FBI Duquesne

[Big R]

As readers may recall from past years, I try to write up my notes and observations from the games I am able to attend using the acronym FBI (for Field, Press Box, and Interviews).

I always try to write up my observations before reading other GoHens posts so that, right or wrong, what you read are, hopefully, my unfiltered, unbiased observations and opinions that are not influenced by outside factors. This does, however, mean that a lot of what I write may already have been posted, discussed, and dissected. So, if you feel that there is not much here that is new material, that is the reason.

Historically, I spend Pre-game and 1st Quarter on the field, and then go to the press box for the rest of the game.

Field (Pre-game and Qtr 1)

This week, prior to the game, there were maybe 14 – 15 recruits on the sidelines, including UD commit, Braden Streeter, who was sporting some UD threads. SussexJay and 72 Hen will be providing additional info.

Now for the game.
Down on the field, for the second game in a row, it was windy. That’s why I was very surprised when we won the toss and decided to receive instead of defer. I know that, leading up to the game, RC had talked about the need to get off to better / faster starts than we had against St. Francis and UNH. I did ask about this at the post-game press conference, so you can read or follow the link in that section.

The emotion of the team on the sideline prior to kick-off seemed, to me, to be somewhat in between what it was for the last two home games – better than St. Francis, but nowhere near what it was for UNH. Additionally, for as large a crowd as we had, there wasn’t a lot of noise from the stands, but that’s to be expected at a “Parents & Family” game since many of them are not necessarily huge UD Football fans, or, in some cases, not really football fans at all. In any case, it was still cool to see the stands full – that can’t hurt from a recruiting perspective.

In UD’s defensive backfield, KT Seay was noticeably absent, so Steven Rose started in his place.

Reed was handling kick-offs and Schmoke handled PAT’s.

Not the cleanest, or most inspiring 1st quarter, but we were ahead 15-7 at the end.

Press Box (Qtrs 2, 3, & 4)

As with the UNH game, this was clearly the case of two halves. At the end of the first half, although we were up by 5, Duquesne actually led on the stat sheet. It really seemed like it could have been “anyone’s game” IF the second half resembled the first.

DU: Rushing: 123 yds Passing: 109 yds Total: 232 yds
UD: Rushing: 72 yds Passing: 138 yds Total: 210 yds

The second half was a totally different story. Duquesne only added a total of 58 more yards (39 rushing and 19 passing), whereas UD added 256 more yards (47 rushing and 209 passing).

Final (net) totals were:
DU: Rushing: 162 yds Passing: 128 yds Total: 290 yds
UD: Rushing: 119 yds Passing: 347 yds Total: 466 yds

So, looking at the disparity between the two halves, it is clear that our staff made continuous adjustments that allowed our defense to stop what Duquesne was trying to do on offense, while taking advantage of the weaknesses on their defense.

In the 2nd quarter, Duquesne actually benefitted from the muffed punt at their own 5-yard line. The returner called for a fair catch, but when the ball caromed off his hands and bounced through the end zone for a touchback, they got the ball at their own 20 instead.

Once again, O’Connor had a very productive day – 28 – 40, 347 yds, 4 TD’s, 1 Int. He was sacked twice (once when he slipped) for 18 yards but did a better job this week of taking off when the receivers were covered. Taking away the two sacks, he ran 6 times for 39 yards, or 6.5 per run. One of those sacks was when he tripped over his own feet, which was a shame because he had a receiver wide open down field. You could see him pound the ground after he fell because he knew it would have been an easy TD.

Marcus ran 11 times for 42 yards - an average of 3.8 yards per carry, but three of those were from inside the 2-yard line, for 2 TD’s and a 2-point conversion (and there should have been a third TD as well if they had handed him the ball instead of trying for the goofy pass from the 1-yard line that was intercepted in the end zone.) On the other hand, he continues to excel in the passing game, with three catches for 55 yards including the beautiful 47 yarder.

Cumby had a nice game, rushing 5 times for 38 yards – a 7.6 average, and two receptions for 17 yards.

Obviously, when the QB has a good game, so do the receivers. Bermudez continues to show growth, and as he becomes more familiar with the offense, the sky is the limit, which has to be a scary thought for our opponents who already have to plan for Harvin, Townsend, and Brose. RC commented that even though Bermudez is a transfer, he’s still, basically, a freshman.


Post Game Interviews

The entire press conference can be seen on YouTube. https://youtu.be/EiT3WvMWrbg?feature=shared

RC talked about his desire for the team to get out to a fast start, because we had not been doing that in previous games. One of my questions was whether that was the reason that he decided to receive after winning the coin toss. He said: “Yeah, it was, ironically.” … “We felt good about our matchup on offense and you saw it the rest of the game. I thought we did a pretty good job of not getting stopped too many times. … We felt like we could kind of control the first drive and go put some points on the board, and we didn’t. And so, we did the second drive.”

