wasting time, my problem with the "testing/probing" mentality is that you never establish an identity and it seems to create confusion. I also think we need a little variety in the red zone.

Defense: B

Alex Albright had his best game in years. In addition to his INT, he also was in on many tackles and showed the burst that has been missing since 2007. Newman played well early but then didn't do as much late. Scafe looked pretty good as did Ramsey. Rudolph made a few plays. Although no one broke the game open, I liked the hustle and discipline of some of the young guys like O'Neal and Kasim Edebali.

I still can't get over how much ground Luke Kuechly is able to cover. His speed is very underrated. He had another solid game and I only saw one missed tackle. Herzy continues to look better with each play. He made some nice open field tackles. KPL was good although he got a little tangled up in pass coverage. Morrissey was OK. It was nice to see DiSanzo back on the field. He missed an early tackle but settled down for a nice game. The others are still not being used much...which is a shame.

All the DBs looked better than last week. Donnie Fletcher had a nice game (including special teams). Davis got a little lucky with the INT, but turned it into something big. Noel made a big play and showed great awareness.

This was a pretty conservative plan but it worked. I would hope that all the wrinkles are being saved for ACC opponents. I also can't complain since the plan was close to what I recommend Thursday: "Giving Spencer multiple looks"

Special Teams: B+

Aside from Freese's shanked opening kick off, Special Teams played well. The kick and punt coverage were much better (with special mention for LeGrande).

Quigley was fine.

I know Gause scared some people with his sloppy and reckless form, but I think the aggressiveness is just what BC needs. It is so much better than watching endless fair catches.

Overall: B

If the offensive line had played better, I would have given the whole game a better grade. We have two weeks to fix that and Harris' blocking issues. Other teams will see what Kent State did and challenge BC with a crowded box until BC shows it can handle the pressure and stunts. That's on Spaz to make sure we are ready. But overall I felt he had the team ready for this game and made adjustments as needed. Now let's hope he has the team peaking when we take on Virginia Tech in two weeks.

Building block win

Far from a perfect game but it is another positive win. BC showed definite improvements from last week and definite improvements from the first half to the second half. I was a little alarmed by the offensive line breakdowns. It will be interesting when I watch back to see the causes of the problems upfront.

The lesson of the day is that the ACC is wide open again. I'll have second viewing thoughts and grades up late Sunday.

In-game comments post: Kent State

Spaz keeps talking up Kent State, but I am still not worried. Hopefully this game is uneventful and Shinskie takes a big step forward. You can leave your thoughts and posts on the game here or join the discussion on Eagle Insider or follow me on twitter.

I will probably tweet periodically through the game and may have a comment or two at half time.

Game Watches: Kent State

I know ESPN U now has a wider audience than it did two or three years ago, but a sports bar might still be the only option for many of you. And since it is on ESPN U, you will not be able to watch the game on ESPN3.com. So far Game Watch notices have been light. I imagine there are still BC fans meeting in the normal hangouts in New York and San Francisco, but I haven't heard anything official. Certainly send me a note if there have been changes in venues.

Chicago Game Watch
Trinity
2721 North Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60614-1413


Denver Game Watch
Big Game Restaurant & Lounge
1631 Wazee St
Denver, CO 80202




Washington, D.C. Game Watch NEW LOCATION**
The Rookery
2519 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC

BC-Kent State preview

I am not scared about this game nor am I building up an opponent like Lou Holtz might, but this is easily the best Kent State team we've faced. They have a good mix of returning starters, a solid defense and showed signs of life in their passing game last week. BC should control, but it will require a little more focus and intensity than playing Weber State did.

Narrative talking point that you’ll tire of by the end of the game. "Eugene Jarvis is only playing with one kidney..." First let me state that I am not making light of Jarvis's toughness nor the seriousness of his injury. I just fear that since it was BC that knocked him out of his Senior season, and it was that injury that led to the discovery of his single kidney, that we will be hearing a lot about the sixth-year Senior's story. Jarvis is one of the toughest 5'5 running backs you will ever see, but he is not the key to this game. BC has proved as much in the past two Kent State games.

