by: Chris Vannini on Sunday October 02, 2016
1. Tennessee won on a Hail Mary, but don’t forget the two penalties leading to it. Kirby Smart was furious at his team.
On Georgia’s TD with 10 seconds left, they were penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike, moving the kickoff back. Then they were offside on the kickoff, giving Tennessee an extra five yards, moving the Hail Mary attempt to midfield.
“I was told we had a player run on the field without his helmet,” Smart said of the 15-yard penalty. Georgia had 8 penalties for 44 yards in the game. Tennessee had two penalties.
“They are a very senior-laden team. I really believe they won the game because they were more disciplined than we were,” Smart said of Tennessee. “And undisciplined players, undisciplined decisions will get you beat. We had undisciplined penalties that cost us. And that’s disheartening.”
Smart added, “I am not into moral victories. I am sick to my stomach for these kids, because we deserved to win that game, but we had undisciplined penalties that cost us that game. When undisciplined players make undisciplined decisions, that’s what happens. So we learned an extremely value lesson, for a group of young men in that room who are sick to their stomach. About 95 percent of them did it right.”
2. Tennessee’s 20-yard return on that kickoff was something Butch Jones had kept around for years. Georgia kicked it high, and UT executed to get in position for the Hail Mary.
"When they got the 15-yard penalty, we felt we had a chance,” Jones said. “That was a kickoff return that we put in (for) the end of game, and we've had it in for three years and never used it. To our kids' credit, we rep it every Thursday, and we were able to get it and it put us at midfield range where you could throw a Hail Mary.
“I told our kids in the huddle that we were going to come down with it, we're going to find a way. And Josh threw the best ball he's thrown in his career. And what can I say about Jauan Jennings? He wasn't going to be denied. He has a little bit of a vertical.”
3. LSU’s offense exploded in the first game led by Ed Orgeron and offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger. Orgeron promised something different and delivered in his debut.
The Tigers had 634 yards in a 42-7 win over Missouri, setting a school record for total yards in an SEC game. Derrius Guice and Darrel Williams each went over 100 yards on the ground, and Danny Etling went 19-for-30 passing for 216 yards.
“Tremendous. We spread them out a little bit, as you saw, and we started throwing the football to loosen them up on the run,” Orgeron said. “I think it was a cumulative effect of our whole coaching staff. There was a lot of ideas there, a lot of guys working hard and to implement the new system within the system that we had, those guys did a tremendous job. I thought his game calling was excellent."
4. The final box score isn’t great for Greg Hudson’s first game as Notre Dame defensive coordinator, but things improved throughout the game.
Syracuse had 223 total yards and 13 points in the first quarter, but 199 yards and 20 points in the final three.
“First of all, when you’re playing a team like that, you have to get acclimated to positioning on the field, where the ball is at all times, and you can’t duplicate (the speed) in practice,” Brian Kelly said. “Once they got the sense of receiver spread sets, call and checks, they were able to duplicate that. What really was the effective part is we were able to stop them from running and got them in predictable down and distance situations.”
Syracuse averaged 3.4 yards per carry and only scored 6 points in the second half.
5. You knew Dabo Swinney would have a great quote in his on-field postgame interview if Clemson beat Louisville.
“At the end of the day, you either have the heart or you don’t. You have the will to win or you don’t. What could you say? Our fans were awesome, and this is 19 in a row at home.”
Clemson led Louisville 28-10 at halftime, but Louisville scored 26 straight to take a 36-28 lead. Two Clemson TD’s in the final 7:05 and a fourth down stop won the game.
“Here’s what’s great about tonight. A lot of adversity. You’ve got balls tipped, perfect throws, interceptions, but they kept playing,” Swinney said. “At the end of the day, us coaches get way too much credit. Players make plays. That’s how you win football games. We didn’t make enough of them in the third quarter. I love my staff, because they put our players in position to be successful, but in the fourth quarter, when you have to have it, Clemson tough. We’re built for this. We’re built for games like this. Our guys have the heart of a champion.”
6. With two weeks to prepare and Charlie Strong more involved, Texas’ defense couldn’t slow down Oklahoma State. A stretch at the end of the first half exemplified the problems.
With less than 1:30 to play, Texas sacked OK State at the 16-yard line and called timeout, hoping to get the ball back. But a 2nd-and-17 run picked up the first down. That was followed by a 4-yard run, a 17-yard pass, two incompletions and a 52-yard TD pass.
