**** you 2020!!! Sorry, just getting that out of the way. I am not going to lie, this is a tough game for me to process mentally. Really hard to believe we couldn’t find a way but more on that later. This season has been really weird to watch for obvious reasons but I had mentioned last week that I had never seen a team get penalized like we did in that first half and be up by 3tds let alone the 4 straight false starts. It just seemed so unusual and then the very next week we get this game. A game in which we see 4 turnovers in the first five and a half minutes of the 1st quarter. I am not sure if that is a record, but it must be close to one. How does that even happen? Oleary would still be on 3rd down of the opening drive, LOL There was something like 11 changes of possession in the first 12 minutes and then at one point it was 16-5. Again, I have watched a whole lot of football in my life and I don’t think I have ever seen that score in a college or pro football game. Two safeties in the first half and another 18 penalties. Not so many UCF Fasts so let’s get those out of the way and into the bed shitting…UCF Fast:
- A Rob: Every week I think he is the best defender we have. He not only tackles and covers well but he plays fired up and fast.
- Misc: We had some other bright spots between flash, Marlon and a few of the younger defenders early on but not enough.
- Penalties: We had 20 penalties last week and 18 this week. That is unbelievable. What really gets me about it is the type of penalties. I don’t mind the occasional effort penalties but the overwhelming % of these penalties the last two weeks are pre-snap and on both sides. We had one point where the defense lines up offsides on two straight plays on a critical drive late in the game, we had WRs not set, we got a delay of game penalty somehow which I don’t know how a team like ours with the offense we run gets, then of course we have whatever the hell is happening to the offense line false starts. My understanding from the ECU game is that the defensive fronts are switching and calling out plays which was interrupting our process especially with how quiet the stadium is but if that was true my thought is coaching would have cleaned that up since last game. For me presnap penalties like this fall on coaching more then the players. Something is clearly wrong these past two weeks with the offensive scheme. This isn’t a few guys jumping, it has to be something off with the system that is causing this that we need to adjust to. This falls on coaching in my opinion. I would also be remiss if I didn’t call out the helmet throwing penalty. That was just dumb.
- Offensive Line: I know everyone is piling up on Matt Lee and yeah it looked really bad but dude is a freshman center and as I stated above, there is something else wrong here that needs to be addressed more then just guys not jumping offsides. I don’t know what it is but when you have back to back games like this with these same pre snap penalties that isn’t 100% on the players, something is off that need’s adjustment. Same goes for the blocking. Tulsa was routinely rushing 3 and getting home and causing pressure. Line is missing assignments, jumping offsides, out of position, seems to me it is a system issue at the moment. Clearly the players aren’t playing up to par which is why they get the slow, but it just seems deeper then bad play.
- Coaching: I like Heup and Ellarbee and a lot of the guys we have on this staff. They have some legitimate excuses here as well with the opt outs and injuries that has depleted a deep roster of offensive talent but the inability for us to adjust the offense week to week to correct the penalties, adjust for weather elements, injuries, defensive schemes or adjusting to fake injuries is tough to defend. Hype really stays with his bread and butter and it usually works but whenever it is clear the offensive scheme is struggling Hype seems to struggle to adjust. I personally did not see many adjustments at all last night in the offensive scheme and we kept getting the same results, definition of insanity type thing. Some layman observations…
- Otis: We struggled to get Otis in space where he would thrive, we run small backs up the middle from shotgun for little gain way too much
- Long Passes to Outside in Rain: We continued to throw a lot of quick long passes to the way outside only a few yards up field with a wet ball vs more higher % throws in those conditions.
- Injuries: With Nixon out we should have adjusted some of the deep ball plays, the drop off in my mind between Nixon and Harris is immense. Same goes for RB protections with McCrae and Bentavios out. Johnny is going to be good but he looked unable to pick up the right guy yet we kept putting him in that position.
- Offensive Pace: Did anyone else notice that we seemed to slow down the offense on the last two drives? The one time we needed to move fast as the clock was ticking we were taking 40 seconds to call a play. I get those were important play calls but that was perplexing to me that down 5 and then 8 we were slowing down with less then 6 minutes left in the game but when we are up 18 we are attempting to move lighting speed and jumping offsides on the way to way to many 3 and outs.
- Fake Injuries: Hopefully this isn’t news to any of you but coaches know when they play us to fake injuries after we have big chunk plays. It is happening very consistently now and Hype hasn’t adjusted to it. Hype’s offense depends on lining up quickly after big plays and going for the jugular or snapping off big runs because defense is gassed and out of position but if teams keep faking injuries we can never get into rhythm and for a team like Tulsa forcing a 3 and out on us with our depth issues, constant 5 yard false starts and weather conditions was not hard for them to do. We then completely fed into what Tulsa needed us to do to keep them hanging around the game. We have to develop another offensive set we can run when the normal scheme isn’t working vs. continuing to will it to work.
- Otis: I will say that TD run he had was one of the prettiest in UCF history. That was all him and he deserves incredible props for it but he then bed shit in multiple ways, he fumbles a punt return setting up Tulsa on the 35. He tries to bounce out the play he gets tackled for a safety on (I get line didn’t help him or the dumb handoff from shotgun or the fact he is 160lb guy running up middle). He cannot fair catch the other punt that ends up inside the 5, we lose 20 yards easy of field position. You get these types of plays from Otis from time to time but the good usually outweighs the bad, I don’t feel that way overall tonight. Again, we need him and a lot of this is on play calls, design, etc… but he didn’t have a good game.
- Game Time: I pray to the sweet baby Jesus that someone in College Football will answer my prayers for making changes to SPEED up the damn game. Our game started at 7:30 last night and it spilled over into the next day and their was NO overtime. This is a combination again of too many commercial breaks, allowing the fake injury nonsense to continue, refs calling way to many penalties, reviewing plays that have no reason to be reviewed, bullshit targeting crap, etc… it takes way to long to get through the damn game. If the NFL can get pretty much every game done in 3hrs how does it take 33% more time for the average college game? Make some damn changes. It is borderline unwatchable live or on tv. Live is a marathon though, jeez. I was at Tech game and then again live last night, my ass may never recover.
- Tulsa’s Name: Tulsa has really had our number over the years and it is amazing to me that they can consistently recruit the way they do with their resources and have a team that has that size. With that said they never seem to be relevant during the season barely able to win 5 games except for of course us. It is really odd, but what is more perplexing is how the hell they became the Golden Hurricanes. First, what is a Golden Hurricane? 2nd Hurricanes clearly aren’t an issue in Oklahoma and 3rd, why not the Tulsa Twisters or Tulsa Tornadoes. No other school has that type of name/mascot. They could play the tornado warning siren and everything. I was so curious I googled what a Golden Hurricane is and I shit you not this is what came up… “An Act of sinful pleasure, where a group of males link their arms, while in a circle and skip/jump in a circular motion while urinating on a defenseless woman, who may or may not even like the taste/smell of urine” That may actually sum up the game well.