Three Simple Keys
1. Give Spencer Keith multiple looks. We were fairly vanilla on defense last week. I don't expect Spaz to show all his cards with Virginia Tech looming but we do need to mix things up with Keith. He is efficient and accurate and will move the ball if we just play base D with our standard zone. A few blitzes, dropping more guys into coverage, or something to keep him guessing.
2. Move Shinskie out of the pocket. Shinskie is not Michael Vick, but he moves better than most recent BC QBs and he seems pretty comfortable rolling out. A few bootlegs or other designed plays to get him on the move might create some easy plays and help improve the offense and his efficiency.
3. Improve kickoff coverage. We finally have a kicker who can actually generate a touchback. But on the returned kicks we looked a little slow and out of position in a few spots. It must be tighter for this game.

Gambling Notes
-- Kent State is 3-29-1 in their first road games of the year.
-- Doug Martin is 1-12 vs BCS teams
-- Spaz is now 7-1 at home

The current line is BC-17.5

Factoid
After this game, BC is not scheduled to play another MAC team until 2015. Our last MAC-less season was 2001.

Scoreboard Watching
Miami takes on Ohio State and Florida State plays Oklahoma. For better or worse, how these two play will determine the national perception of the ACC. If we ever hope to get two ACC teams into the BCS, we need both to win convincingly.

I hope to see...
A better defensive effort. I know it was the first game and I know most of the yardage came after the game was no longer in doubt, but I really want to see a better effort from our defense. They have enough talent to be dominant and need to establish that mentality early in the season.

BC is in trouble if…
Shinskie has another rough day. I am not harping on his mistakes. I actually thought he did some nice things. But if he puts up similar numbers against Kent State, it doesn't mean we will lose, but it probably means we will have a tough time with good defenses.

Bottom Line
We didn't learn much from last week. This week will be a better indicator of what's ahead. I still believe in this team's potential for greatness, so I am expecting a very, very good performance. I think Shinskie will be better and the defense will be intense for 60 minutes. BC controls and gives us hope for Virginia Tech.

Final Score: BC 31, Kent State 6

Second viewing thougths and grade report: Kent State

Hindsight is why I watch these games back. Initially I thought the offensive line was terrible. Watching back showed the game to be a subpar performance for the big guys, but not as hopeless as it felt watching it live. The QB review was similar as one of our guys did emerge (in my mind). Like Northeastern, this was a limited opponent that was a perfect way to start the season, but we can’t infer too much. We’ll know more next week, but this is what I thought watching back a second time.


Offense: B-

Tuggle’s first two passes were terrible. Once was in the wrong zip code and one was nearly picked. From then on, he settled down and started to look very promising. He distributed the ball well. He made good decisions on running. His long passes were a mixed bag as far as timing, but he showed he has more than enough arm for this level. His stat line wasn’t dominating, but I felt he had the better day and I think he has the better sense of the pocket and a better football IQ. Shinskie on the other was not as good in my opinion. He has a good enough arm and is probably more athletic than you would expect, but his decisions were not great. He also has a tendency to lock in on one target. That will get him burned against better competition. For example on his INT he put up too much air, under threw it and threw into double coverage. A Clemson DB would have picked it off and probably stayed on his feet. Marscovetra’s looked fine in his limited action. In my mind the job should now be Tuggle’s until he does something to lose it.

I said before the season the WRs are very talented. Gunnell showed great hands and great route adjustments. Larmond obviously has real raw speed, but is also doing well in space and in pulling in tough throws. I was glad Megwa got back in the flow of things.

Pantale had a few nice catches. My bigger concern with the FBacks/HBacks/TEs was the blocking. They did not open many holes, did not get to the second level quickly or effectively, and they got plain beat/blown up several times. It wasn’t pretty and is a definite area to work on.