The Longhorn defense allowed 47 points in a 49-31 loss. Strong said he called “a few” defensive plays.
“You can't play the way we played in the first half and expect to win a football game, especially in a tough environment like this,” Strong said. "Right before halftime, we got a sack, then we gave up a big first down and they got the score to put them up by 12. The reason I called the timeout was because I hoped we'd get the stop on third down and let our offense get back out there because our offense was hot and making plays.”
7. Texas also had three extra points blocked, one returned for 2 points, starting a bad day for extra points.
Have you ever seen three extra points blocked in a half? It happened to Texas, giving them four on the year. That’s a five-point swing.
"They were overloading the guards and they were pressing over,” Strong said. “What we needed to do is get all the way to the second guy instead of blocking the first. The first guy would pin the guard and the second guy would run through and he would step over the center."
Notre Dame also blocked a Syracuse extra point and returned it, and Pitt, North Carolina, Louisville, Cincinnati, Western Kentucky and FIU also missed extra points. Of course, UNC missed an extra point but made a 54-yard field goal as time expired to beat Florida State.
8. OK State’s extra point return included a defensive lineman lateraling it back to a faster player to return it. That’s how they teach it, and Mike Gundy said, when in doubt, just throw it over your shoulder.
“They practice it and work on it, but it’s not something you work on so much that you know it’s going to be perfect,” Gundy said. “But it’s talked about. 4 should have the same thing when he was on the 30-yard line, should have just thrown it over his shoulder. You don’t have anything to lose. When you get to that point and you’re trapped, just throw it over your shoulder.”
9. Did you see Michigan redefine the I formation?
The Wolverines broke from this line into a heavy set and rushed for a first down. Harbaugh said it’s called “train.”
“Maybe it has a future,” Harbaugh said. “We’ll see.”
10. Jimbo Fisher says there’s plenty to play for after falling to 3-2 (0-2 ACC), and it’s ridiculous to say otherwise.
“No doubt. That is asinine, people that say the season’s over,” Fisher said. “Why is the season over? See this playoff thing? If you’re out of the playoff, you’ve got pride, winning streaks, what you’re going to be, what kind of person you’re going to be. There’s a name on the back of your jersey. Every time you play, you represent it. There’s a name on the front of your jersey. Every time you play, you represent it. That’s what you play for. And you play for each other.
“Everything else, why would you not want to play? I’m playing for my teammates, playing for myself and the people that put me in position to get a scholarship at this level. There’s plenty to play for. A lot to play for.”
11. Larry Fedora knew his kicker could make the 54-yard game-winner at FSU.
“I knew it was within his distance. He was due,” Fedora said. “He had something to prove. After the extra point got blocked, I talked to him on the sideline and said, ‘Look, you’ve got to get it out of your head, because we’re going to be in a two-minute situation and kicking to win it and need him to kick it, or be in a four-minute situation.' He got his mind right. We knew we had to get it close to the 35. Guys got it done.”
12. Iowa is 2-2 since Kirk Ferentz received a big contract extension, with home losses to North Dakota State and Northwestern.
Northwestern had averaged 16.2 points per game entering Saturday, and they scored 38 against Iowa. The Hawkeyes also escaped Rutgers 14-7 last week.
Reminder: Ferentz’s buyout is 100 percent of the contract in 2016-17, 75 percent from 2018-20 and 50 percent from 2021-25, but it increases with each 7-win season.
Iowa fans lamented the school’s inability to get out of such a large Ferentz buyout for years. Are they already back there again?
Asked if the coaches have a handle on the team, Ferentz responded, “Yeah, I don't know if you ever get a handle on a team quite frankly. It's a work in progress. The team is a work in progress. Every week is a different story, different adventure, and it's been that way historically. We're trying to shape our identity.”
13. Miami is 4-0 with a defense full of underclassmen, but Mark Richt warned that adversity is coming.
After Miami’s 35-21 win at Georgia Tech, Richt was asked about the freshmen having success and said he’s taking note of the good and bad.
“It’s fun for them. They’re probably having more success than they should right now,” he said. “They’re probably not good at handling it. I heard an interview the other day talking about how great they were. He was trying to convince me he was bragging about the team and not him, but I wasn’t quite convinced.
“They don’t know that they don’t know what’s about to happen to them somewhere along the way. They’re going to punched really good one time, and we’ll see how they react.”
Next week? The Canes host Florida State.
