Henry Chisholm gives his thoughts on the Colorado-Air Force game, including an update on Aaron Maddox, Mikial Onu’s incredible start to the season and how Steven Montez can improve.
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0 Comments (3 conversations)
Silver_buff
I hate to say it but if the Buffs miss a bowl game, I’d almost rather they finish with 4 wins versus 5. After two straight 5 wins seasons and a 2015 season where CU missed a bowl by 2 scores, I’d rather not think “we were so close”.
Everyone would point to the missed XP as the play that kept 5 win CU from a bowl because that’s easy, when the real reason CU lost to AF was a lack of constancy.
NYTJBuffFan
Henry –
I must disagree with your take that the key to the offense is letting Steven throw the ball deep more. That seemed to be all they tried to do in the first half and through the 3rd quarter. The number of incompletions on downs when 3 or 4 yards would have kept them ahead of the chains and progressing down the field was maddening. Further, it almost seemed like they were trying to force the ball to LaViska on Saturday. That, too often, looked like the inept offense from the latter part of last season.
Conversely, what they should have done is RUN THE DARN BALL! Mangham was hot and they didn’t feed him. He had it going and they kept putting Fontenot back in the game. Fontenot was running tentative and Mangham was running like a man possessed. To add to this, when the defense is gassed from being on the field for 7 or 8 minute drives, the offense HAS to give them time to get their feet under them. Coach Tucker talks about complementary football and they absolutely weren’t playing it on Saturday. I understand they thought they could out athlete Air Force with the wide receivers. What they didn’t account for is the fact that Air Force out quicked our offensive line when 2/3rds of the plays were pass plays. We had to beat them down, then throw deep. That, unfortunately, let to Montez taking some viscous shots as well.
So, from what I saw, your take is wrong. Montez is good, but not great and definitely hasn’t proven to be somebody that makes the offense go on a consistent basis. We can use him to take the top off the defense AFTER they have to respect the run, not the other way around.
Just one man’s $.02.
NYTJBuffFan
FYI. I went back and analyzed every offensive play from the game and noticed an interesting trend. I looked at the play calling for 2nd and 5 or greater.
(1) On the drives that ended in a Punt or an Inception, we threw the ball on every play. Further, on EXACTLY ZERO of those plays did we gain a first down by throwing the ball. We had two False Start penalties, three incomplete passes, 1 interception and 2 complete passes for minimal gains (6 yards and 3 yards).
(2) The same is true of our FG drive. One pass. One incomplete.
(3) On our three TD drives, we ran the ball six times and only passed four times. The runs were also earlier in the drives and kept the team ahead of the sticks and out of third and long. Of the passes, only one resulted in a first down (2nd and 13 with a gain of 15 yards to Shenault).
(4) The only drive where running the ball on 2nd and 5 or greater didn’t result in points was the Overtime drive where Fontenot gained 0 yards on 2nd and 10.
So, we became predictable in the drives that resulted in a Punt or Inception, went away from the balance and gave up on the run too early.
Long story short, keep running the darn ball!
jrobinson528
Henry,
One thing that you did not address was the amount of penalties on the offense. A couple of drives were killed by multiple false start penalties. This is a problem that seemed to plague MacIntyre Buffs teams but after the CSU game, I was hoping that they had turned it around. Now the dumb penalties are starting to creep back into the offense. Has Mel Tucker addressed this at all?
NYTJBuffFan
Agree. These are mental penalties that demonstrate the focus level of a team or individual. The team had four false start penalties which was four too many. A couple of our more reliable players as well – Sherman (with two), Russell (1) and Stanley (1). Russell had a holding penalty on the same drive as his false start too. That drive ended in a Punt. The only drive in which we were able to overcome the penalty was the first drive of the game. Every other drive with a penalty ended in a Punt or Interception.