Harris earned every yard yesterday. Other than one long run where he wasn’t touched until he was 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, he got hit early and didn’t have much to work with. Haden had a few decent runs, but was also dealing with poor blocking up front. Haden also blew two blitz picks ups by my count. I liked Finch’s combination or balance and power, but most of his yards were in garbage time.

Although not as bad as I initially thought, the offensive line was not good. Castonzo did not dominate the guys across from him and totally blew his assignment that got Shinskie planted into the turf. Cleary struggled in the run packages (both zone and man). He shared snaps with Richman who looked ok. Tennant was pretty good but did have few unfocused moments in the pass blocking. He also didn’t look great when pulling during our running game. Last year many of the holes came from Tennant’s area. Not so against KSU. Claiborne had some rough moments early in the game. Admittedly he got better later in the game and did a great job picking up oncoming Safeties when KSU delayed blitz. Lapham, in his first game of the year, was the most consistent of the starters. The second teamers got in and looked adequate. As I said, the mistakes weren’t as plentiful as they felt watching live. However, they were going up against a small Kent State front seven. We should have dominated but didn’t. The grab bag approach (some zone, some man) doesn’t seem to be working as the traps didn’t open much and the zone stretches didn’t create much. This group had four guys return and were great last year. They shouldn’t struggle this much, even when the other team is crowding the line. If they don’t get things together against Clemson, we will have real tough time going forward.

So far I have no problem with Tranquill’s play calling. It has been conservative but with a good mix of run pass. He’s also been taking what the defense’s give him. Kent State loaded the box, so we threw. The QBs are further along than I predicted at this point. The WRs look great. The only issue so far has been the blocking (by everyone). The line has underachieved so far, the RBs look like it is not an emphasis for them any more, and the HBacks/TEs have been liabilities. If Tranq is going to have a big year, the blocking needs to improve soon.

Defense: A-


The defensive line has raised some of the same concerns I have about the offensive line. They haven’t been terrible…just not as dominant as I think they should be. Albright has played real smart and covered a lot of ground...yet didn’t get to the QB. Giles is proving to be good at DT and is creating a lot of penetration…yet didn’t make a big play. Scafe was productive…yet many of his tackles came off the line of scrimmage. Holloway got his first sack...yet also had a dumb personal foul. Newman covered a lot of ground but no big plays. Ramella lost contain a few times.

The linebackers were nearly perfect. Kuechly is getting a lot of attention, but let’s talk for a minute about the other guys (who’ve been very, very good). LeGrande is making a great adjustment to replacing Herzy. He’s looked good in the run game. His tackling has been solid and he’s done a great job in the passing game including his INT. DiSanzo has also been very good. The stats only credited him with one tackle, but he was more involved than that. The long lost Darius Bagan had the best game of his BC career. He was also very active. Morrissey looked good and seems to have a good feel for this defense and positioning. He made a few key tackles and tipped the ball on Clancy’s INT. Clancy looked good. Kuechly was very good, but my main criticism is that he bit on play fakes hard. It’s not a surprise since I think he is trying to tackle everything he sees. That aggressiveness is good but good teams will pick up on that. We also allowed a few big passing plays over the middle that caught Morrissey and Kuechly out of position or in mismatches.

The DBs didn’t get to do much. Rollins was active but mostly in snuffing out run plays. Fletcher and Johnson also had big days just coming up to stop the run or close out on short passes. Bowman had another one of his kill-shot tackles (he’s going to be very intimidating as the season wears on). Davis did most of his work in special teams. Noel looked good for a freshman.

Defensively our scheme was pretty vanilla. We only blitzed five times. In fact we rushed three and dropped eight more often than sent pressure. This is to be expected since we didn’t need to do anything special and you want to save wrinkles for Clemson. We shut down their two biggest weapons in Jarvis and Morgan. The only sustained drive and the only scoring came in garbage time. No complaints from me.

Special Teams: B

Other than his one kick out of bounds, Quigley was the star of the game. His kickoffs were solid and deep. His punting was fantastic as he managed to pin Kent State repeatedly.

Gunnell and Lee weren’t able to do much with the punt returns.