14. Virginia has won two in a row, and Bronco Mendenhall says he has dismantled his defensive scheme and started over in recent weeks.
UVA started 0-3, but has beaten Central Michigan and Duke in the past two weeks.
"The biggest mistake that I've made with this defense, we've run it for 13 years, basically, with a lot of success. Every year, in the summer, we look to make it better,” Mendenhall said. “The worst mistake I made was making improvements based on a team that has a defense that's been playing it for years and years, so putting the improvements on top of that. That was too much too early. We only did it one game, which we all remember.
“Richmond doesn't even feel like this year. It was too much, too soon, and it was completely my fault. That went away, the plan changed completely for Oregon. After that, we took even more out, and then it's sequentially being built. I'm still getting to know them. They're still getting to know me, and I want to get it so everyone can see the progress. This is just the beginning, but it will look consistently like that, as a UVA defense.”
15. Western Michigan is 5-0 after beating Central Michigan 49-10, and they’re the only team yet to turn the ball over this year
An 11-0 start is not out of the question for PJ Fleck. The rest of the schedule is: NIU, at Akron, Eastern Michigan, at Ball State, at Kent State, Buffalo and Toledo.
16. When’s the last time Stanford got pushed around in the trenches like Washington did to them?
UW had eight sacks and held Stanford to 1.0 yards per rush. On the other side, UW had 5.2 yards per rush and didn’t allow a sack. David Shaw was asked if Stanford was out-physicalled.
“I don’t know, that’s for you guys to say if you want to. That’s probably one of the nicer things said about us this week, you can say that,” Shaw said. “We didn’t play well. We didn’t block well, we didn’t run the ball, we couldn’t pass protect and we couldn’t complete passes with any consistency, particularly the first two and a half quarters.
“Just not the style of football that we can play, not as well as we can play. Injuries don’t matter, backups don’t matter. We’ve got a lot of guys that we’ve been rotating in, they’re used to playing, we just didn’t play well. Periodically that happens in a team sport. The better teams, they don’t really play well, you find a way to win. But against a good team, that plays as well as Washington played tonight, you don’t start off well, you get behind by a lot and it’s hard to catch up.”
http://coachingsearch.com/article?a=The-Inside-Zone--16-takeaways-from-Week-5
1. Tennessee won on a Hail Mary, but don’t forget the two penalties leading to it. Kirby Smart was furious at his team.
On Georgia’s TD with 10 seconds left, they were penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike, moving the kickoff back. Then they were offside on the kickoff, giving Tennessee an extra five yards, moving the Hail Mary attempt to midfield.
“I was told we had a player run on the field without his helmet,” Smart said of the 15-yard penalty. Georgia had 8 penalties for 44 yards in the game. Tennessee had two penalties.
“They are a very senior-laden team. I really believe they won the game because they were more disciplined than we were,” Smart said of Tennessee. “And undisciplined players, undisciplined decisions will get you beat. We had undisciplined penalties that cost us. And that’s disheartening.”
Smart added, “I am not into moral victories. I am sick to my stomach for these kids, because we deserved to win that game, but we had undisciplined penalties that cost us that game. When undisciplined players make undisciplined decisions, that’s what happens. So we learned an extremely value lesson, for a group of young men in that room who are sick to their stomach. About 95 percent of them did it right.”
2. Tennessee’s 20-yard return on that kickoff was something Butch Jones had kept around for years. Georgia kicked it high, and UT executed to get in position for the Hail Mary.
"When they got the 15-yard penalty, we felt we had a chance,” Jones said. “That was a kickoff return that we put in (for) the end of game, and we've had it in for three years and never used it. To our kids' credit, we rep it every Thursday, and we were able to get it and it put us at midfield range where you could throw a Hail Mary.
“I told our kids in the huddle that we were going to come down with it, we're going to find a way. And Josh threw the best ball he's thrown in his career. And what can I say about Jauan Jennings? He wasn't going to be denied. He has a little bit of a vertical.”
3. LSU’s offense exploded in the first game led by Ed Orgeron and offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger. Orgeron promised something different and delivered in his debut.
The Tigers had 634 yards in a 42-7 win over Missouri, setting a school record for total yards in an SEC game. Derrius Guice and Darrel Williams each went over 100 yards on the ground, and Danny Etling went 19-for-30 passing for 216 yards.
