Furman Citadel summary

[gofurman]

Love to hear your thoughts - positives and where to improve. Game thread gets long.

GREAT TO WIN

GREAT TO BEAT CITADEL !!!

QB and others grew up today. Loved to see how the D - even 40 came out of injury tent - to celebrate and congratulate the O !!

what a half by a FR QB ! He grew up a lot. The whole team - especially offense - did !!

We made some GREAT CATCHES. TE, WRs some tough catches were made. Very impressive !!!

Pass pro was pretty good …

Our DL did well vs the middle (between tackles) runs of the Citadel

ONLY ONE TURNOVER. HUGE. Much better ! Even turnover ratio

Need to improve -

PLEASE get some run game. PLEASE. Some run blocking by the OL !! Watching us is like watching old Wake Forest. Finesse passing with no power MAN ON MAN run. game. Strange. Just surreal from a Furman and CCH team.

Pass protection from our RBs. We whiffed some here. Hidden took some big hits because of this.

Option defense? Man we struggled getting the pitch man. Like if someone could explain what block was springing the option against us ? . Was our DB getting shoved and beat by WR blocking. Was their tackle or TE beating our DE or edge on some such. Because that option play they ran was extremely successful over and over

Penalties at very inopportune times. Jump offsides gives 1st down to Citadel. Facemask gives 1st down. Seemed we would have them stopped on third. Give first down with penalty... they go on to get a TD or usually a FG. SEEMED many penalties were on 3rd down. To be fair I think we on,y had five penalties which is much better !

[Paul C]

I think our D is becoming a strength.

If The Greatest Defense In FCS History (tm) from Macon surrendered 393 yards and 21 points to the offensive juggernaut aka The Citadel, then any team that holds said juggernaut to just 257 yards and 16 points should be spoken of in quite grandiose terms.

[The Jackal]

I think our D is becoming a strength.

If The Greatest Defense In FCS History (tm) from Macon surrendered 393 yards and 21 points to the offensive juggernaut aka The Citadel, then any team that holds said juggernaut to just 257 yards and 16 points should be spoken of in quite grandiose terms.

Worth mentioning.

This is our 4th FCS game. Furman has not surrendered more than 143 passing yards. The last two opponents W&M (98) and the Citadel (103) were held right around 100 yards passing.

Roughly half of the Citadel's total passing output came on one play - a screen pass in the first quarter for 48 yards. The Bulldogs were averaging 191 over their other 5 games. They threw for 304 against Mercer.

I believe Charleston Southern was the only FCS team to exceed 50% completion percentage, and just barely (11-23 (52%)).

One game, maybe an outlier. You do that four straight times and it's a trend. This from a defense that returned - what - three starters and lost three safeties before the season really began?

[gofurman]

I think our D is becoming a strength.

If The Greatest Defense In FCS History (tm) from Macon surrendered 393 yards and 21 points to the offensive juggernaut aka The Citadel, then any team that holds said juggernaut to just 257 yards and 16 points should be spoken of in quite grandiose terms.

Agree
ESPECIALLY when put in light they were on the field THE ENTIRE GAME !! No help from the O to give D a rest. And even at end we scored quickly with passing O. Never a nice 70 yard drive with numerous runs to let the D rest. The Citadel D had MUCH more time to rest.

The one thing that beat our D yesterday was the outside option pitch.

[gofurman]

One weakness we have not mentioned …

SPECIA TEAMS COACHING. CSU with the easy 2 point conversion as if we weren’t prepared.

AND now that Fake FG WOULD HAVE WORKED BY Citadel. First down for sure. Maybe more ! It was like a wide open WR who just drops ball. The coaching was there by Citadel they just fumbled it away with missed execution. But it was there for the taking !! We weren’t gonna stop him short of a first if he doesn’t dropp the ball.

They clearly saw something on film that we were lined up too much “inside”
Or something. Let our rusher come in and just take the outside. If they get that we may never win. It may not go in box score as a “turnover” but it was ! Instead of 3 or 7 more points for them. Stays 10-0

My point is thts TWICE ina few FCS games the opposing coaches have caught us in a bad line up on Special Teams. That will cost a game. Maybe it already did vs. CSU ? Take that 2 points away…

[FUTex]

To one of GF's point, the D was on the field all day. Time-of-Possession (rounded) was:
Furman 22 minutes, Citadel 38 minutes.

When was the last time you noticed such a lopsided TOP and the short-end got the victory? I'm sure they're out there, I just haven't noticed them.

Remember the old saw "The team that rushes more is the winner". I've always taken that to mean they rush more because they can, and that eats up more TOP, so they're not independent variables. Still, you get my point.

My conclusion is if the Paladins fix their rushing game, which may be tied to the Lawnchair O-Line scheme, then the D wouldn't have been on the field all day long, and the score wouldn't have been so close.

[AstroDin]

^^^ it looked to me like The Citadel was gassed on both sides of the ball as the 4th rolled on.

[gofurman]

Can anyone help me understand what was wrong with our option defense ? When the citadel got to the pitch man they usually gained 10 yards! TEN.

What were we missing there ? CBs getting blocking downfield? M

Someone near me in stands asked “are our LBs THAT SLOW getting to the sideline?”

What was the issue ? Because the Citadel definitely killed us with old option schemes… once they pitched it to the outside man it was 5-15 yards per play

[gofurman]

To one of GF's point, the D was on the field all day. Time-of-Possession (rounded) was:
Furman 22 minutes, Citadel 38 minutes.

When was the last time you noticed such a lopsided TOP and the short-end got the victory? I'm sure they're out there, I just haven't noticed them.

Remember the old saw "The team that rushes more is the winner". I've always taken that to mean they rush more because they can, and that eats up more TOP, so they're not independent variables. Still, you get my point.