Overall, it seemed to me that RC clearly felt that we could pass on this team, considering that there were 40 pass attempts vs. 30 rushes. I asked him about this on the Monday CAA conference call and he said that he doesn’t think of the offense that way. He basically calls each play based on the situation at the time. He also said that, probably 10 of the passes were called as RPO’s, so could have been runs as well, and that Ryan O’Connor was the person responsible for turning them into pass plays. RC wants the offense to be as balanced as possible in the way it varies its “looks”. He just doesn’t want our formations over the course of a game to be run or pass heavy – those should be close to a 50/50 mix. He pointed out that 6 of our passes were behind the line – screens and such, which almost equate to running plays. Here’s a link to the RC portion of the CAA call. https://static.caasports.com/custompage ... ty_Wk7.mp3

On Monday afternoon, I had the chance to ask Ryan O’Connor about the fact that he ran more, and pretty successfully, against Duquesne than he had in previous games. He said he’s “no Lamar Jackson out there”, but when he sees a hole and it looks like he can get 15 -20 yards out there, he’s not going to be afraid to take it.


Summary
The final score in this game was probably about what it should have been, except that we could/should have scored at least one more TD. No one has yet asked RC about the call on the goal line that turned into an interception. Maybe one of us will sneak that in another time.

Ryan O’Connor just continues to grow. I’m not sure if his production, and that of the offense, would be where it is, if Zach Marker had not gotten hurt. It’s one of those unanswerable questions. When Zach’s injury happened, I really wasn’t sure what that would mean for this team. I was looking forward to watching them both play, and I do hope Zach’s injury will allow him to return. But kudos to Ryan for the job he’s done since. He has certainly shown much faster growth than I expected. When Zach returns, I’m not sure that he will see as much playing time as was originally planned when the season began - not through any fault of his own, but just due to the excellent play from O’Connor.

I remain impressed by the play of the offensive line. They continue to open holes for the RB’s. I think we were becoming spoiled by the very long runs, but there were a few runs in this game that were within a step of going for long gains. However, the holes at the line of scrimmage continue to get consistently opened for 4, 5, 6 yard gains, and the pass protection seems to improve every week. Of course, the quality of the competition has to be taken into account, but I continue to see improvement, regardless.

I never thought I would say this, but Coach Rojas’ 3-2-6 defense is starting to grow on me(!) On most plays, it’s not just a 3-man rush, and you never know where the 4th and, sometimes, 5th rushers are going to come from. We are starting to see a few more sacks, but definitely more hurries, helping to generate more INT’s. Again, the caveat is to take into account the quality of the competition, but considering that this was almost an entirely new defense, there has been undeniable growth since the beginning of the season, particularly as they start to develop more cohesion and communication. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m seeing some good signs.

[Udforever1]

As always, great job Big R. Loved your question on the teleconference today and Carty’s answer.

[VIKING '87]

Do we know what happened to KT?

Thanks, Rich. Nice job. Keep them coming.

[mpwerrell]

Thanks Rich. Great job as always.

[HENJOHN]

Excellent work Rich.

[77HEN]

Great write up, extremely well done. If there were only two sacks, then it was the first (and only other) that was impactful as it caused the breakdown in the opening possession. Yarns kind of got rolled up on from behind in that play, I guess he’s alright with no impact.

[Big R]

Summary
The final score in this game was probably about what it should have been, except that we could/should have scored at least one more TD. No one has yet asked RC about the call on the goal line that turned into an interception. Maybe one of us will sneak that in another time.

So, we had our 15-minute media availability with RC this morning, and I asked the question. Here is the brief conversation. RC constantly harps on learning from mistakes, and he doesn’t just mean the players. So, based on the last comment, I don’t think we’ll see that call again in a similar situation. There was no need to pursue the issue further, but I did ask another question that led to, what I thought was a fascinating conversation about analytics and penalties. I hope to write that up later today.

GH: Hey coach, when we were talking about the Duquesne game, you said a number of those pass plays were actually RPO’s. That interception in the end zone - was that an RPO or was that just a called play?

RC: … I wouldn't call that one an RPO. It was a play that … a couple of options could be made, and I don't think we chose the wrong option - I think we executed it poorly.

GH: I saw you talk to Marcus when he came to the sideline. I was wondering if maybe he had the option that he could have drifted out into the end zone and just give Ryan another option there?

RC: There was a run option on that, but it was the right decision not to give it to him, and then with the numbers it was just poorly executed on the outside. It was also not a great call.