“Tremendous. We spread them out a little bit, as you saw, and we started throwing the football to loosen them up on the run,” Orgeron said. “I think it was a cumulative effect of our whole coaching staff. There was a lot of ideas there, a lot of guys working hard and to implement the new system within the system that we had, those guys did a tremendous job. I thought his game calling was excellent."
4. The final box score isn’t great for Greg Hudson’s first game as Notre Dame defensive coordinator, but things improved throughout the game.
Syracuse had 223 total yards and 13 points in the first quarter, but 199 yards and 20 points in the final three.
“First of all, when you’re playing a team like that, you have to get acclimated to positioning on the field, where the ball is at all times, and you can’t duplicate (the speed) in practice,” Brian Kelly said. “Once they got the sense of receiver spread sets, call and checks, they were able to duplicate that. What really was the effective part is we were able to stop them from running and got them in predictable down and distance situations.”
Syracuse averaged 3.4 yards per carry and only scored 6 points in the second half.
5. You knew Dabo Swinney would have a great quote in his on-field postgame interview if Clemson beat Louisville.
“At the end of the day, you either have the heart or you don’t. You have the will to win or you don’t. What could you say? Our fans were awesome, and this is 19 in a row at home.”
Clemson led Louisville 28-10 at halftime, but Louisville scored 26 straight to take a 36-28 lead. Two Clemson TD’s in the final 7:05 and a fourth down stop won the game.
“Here’s what’s great about tonight. A lot of adversity. You’ve got balls tipped, perfect throws, interceptions, but they kept playing,” Swinney said. “At the end of the day, us coaches get way too much credit. Players make plays. That’s how you win football games. We didn’t make enough of them in the third quarter. I love my staff, because they put our players in position to be successful, but in the fourth quarter, when you have to have it, Clemson tough. We’re built for this. We’re built for games like this. Our guys have the heart of a champion.”
6. With two weeks to prepare and Charlie Strong more involved, Texas’ defense couldn’t slow down Oklahoma State. A stretch at the end of the first half exemplified the problems.
With less than 1:30 to play, Texas sacked OK State at the 16-yard line and called timeout, hoping to get the ball back. But a 2nd-and-17 run picked up the first down. That was followed by a 4-yard run, a 17-yard pass, two incompletions and a 52-yard TD pass.
The Longhorn defense allowed 47 points in a 49-31 loss. Strong said he called “a few” defensive plays.
“You can't play the way we played in the first half and expect to win a football game, especially in a tough environment like this,” Strong said. "Right before halftime, we got a sack, then we gave up a big first down and they got the score to put them up by 12. The reason I called the timeout was because I hoped we'd get the stop on third down and let our offense get back out there because our offense was hot and making plays.”
7. Texas also had three extra points blocked, one returned for 2 points, starting a bad day for extra points.
Have you ever seen three extra points blocked in a half? It happened to Texas, giving them four on the year. That’s a five-point swing.
"They were overloading the guards and they were pressing over,” Strong said. “What we needed to do is get all the way to the second guy instead of blocking the first. The first guy would pin the guard and the second guy would run through and he would step over the center."
Notre Dame also blocked a Syracuse extra point and returned it, and Pitt, North Carolina, Louisville, Cincinnati, Western Kentucky and FIU also missed extra points. Of course, UNC missed an extra point but made a 54-yard field goal as time expired to beat Florida State.
8. OK State’s extra point return included a defensive lineman lateraling it back to a faster player to return it. That’s how they teach it, and Mike Gundy said, when in doubt, just throw it over your shoulder.
“They practice it and work on it, but it’s not something you work on so much that you know it’s going to be perfect,” Gundy said. “But it’s talked about. 4 should have the same thing when he was on the 30-yard line, should have just thrown it over his shoulder. You don’t have anything to lose. When you get to that point and you’re trapped, just throw it over your shoulder.”
9. Did you see Michigan redefine the I formation?
The Wolverines broke from this line into a heavy set and rushed for a first down. Harbaugh said it’s called “train.”
“Maybe it has a future,” Harbaugh said. “We’ll see.”
10. Jimbo Fisher says there’s plenty to play for after falling to 3-2 (0-2 ACC), and it’s ridiculous to say otherwise.
“No doubt. That is asinine, people that say the season’s over,” Fisher said. “Why is the season over? See this playoff thing? If you’re out of the playoff, you’ve got pride, winning streaks, what you’re going to be, what kind of person you’re going to be. There’s a name on the back of your jersey. Every time you play, you represent it. There’s a name on the front of your jersey. Every time you play, you represent it. That’s what you play for. And you play for each other.