My conclusion is if the Paladins fix their rushing game, which may be tied to the Lawnchair O-Line scheme, then the D wouldn't have been on the field all day long, and the score wouldn't have been so close.

Tex. Great point. The one exception I’m aware of is FSU under Bobby Bowden. With the QB and WRs they had when winning national titles his team would often score so quickly - 3 passes and score a TD in a drive occasionally …. That his D would get gassed by games end. He would win 40-20 but get asked about time of possession in the press conference. He would say “am I supposed to score slower?” It was interesting.

[apaladin]

We are averaging 74 ypg. rushing against real FCS teams with a high of 101 vs, CSU.

[gofurman]

We are averaging 74 ypg. rushing against real FCS teams with a high of 101 vs, CSU.

Oh. We have BIG ISSUES. HUGE

RUSHING THE BALL is the main issue now.

Objectively the pass D has improved.
Less penalties this game.
One turnover.
Rush D was at least better though option gave us fits.
Our INSIDE DL did great !! We stuffed their inside runs - awesome !

If you just saw this game the main item is clearly just a flat inability to rush the ball. It’s weird. W just can’t open ANY holes for RBs. As in NONE

FUPlayer74 said it well. Citadel DL is stronger and faster than our OL. They are. And other SoCon DL are gonna be better than Citadels …


AP, to your point of averaging only 75 rushing yards vs “real” FCS. I agree. I keep saying if we could just get 140+ rushing yards we would be a MUCH better team. We just need to ride Hedden and the WRs now and maybe let the pass set up the run? That would be my thought. As worthless as it is. But it appears many of us are coming To this conclusion.

And watching the end of the Citadel game - granted we were working against the clock - maybe CCH / Roper coming to this conclusion too.

You have to play to the strength of your guys. Right now that’s a passing offense … maybe throw 60-70% of plays and run 30% of the time?

[apaladin]

Had to be the smallest crowd at the Citadel for a Furman game ever. Announced as 9K but no where close to that.

[gofurman]

Had to be the smallest crowd at the Citadel for a Furman game ever. Announced as 9K but no where close to that.

I too noticed that the Citadel side was pretty empty ! Is that from last years winless season? I mean the weather was fine Saturday

Though the 2500 cadets mean they only need 6500 "others" to make 9k. I bet there were 500-800 Furman fans. And many Citadel fans stay in the endzone 'thing' - forget what they call it. It was low attendance but in a real count I would not be shocked if it were over 7k or 8k

[The Jackal]

Can anyone help me understand what was wrong with our option defense ? When the citadel got to the pitch man they usually gained 10 yards! TEN.

What were we missing there ? CBs getting blocking downfield? M

Someone near me in stands asked “are our LBs THAT SLOW getting to the sideline?”

What was the issue ? Because the Citadel definitely killed us with old option schemes… once they pitched it to the outside man it was 5-15 yards per play

Killed us?

The Citadel averaged 3.0 yards a rush on 51 attempts. They had one or two plays where they got the edge, but that was about it. They were 6 of 20 on third downs.

I mean, option runs are going to pick up yards every now and then. The goal in defending the option is to play your assignments and keep them from really popping a run, which they never did.

Could we have done better covering the lane on a few pitches? Sure. Did they really kill us with the option? Absolutely not.

Outside of one screen pass in the first quarter (which probably was aided by a block in the back), Furman pretty much sniffed out everything the Citadel was attempting to do offensively all day.

[gofurman]

Can anyone help me understand what was wrong with our option defense ? When the citadel got to the pitch man they usually gained 10 yards! TEN.

What were we missing there ? CBs getting blocking downfield? M

Someone near me in stands asked “are our LBs THAT SLOW getting to the sideline?”

What was the issue ? Because the Citadel definitely killed us with old option schemes… once they pitched it to the outside man it was 5-15 yards per play

Killed us?

The Citadel averaged 3.0 yards a rush on 51 attempts. They had [u]one or two plays [/u]where they got the edge, but that was about it. They were 6 of 20 on third downs.

I mean, option runs are going to pick up yards every now and then. The goal in defending the option is to play your assignments and keep them from really popping a run, which they never did.

Could we have done better covering the lane on a few pitches? Sure. Did they really kill us with the option? Absolutely not.

Outside of one screen pass in the first quarter (which probably was aided by a block in the back), Furman pretty much sniffed out everything the Citadel was attempting to do offensively all day.

But those stats are because of the GREAT work by our INSIDE DL. Those are AGGREGATE Stats. If you think they had ONE or TWO plays where they got the edge you didn't watch the game. Before you reply - Go watch the replay. I bet the ONE or TWO number doesn't hold up. I may rewatch it and count but not sure.

I don't have internet so I can't yet.

Citadel up the middle? 0-2 yards. Also, they went away from the option for some reason. But there was DEFINITELY a 15–20-minute period where the option was VERY successful vs us. The middle runs vs the middle of our DL? Not successful AT ALL. 1 yard up the middle by Citadel. 0 yard up the middle. 9 yards by option. Thus the 3 yard per carry average. You can't use the average per run to measure just the OPTION. The option runs are a SUBSET of that overall running stat - you are smart and understand that. We were great at stopping the middle runs between the tackles. GREAT! But I bet there were 5+ option runs that got 5-12 yards on the edge. Not One or Two. There was a definitive period of time (a quarter or so) where we struggled to stop that.

Heck, I specifically recall one edge run where they got caught Holding and they were so far down the field that after the 10-yard penalty they still had only a 1st and 9 ... IF I get internet or time somehow I will present the - at least 4 or 5 - strong option runs by them.

That said, I still don't have internet at home. And cellular is sketchy - wouldn't play ESPN+ last week. Not sure I can get it ??? We are all so spoiled by internet and the first world !