Damn, I still feel like I drank 50 Red Bulls during that Brawl! It feels great to get some revenge from last year and send them home miserable. After rewatching the game, here are some somewhat random observations and thoughts:
- Gandy played a pretty darn good game. He was stride for stride with his opponent pretty much all game, tackled pretty well, and was on the wrong end of a missed offensive PI on WVU's last score.
- The young linebackers are fast and aggressive, and the beautiful thing is that you can watch them and clearly tell that they are going to get better every game with reps.
- Brewu and Jacoby had some rough reps. Now, I think both will only get better throughout the year; Brewu because is is so young and learning on the fly and Jacoby because he'll improve the healthier he gets.
- I thought we were going to score and go up 24-14 into halftime, with us receiving the ball to start the second half. On our 3rd and 1 from midfield Reid ran a zig route or tab route (I'm not sure what people call it these days) which took him into the defender. No one was running with him if he sprints to the flat and we would have a sizeable gain. We all know what happened then on 4th down.
- On the long WVU drive that went from the end of the 3rd and into the 4th, our defense did a good job of holding them to 3. It was like a 12+ play drive with a 4th down conversion, bad penalty, etc. and it would have been easy to give up 7 there.
- On our next drive after that WVU field goal, I think the pass to Kenny Johnson on first down got the 1st but the refs marked it short. Then, on Reid's 2nd down run it looked like he clearly got the first but the refs marked him short again. We got blown up on 3rd down and had to quickly punt.
- Special teams has been very up-and-down. I keep hoping that we can clean it up.
- Speaking of special teams, does anyone know about punting? Junko does a very quick punt. In other words, he punts like he is backed up in his own endzone and the opponent is bringing the house. It's like one half step and then a blah punt with not very good hang time.
- I'll take 3-0 any day, especially with one of those wins against WVU but we have a lot to clean up. It's the exciting and sobering part. Exciting because I think we can play much, much better. Sobering because we've looked rough at times against, IMO, 3 meh teams. That's why I hope we have a super crisp first half against YSU, work on what we need to, and then get a bunch of guys reps.
- H2P!
