watching the tape - UMass play calling was superb
September 18th, 2010 at 8:11 PM ^
No specific examples?
September 18th, 2010 at 8:19 PM ^
I was impressed with their execution. I can't remember a dropped pass all day.
September 18th, 2010 at 8:21 PM ^
I thought a lot of our problems stemmed from uncertainty and hesitation, which you would expect with inexperience, particularly in the secondary. It may look like loafing but I don't think that is the case. I also agree that UMass was prepared and both called and played a great game.
Hopefully our defensive mistakes are reduced as the season progresses.
September 18th, 2010 at 8:22 PM ^
Was generally awesome against us. Martin was a beast, but otherwise we had little pressure. When they double teamed Martin, and ran away from Roh...we were screwed.
September 18th, 2010 at 8:29 PM ^
I have a feeling Martin is going to have another double diget UFR day. Maybe it was because he was the only one making plays (MAKE PLAYS!!), but I thought he had a great day.
September 18th, 2010 at 10:01 PM ^
was their O-line actually larger than what we'll see in the B-10 this year? Or was it Greg Banks having to fill in for Roh on the line? I'm still puzzled by why we were getting slapped around the line of scrimmage on D today.
September 18th, 2010 at 8:30 PM ^
the hell out of a young defense.
I'm predicting an RPS number of at least -15 here.
September 18th, 2010 at 8:38 PM ^
I told my buddy at halftime that it was going to be a -20 for that half.
September 18th, 2010 at 8:40 PM ^
One thing we can take a little solace in is that UMass's longest play of the day was 19 yards. This wasn't about us not being athletic enough but just us being in the wrong position too often.
September 18th, 2010 at 8:47 PM ^
...but it gives me a small amount of solace after watching our secondary take brutal tackling angles and the backside contain disappearing like Houdini too often. Stuff for GERG to work on, that's for sure.
September 18th, 2010 at 9:23 PM ^
UMass's longest play of the day was 19 yards.
I was thinking about this throughout the game. It seemed like our D played much softer, maybe a response to the ND game?
September 19th, 2010 at 7:54 AM ^
Basically GERG was counting on the front four doing a better job of closing off the running game, and they weren't getting it done, which allowed a lot of runs into the secondary. I'm not sure if this is a scheme thing or an athletic thing. You'll see in the highlights that Michigan was actually putting a fourth man on the line for most of the plays, basically trying to have more against the run because of UMASS' running game. It didn't work and the running backs were almost always tackled in the secondary, often by the strong safety or the deathbacker.
I think a lot of this is on the linebackers not dealing with the leakage and not coming forward to plug the gaps, but it also looked like UMASS did a great job of blocking at the second level and blocking with pulls from linemen, fullbacks, etc.
This was a very good football team. I think people are freaking out becuase of some perceived level of what they should be (adolescent seal U, come ON, Brian, weak). But they have played BCS games close for nearly a decade and they came to play today. Aside from a blowout to Texas Tech a few years back they haven't lost to a BCS team by more than ten points since the 90's.
September 18th, 2010 at 8:34 PM ^
I thought the play-calling looked top-notch all day. Yeah, UM made mistakes which made the plays better, but they PA'ed the heck out of the defense all day.
September 18th, 2010 at 8:57 PM ^
I think so, although I am no where near an expert. I thought they played smart and controlled the clock. They took what they could and werent greedy. I give them alot of credit.
September 18th, 2010 at 8:41 PM ^
for you, it was superb and well executed.
September 18th, 2010 at 9:20 PM ^
They certainly didn't leave anything in the playbook. It was very well called to take advantage of a young D.
September 18th, 2010 at 10:23 PM ^
They were sore, distracted by last weeks big win and shackled by the desire to rest Denard. It worked out in the end despite a go for broke attitude from a FCS team that had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
September 19th, 2010 at 12:57 AM ^
UMass was clearly well prepared and understood this was a huge opportunity for them. Their coaches had no trouble getting the players to listen and prepare all week. Good job by the UMass squad. I'm glad we won and we can move on.
September 19th, 2010 at 7:39 AM ^
I want to give them all of the credit but after looking at how much offense we have given up our first three games, its definitely our defense making them look great.
September 19th, 2010 at 7:52 AM ^