“Everything else, why would you not want to play? I’m playing for my teammates, playing for myself and the people that put me in position to get a scholarship at this level. There’s plenty to play for. A lot to play for.”
11. Larry Fedora knew his kicker could make the 54-yard game-winner at FSU.
“I knew it was within his distance. He was due,” Fedora said. “He had something to prove. After the extra point got blocked, I talked to him on the sideline and said, ‘Look, you’ve got to get it out of your head, because we’re going to be in a two-minute situation and kicking to win it and need him to kick it, or be in a four-minute situation.' He got his mind right. We knew we had to get it close to the 35. Guys got it done.”
12. Iowa is 2-2 since Kirk Ferentz received a big contract extension, with home losses to North Dakota State and Northwestern.
Northwestern had averaged 16.2 points per game entering Saturday, and they scored 38 against Iowa. The Hawkeyes also escaped Rutgers 14-7 last week.
Reminder: Ferentz’s buyout is 100 percent of the contract in 2016-17, 75 percent from 2018-20 and 50 percent from 2021-25, but it increases with each 7-win season.
Iowa fans lamented the school’s inability to get out of such a large Ferentz buyout for years. Are they already back there again?
Asked if the coaches have a handle on the team, Ferentz responded, “Yeah, I don't know if you ever get a handle on a team quite frankly. It's a work in progress. The team is a work in progress. Every week is a different story, different adventure, and it's been that way historically. We're trying to shape our identity.”
13. Miami is 4-0 with a defense full of underclassmen, but Mark Richt warned that adversity is coming.
After Miami’s 35-21 win at Georgia Tech, Richt was asked about the freshmen having success and said he’s taking note of the good and bad.
“It’s fun for them. They’re probably having more success than they should right now,” he said. “They’re probably not good at handling it. I heard an interview the other day talking about how great they were. He was trying to convince me he was bragging about the team and not him, but I wasn’t quite convinced.
“They don’t know that they don’t know what’s about to happen to them somewhere along the way. They’re going to punched really good one time, and we’ll see how they react.”
Next week? The Canes host Florida State.
14. Virginia has won two in a row, and Bronco Mendenhall says he has dismantled his defensive scheme and started over in recent weeks.
UVA started 0-3, but has beaten Central Michigan and Duke in the past two weeks.
"The biggest mistake that I've made with this defense, we've run it for 13 years, basically, with a lot of success. Every year, in the summer, we look to make it better,” Mendenhall said. “The worst mistake I made was making improvements based on a team that has a defense that's been playing it for years and years, so putting the improvements on top of that. That was too much too early. We only did it one game, which we all remember.
“Richmond doesn't even feel like this year. It was too much, too soon, and it was completely my fault. That went away, the plan changed completely for Oregon. After that, we took even more out, and then it's sequentially being built. I'm still getting to know them. They're still getting to know me, and I want to get it so everyone can see the progress. This is just the beginning, but it will look consistently like that, as a UVA defense.”
15. Western Michigan is 5-0 after beating Central Michigan 49-10, and they’re the only team yet to turn the ball over this year
An 11-0 start is not out of the question for PJ Fleck. The rest of the schedule is: NIU, at Akron, Eastern Michigan, at Ball State, at Kent State, Buffalo and Toledo.
16. When’s the last time Stanford got pushed around in the trenches like Washington did to them?
UW had eight sacks and held Stanford to 1.0 yards per rush. On the other side, UW had 5.2 yards per rush and didn’t allow a sack. David Shaw was asked if Stanford was out-physicalled.
“I don’t know, that’s for you guys to say if you want to. That’s probably one of the nicer things said about us this week, you can say that,” Shaw said. “We didn’t play well. We didn’t block well, we didn’t run the ball, we couldn’t pass protect and we couldn’t complete passes with any consistency, particularly the first two and a half quarters.
“Just not the style of football that we can play, not as well as we can play. Injuries don’t matter, backups don’t matter. We’ve got a lot of guys that we’ve been rotating in, they’re used to playing, we just didn’t play well. Periodically that happens in a team sport. The better teams, they don’t really play well, you find a way to win. But against a good team, that plays as well as Washington played tonight, you don’t start off well, you get behind by a lot and it’s hard to catch up.”
http://coachingsearch.com/article?a=The-Inside-Zone--16-takeaways-from-Week-5
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