Furman v Western Carolina Game Thread

[The Jackal]

Give credit where credit is due. Western is up and coming. They have some serious speed and I liked the look of that Freshman QB. Offenses in college football are progressing faster than the defenses can keep up. Look at the number of track meets/shoot outs with 40 + points on Saturday. It am pure horror show!

So, I certainly think from what I saw Saturday that WCU clearly had some serious speed, size, and depth at WR. Hendrix mentioned that in the pre-game, and it was pretty obvious in the game that they were a real offensive problem.

WCU has put up yards on everyone. Where they struggle is in scoring in the red zone where their vertical routes and speed are somewhat mitigated by the shortened field. We just kept playing right into what they do well offensively.

As I have thought more about it, I think that the style of defense we are trying to run is a more high pressure style with a lot of cover-3. To some degree, that is going to cost us every now and again. It's going to lead to more defensive turnovers. Both of those things have been true this year.

It strikes me that Saturday we didn't make a lot of adjustments to accommodate for WCU's size and speed at receiver. If our young CBs are struggling with covering their vertical routes, we need to give them help. On the long TD on the slant route, we had no apparent inside help - basically the WR just had to beat the man to the inside and then he was going to run for a while.

Our staff is going to rotate defensive players. While our CBs are talented, most of them are sophomores (Robinson, Yates, Morris). Best I could tell, WCU was making a concerted effort not to throw the ball anywhere near Travis Blackshear. In most of these long passes, they were picking on our younger DBs who were frequently left without safety help.

Bottom line, I don't think we made enough adjustments on defense to accommodate for what WCU was throwing at us.

[The Jackal]

As a sidenote, I calculated before the game that 8 of 11 starters on offense for WCU are transfers.

So, take that for whatever it's worth.

[Purple rain]

We struggled on Defense. It happens, look at Tennessee and Alabama this past Saturday. That QB is the real deal as far as an athlete. I am just thankful we won the game. I feel confident we will fix some defensive stuff this week. That was a crazy game, it seems like in years past, we have had some crazy games with that bunch. Last year was the same way up there.
Go Dins.

[curiousfan]

Love reading the dialogue from FU fans during the games. This was the worse overall performance by the defense in a while. But I will leave with a question...those CBs that you are referring to...go and see how many times they have been beaten for touchdowns in their FU CAREERS....curious to see what you come up with? Either way, I hope that they have a bounce back next week.

Looks like Western has a new starting QB.

WE were ok until you showed up - "How bad are we doing? We are only up 24. This is really distressing. We really suck. " we were fine until you showed up Mr Louis "this-is-really-distressing" Tully

Please don't ever type those words LOL EVER


and now we do ANOTHER great special teams play (Blackshear).. and then we HOLD and throw to stop clock etc. good law... we just refuse to step on throat. leaving that window open are we - and we HIT the goalpost on the FG.

COVER SOME DAMN RECVRS IF THEY GO DEEP

at worst DONT LET THEM BEHIND YOU. Line up so deep they cant get deep on you

NOTE - we took out one of our particular CBs for this series. Y'all been bragging on our defensive backfield? We have 2 DBs - one in particular - getting Owned. Again with all the huge pass plays. Some of that is on players but the WCU WRs are just too fast for the way we were covering the entire 4th quarter. THAT IS ON COACHES.

[The Jackal]

I mean, the defense was objectively bad Saturday.

I think we can look at that data and see it was an uncharacteristic day. Our defense has been more "good" than "bad" in recent memory. I think we'll learn from this and move on.

[apaladin]

curiousfan- slight correction, not the worst defensive performance in a while but the worst ever. Jackal-Yes WCU has speed. but that didn’t seem to bother Sammy or Mercer. How many big plays did SU and MU give up? Couldn’t be many as they didn’t score a TD against either. We gave up almost 200 yds more than VMI did against WCU. Have to face it. We have serious issues on defense both players and coaches.

[Affirm]

As a sidenote, I calculated before the game that 8 of 11 starters on offense for WCU are transfers.

So, take that for whatever it's worth.

Lots of WCU players are from SC. Not that surprising except in comparison to the number of FU players on roster from SC.

[apaladin]

As a sidenote, I calculated before the game that 8 of 11 starters on offense for WCU are transfers.

So, take that for whatever it's worth.

Lots of WCU players are from SC. Not that surprising except in comparison to the number of FU players on roster from SC.

Which means absolutely nothing except its a lot easier to get into WCU than FU.

[apaladin]

In the last 3 games WCU passing:
Sammy-longest was 24 yds next longest 16
VMI-longest was 30 yds nect longest was 16
Mercer-longesst was 22 yds next longest 13
Furman- longest was 75 next longest was 69. 6 different WCU receivers had catches of at least 15 yds.
44 pass attempts and FU had zero sacks. PC had 3 against them. Haven’t watched all of the replay yet but did FU ever blitz?

[The Jackal]

Offensively, we didn't complete a lot of passes, but I loved all three touchdown throws.

Ryan Miller with the fake stalk block and just leaves his man flat footed.

This almost looks like three options for Huff. (1) he can hand the ball off, (2) keep it around the end, or (3) if he sees the right coverage, pass it to Miller.

Sort of a similar idea here. Miller fakes the block, then takes off up the seam. Huff fits it in before the safety can get over to help.

I actually thought this ball was going to be picked off. I didn't see Roberto out of the backfield and it looked like it was too softly thrown for Harris.

You know who else didn't notice Roberto out of the backfield? WCU's defense.

[The Jackal]

This was probably my favorite play of the day.

WCU makes contact with Abrams at the 40. The run ends at the 26. That's 14 yards of just wanting it more.

[Davemeister]

That last Abrams play looked more like rugby than football.

[FurmAlum]

Why was our defense playing man to man press coverage with no safety help in the 4th Q with a 24 point lead? And then With a 17 point lead? (Unless I have misunderstood what we were running). Was this asked at Coach's show today?

If I was a sportswriter I would have certainly asked it.

[AstroDin]

Why was our defense playing man to man press coverage with no safety help in the 4th Q with a 24 point lead? And then With a 17 point lead? (Unless I have misunderstood what we were running). Was this asked at Coach's show today?

If I was a sportswriter I would have certainly asked it.

The show is tomorrow…

[gofurman]

Why was our defense playing man to man press coverage with no safety help in the 4th Q with a 24 point lead? And then With a 17 point lead? (Unless I have misunderstood what we were running). Was this asked at Coach's show today?

If I was a sportswriter I would have certainly asked it.

THIS. Hope this is asked. - I would like to hear the answer.