Watched more of the game.
Defense
Dillion Gabriel has an ugly throwing motion and his arm tops out pretty soon when driving the ball downfield. Combine that with the exaggerated windup, I'm shocked Knowles didn't send more pressures early. On that first bomb over Denzel, he had no business biting on that stutter. Looks like quarters to that side? Either way, Burke has underneath help expanding to the numbers from Hancock and nothing over top. That's just losing your head and not understanding where your help is at. If the receiver breaks this short and back down the stem, it has to be an incredibly placed ball from the farside hash to beat your coverage. Need to have better situational awareness and play more heads up.
The 3rd and 9 Bomb 2 for the TD - it was a 3 man rush, with your entire line dropping into their zones underneath. Man on the perimeter.
What's hilarious about this call, Ducks ran a switch to the boundary and got Downs on one of their receivers who was beat vertical as well. The point man in the stack to the trio side wasn't bumped or jammed before being turned over. He was given a free release against corners who are coached to play heavy at the chains and, reminding me of something coach Patterson at TCU said "Don't go until you know". So as long as the pass pro holds up, you're putting your corners in a hell of a bind. That's great coaching, recon and play calling from Oregon knowing our defensive tendency in those situations (heavy chains on 3rd)
NO idea what that call was on 2nd and 5 late. Bad communication between Ransom and Downs for a big conversion.
Our linebackers struggle in space, getting depth and anticipating route combos while minimizing the grey area in their zone calls. I feel like there's a lot of false steps in their work. The opposite of what I grew up watching with Hawk & Carp. They also don't key to attack the run fit as quickly as I'd like at times. So when they are late, I feel like they try to make up for it by being overly aggressive and getting burned the next time.
Our IDL play drew some ire from me last night. Ty at the shade, and how he plays at times really hurts the defense as a whole. I doubt he's being coached to read frontside pull from the center, shoot it, get down blocked and allow the center a free release onto the linebackers. Because it happened a couple times for chunk runs last night. In gap and power, you've got to fight past it or through it depending on what you read in front of you.
Our edges are good, not great. Like I said previously, they lake elite quick twitch off the corner. So to compensate, in passing downs/distances, they really scream upfield trying to bend and man do they open some clear running lanes that scramblers are going to exploit later this season if they don't clean that up ASAFP. JT and Sawyer aren't 1st round picks at the moment.
Not to beat a dead horse, but Ransom is a slow processor. He's slow in fit to cover, he's slow coming from depth, takes bad angles, questionable in space and a liability tackling and picking up coverage from back on a hash. As a DB, it's painful to watch. I know
@RB07OSU played DB as well, and unless I'm high, I know he's seeing similar things. That TD run by Dillon is just the best example. Great safety play is like having 12 men on the field. Bad safety play is like having 10.
Oregon was only 6/14 (ouch, area code) on 3rd down. But 3 of those 3rd downs came against 3 man pressures, 1 for a bomb that setup a TD and the other for a big TD through the air. We call that a trend.
Offense.
Why did we go away from those weakside gap calls to Hendo? He was popping them early. Oregon's IDL was incredibly aggressive getting upfield. You can't pull your way out of that. The response from the coaching staff was correct and Hend broke off two back to back for big gains, then we punched it in 2 plays later. The Ducks had no answer even when they played the correct numbers game.
The late call against Smith was garbage. DB initiated contact, and Smith gave it back. He's just a freak freshman with incredible strength going against a DB much smaller than him. Refs should have swallowed that whistle.
Howard was decisive and on point early. The fumble and special teams travesty weren't his fault. This offense was on pace for another 10 points at minimum. He did great outside of play structure and creating opportunities - the TD to Smith putting the Bucks up 28-22 is one such example. He did get flustered later. On that fall down sack, he had Hendo wide open on the swing had his eyes gotten to the right spot. He actually missed him twice on that same drive trying to drive the ball to Smith. Jeremiah is a weapon, but you don't always have to force the 1on1 in these situations and lock in. Take the gift of given yards. This is going to come back to haunt him.
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Coach Day.
WAY too many attempts at vertical shots when the Bucks hit the 30 yard line with 35 seconds and one timeout left. You could have called in two plays, high(er) percentage throws. Hell, you could have gone back to the the QB centric running game and ground a few yards out on 1st, 2nd and 3rd down. I can't help but to call into question some of the play design and what is being fed to the QB when you're almost in winning field goal range.
This defense won't get it done. Not through the meat of the B1G schedule and certainly not against those fucks up North. The tendencies are too much on film now. The biggest being how you can drive the ball downfield and outside if you have the pass pro because the corners are so aggressive at the chains on 3rd down. That has been a routine issue since 2022.
The offense was good early and got no help from the other side of the ball. Then, when they had the chance to win the game they got tight and sloppy.
Like I said above - consistency. If you aren't consistent, you aren't great. Oregon is a good team, but this is a game the Bucks had little business losing had they simply taken care of the football on offense and been more, shall I say 'patient' on defense'.
