Ask A Question
Have a question? Send it in! It may be featured on one of our posts.
Click Here to Ask
|
|
Written by Duane Long
|
|
Saturday, 17 October 2009 20:30 |
|
What a great game plan by Purdue. They did their homework. My only problem with the defense since the USC loss last year is we will always always ALWAYS play soft behind the front seven. Heacock cannot bring himself to come up and play man defense. That is why we are so vulnerable to the dink and dump game. Wisky did it to us last week. Purdue saw that and killed us with it. If we come up and play man we force more three and outs. No
question about that. We maybe force more turnovers and sacks. We talk about keeping a good offense off the field. The truth is the best place for any offense is on the sideline. The less the other team has the ball, the better for your team. The more they are on the field
means the more chances they have of making something happen. Everybody wants one more
touch of the ball. Bend but don't break defenses make me nervous. It means more chances for the offense to take turn the bend but don't break into broken. We left them too many chances. How many long drives, nickle and dime stuff down the field, have we allowed this year???
One of the most important aspects of playing soft is to tackle well. We miss too many tackles in the secondary. Hines missed 2 important tackles in this game.
What a pity we cannot do better at safety than Anderson Russell. On the first Purdue touchdown I watched him. He checked down. That was the thing to do. There was no receiver inside of him. He still hesitated to get over and help Torrence. He is looking like Nate "Always Late" Salley back there. That we cannot do better is a complete recruiting fail.
Back to the theme of the scouting job by Purdue. Our offensive line got exposed. Mike Adams had a worst game than Bryant Browning did in the Texas game. It was not just him. We could not block Kerrigan. He lined up over Ballard on the strong side and beat Ballard to force the first fumble. He beat Adams on the weak side to force the second Pryor
fumble. He beat Ballard again on the goal line on third down to make us take a field goal late in the game. He beat Miller on the weak side. We could not block the guy. Purdue attacked us on the edges and beat us. They went in knowing they could. Good job by that staff.
What do you do about Pryor? For 3 quarters he looks like he regressing. Then he shows in the fourth quarter why he is a talent that could be the #1 pick in the draft. Not #1 quarterback. I am saying #1 overall. Don't look at the messes. Look at when he is doing it
like you want him to. It won't be hard to find a play. He does it more often than he is given credit for. He can be the prototype for the next generation. The problem is, what do you do about it? Some have argued that benching him would kill his confidence. For three quarters
of this game I would argue that his confidence could not be any lower. He is not being successful. That is a bigger confidence crusher than being benched. I was going to post at halftime and say we needed to sit him. He continued to look like a quarterback who needed to sit through the third quarter. Then in the fourth he looks like the Franchise. The third and five sack on the last drive was not even remotely his fault. It was a broken play. Boren and Brewster thought it was a screen to the left and let their guys run straight through to Pryor. Sanzenbacher seemed to think it was a screen to the right. It was keystone cops stuff. Earlier in the game I noticed before the snap that receivers were already at the line of scrimmage while the rest of the offense huddled. I was thinking about how much I hated that. You see it too often now. Get in the huddle. Everyone be on the same page. Get a little positive reinforcement going on in there. Break the huddle with a snap, like you actually have a plan. When the play unfolds Pryor throws the ball between 2 receivers, neither aware that the ball had been thrown. I threw things I shouldn't have at the television.
The other thing I would say about the offense is we seem to be better at running the ball with more Hazel input. Why won't we run the ball more? Seems a natural since this is a run oriented coach with a running game that looks like it is just chomping at the bit for more
smashmouth, and a young struggling quarterback. We could create some room for him to throw if we ran it some more.
|
|
DLR Newsletter
Sign up for The Duane Long Report Newsletter and you'll receive an email alert of all our new posts.
|
Bloguin is the revolutionary blog network specifically focused on helping bloggers get the most out of their websites. We're currently working on building a large network of online communities and hope to expand our blogging coverage to include a wide range of topics. 
The Bloguin Network allows advertisers to promote their products and services to our ever-growing number of visitors. We offer both site-specific ad placements as well as the ability to run a network-wide campaign. If you're interested in working with Bloguin to meet your advertising needs, please contact us.
The Bloguin Network is always looking to expand. We're specifically looking for blogs in the sports, entertainment, and video games field, but are open to adding any type of quality site.. If you're a blogger and interested in joining our network, please fill out our application form.
The Bloguin Login gives you full access to everything our network has to offer. Your name and password will work for each and every one of our sites. Signing up is simple, and will allow you to post in all our forums, create member blogs, and access other cool features! What are you waiting for? Create an Account! 
If the defense continues to play soft and let teams nickel and dime them then I can see losses the last three games. That is just unacceptable.