The kick coverage was solid and as I mentioned, Wes Davis was really hustling on Special Teams.

Jeff Smith returned a kick for the first time in eons and looked good doing so.

Overall: A-

As I said yesterday, Spaz had the team ready and the game was never in doubt. That shouldn’t mean much against a low-level MAC team but a look at college football scoreboards shows that you should take nothing for granted. We need to play better in the trenches once ACC play begins, but this was undoubtedly a good start to the season.

Another win, a few answers and remaining questions

After seeing other teams struggle with DIAA and MAC teams, I will not complain about a win. In fact, winning in this fashion provided relief and hope. The defense looked impressive again and there were some bright spots on offense and special teams. However, through the live viewing I don't think the offensive line played all that well. The QBs also had some rough moments too. We will need to see real improvement from both groups if we expect to win at Clemson.

But at the end of the day, we were mentally, physically and schematically ready and Spaz remains "Mr. Perfect." So far, so good.

Second viewing thoughts and grades late Sunday.

In-game comments post: Kent State

With weather like this, I don't mind being in Atlanta watching on the laptop. Let's hope Spaz continues his perfection.

I will be online during the game but will probably not be making comments. Leave your thoughts and reactions below.

BC-Kent State preview

In retrospect Northeastern was a scrimmage that counts in the win total. Kent State, while overmatched, still represents a challenge and a test to see what we have. I expect the opponent's tackling to be better, the speed to be better, the schemes to be better, but the end result should still be a BC victory.

Narrative talking point that you’ll tire of by the end of the game.
“After last week where the ACC saw two teams lose to FCS schools, you never know what you’ll get…” Although I am guilty of it at times, I am always bothered by the media narrative to attach flaws of a few conference schools to all of the conference. Duke and Virginia suffered embarrassing losses last week. If Kent State pulls off the upset it won’t be because we are an ACC school and ACC schools are somehow more susceptible to upsets. If BC loses this weekend, it will be due to bad football.

Three Simple Keys
1. Get to Georgio Morgan. The KSU QB threw two picks last week against Coastal Carolina. BC needs to put pressure on him and force more mistakes and incompletions.
2. Take advantage of the short and intermediate passing opportunities. Given how last year’s Kent State game played out, I expect them to try to stop the run. This will force us to throw more than last week. Whoever is the QB will have to hit those short routes that are in the soft spots of the zone.
3. Contain Kent State's big plays. Kent State is not going to light up the scoreboard. If we keep them from breaking two big scoring plays we should be okay…regardless of what our offense does.

Gambling notes

-- While at Kent State Doug Martin is 1-9 vs BCS teams
-- While at Kent State Doug Martin is 9-23 on the road
-- BC has not lost to a MAC team at home in 43 seasons
The current line is BC -20

Factiod
Akron and Miami (OH) are the only two FBS schools in Ohio that BC has yet to play.

Scoreboard Watching
The most important game for us is actually being played Thursday night in Atlanta. Clemson is our next opponent, the first real test of the season and Spaz’s first conference game. Ideally they would come into our game next week defeated and uncertain about their new staff. Let’s hope the struggle against the Jackets.

I hope to see…
More passing. Last week was fine, but not really a test or indicator of what we have at QB. Let’s open it up a bit this week and see what each truly has to offer.

BC is in trouble if…
Kent State moves the ball with ease. The defense looked great last week. Kent State has more weapons than the Huskies could ever think of having. If we cannot contain them, it doesn’t bode well for the season to come.

Bottom Line
Little did we know that last year’s Kent State game would prove to be a good template for the remainder of the season. Crane looked off but the offense did enough to win and the defense was outstanding. I think we will have a similar result this weekend and hopefully it will be another sign of good things ahead.
Final Score: BC 28, Kent State 10

Photographers on the scene in Cleveland

Although the stadium was far from full, BC fans could be seen around Cleveland. Those who went had good things to say about the city and the stadium. Thanks to LBI Eagle, Kelly Z, and Brian for taking the pictures below.