On this weeks show:
-We take a long hard look at the implications of NIL and our future, the portal, redshirt rules etc., Mikey Keene
-We start the transition to hoops
-Trey goes in depth on NIL, The Leadership on this team, Gus Vs Oleary Vs Frost on leadership, Player leaders and how they made the difference, His thoughts on David Gibbs
-We discuss the portals effect on Fans, Teams, and players
-Our regular season results on our predictions
-We touch on the Military Bowl
-News and Notes
Unfortunately we didn't go into the game so I will post my notes below: (These are a copy and paste of my notes, I haven't had time to edit them, and are in the format I use for the show so please be kind and ask me to elaborate if needed)
-We take a long hard look at the implications of NIL and our future, the portal, redshirt rules etc., Mikey Keene
-We start the transition to hoops
-Trey goes in depth on NIL, The Leadership on this team, Gus Vs Oleary Vs Frost on leadership, Player leaders and how they made the difference, His thoughts on David Gibbs
-We discuss the portals effect on Fans, Teams, and players
-Our regular season results on our predictions
-We touch on the Military Bowl
-News and Notes
Unfortunately we didn't go into the game so I will post my notes below: (These are a copy and paste of my notes, I haven't had time to edit them, and are in the format I use for the show so please be kind and ask me to elaborate if needed)
- I am not even Mad. I had a great experience at Tulane. It was the nicest opposing fanbase I have ever encountered. They were very hospitable. Take aways from the experience:
- The campus needs to learn how to host big games. It really highlighted that we have moved beyond the AAC, it felt really small time
- I met several fellow fans, dungeon members, twitter followers, Shareholder Sean, RBJ from Space Knights, and Jarrod Baker’s Dad (super nice)
- I played and beat two Tulane fans before the game in cornhole and beat them handily. We had some of their authentic gumbo and red fish. I had several fans constantly thanking us for being there and apologizing for them winning
- Only a few drunk college kids talked smack, I ignored and smiled, as Tulane needs this to build a fanbase. It reminded me of how big a difference our OCS made.
- The flyover was awesome, lines were short, the bathrooms had troughs, stalls, and urinals. Ours are nicer. Their parking situation sucked, if you go get the pass to the tailgate village. The concourse was teeny.
- Our fans and their fans were loud. It sounded great on tv. Our fans were out of their seats and Tulane fans mostly sat. There was a sense from them that they were going to flub this ala UCF Fans
- The drive was easy, folks were friendly, but I was not impressed with the campus.
- Comments on the game:
- This was a game of what if’s for me. We could have won with a healthy JRP (maybe even one that was not) and we could have won with Mikey.
- Castellanos was not prepared, had a limited playbook, and the offensive line did not help either qb. They were getting pressure with a three man front. Grable was atrocious and was beat often
- When JRP came back in, Gus’s offensive plays were a thing of beauty. There were a lot of wrinkles. Unique ways to set up screens, stretching the field like a spread offense, the throw by Harvey was a thing of beauty.
- A hobbled JRP did an adequate job as a pocket passer but ran out of time.
- Tulane changed a lot defensively. Tulane’s plan was to stack the box (they traditionally drop 8). They had spies on O’keefe and Plumlee the entire game. When there was not movement by whomever was being spied, they crashed the player to have another defender blitzing. Because they figured out that Plumblee could not run they plugged the A gap. After JRP was back in and with Castellanos in they sold out on the run. Bowser and Harvey still had decent days running, but this highlighted JRP as the difference maker. He is essentially a two back wildcat back there. JRP still escaped, but on many plays where he would normally take off for a big gain, he stayed in the pocket. I think this highlighted how much better he makes our Oline. He put it all on the line with the Hammy and still got off good passes.
- If Mikey were in we would have won this game. The passing game was open and we became one deminsional out of necessity. There were significant drops from Harvey, Hudson, and O’keefe in this game. There were also great passes from Plumblee and some plays placement would have made catching the ball easier. I could also tell on some plays that he was trying to place the receiver in the best position to catch the ball. Mikey throws a better ball and could have defeated this Tulane team as well. Tommy was not ready, he hadn’t run the 1’s and 2’s, Gus called very conservatively because of it (barely passed), he didn’t have the reads down, and he couldn’t just out athlete this team.
- This team was within three points at the 8 minute mark. The defense let us down on 8 plays. Tulane beat us on big plays. The issues that we saw were are all based on bad angles, arm tackling, and blown coverage. Nakai Martinez had a huge broken play when he bit on the run. The defense was spying Spears trying to protect the edges. The corners were playing up in the first half, not covering a man and were cheating on the inside angles which stretched the zone. Pratt recognized it early and started hitting the flats. The guys had too much ground to cover and ended up having to take bad angles. When we got pressure in the second half Pratt was rattled. We didn't get that pressure consistently as we weren’t overloading the A gaps like we normally did. Toward the end of the second we went back to more of a normal defense. In the past we used LB shifts to the strong edge to cover the edges and relying on the safety/edge rusher on the opposite side of the line to cover the counter. This time we were bringing up the knight position and losing a body in the secondary. This was all predicated on covering the edge. We did this for the most part successfully, but got gashed when we didn’t have help in one on one situations and they took advantage.
- Based on the stats we should have won the game (obviously not yards) Here are some crazy Data Points:
- We had the ball for almost 10 more minutes
- We had 96 offensive plays versus 64 for Tulane
- They averaged 11.9 ypa passing and 8.1 rushing. These were all from big plays.
- We had more first downs (24) versus their 20
- We held Pratt to 60% passing and we only completed 50%. Our qb’s were constantly under pressure, there were three drops, etc. This dline was getting pressure with 3. There is no excuse for that. Castellanos was 2-8 and had no pocket.
- We won the turnover margin with 3 and almost a 4th fumble. We also got an interception. We are one to one for turnovers to end the season when before opponents were getting 2 TO for every one of ours.
- Tulane was only 36% on third downs and 0 on fourth downs. They only converted 4/11 attempts. Again this shows we lost on big plays.
- We converted 6 for 26% on 3rd downs, but were 7 out of 10 on fourth. We are going to miss the wild Bowser. We set up for 3rds and short on offense. We were 47% on the season.
- I never thought we would lose this game. We may have won it with a hobbled JRP as a pocket passer. He played well enough.
- Celiscar played really well.
- PFF Offense: 62.3, second worst all season, 56.7 defensively second only to the cows for the worst performance. This defense was tired, beat up, and lacked depth. There was a huge drop off after Navy.
Knightline: Knightline 285: AAC Championship Recap on Apple Podcasts
Show Knightline, Ep Knightline 285: AAC Championship Recap - Dec 6, 2022
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