Just getting home. Angry. I was going to wait to write this until tomorrow when I calmed down and had a chance to watch the game back on record but found out Spectrum went out for the first two hours of the game so I only have the ass end of the game recorded. Of course watching the game in a stadium with no replays and no cell phone connectivity makes it really hard to do an accurate write up especially if you cannot watch the game back so everything below is what is saw from my seats outside of the 30 minute dippin dots run so take it with a grain of salt. I may have missed some detail but we certainly didn’t pass the eye test tonight…
UCF SLOW: Lots to go around tonight…
UCF SLOW: Lots to go around tonight…
- Gus (Play Calling): I love me some Gus but I thought he was off tonight on the play calling. We got into an incredibly shitty rut of like 8 out of 9 drives ending in punts. We couldn’t do anything. I get there is blame to go around but play calling is a big part of it. How the hell does Richardson only touch the ball 6 times!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 rushes and 2 catches for a total of 70 yards. He averaged 11+ yards a touch and we only get it in his hands 6 times? One of the other touches that didn’t get counted went for like 60 yards and a TD. This is becoming a habit for Gus. I don’t get it. Get our athletes in space, get some slants or quick hits going, make them respect the pass. They got 15 guys in the box.
- Offensive Line: They were blitzing more guys then we had to block so a lot of the pressure wasn't on the line but even with that said i thought we struggled with the Dline pre snap movement, couldn’t pick up all the stunts, blitz pick ups were missed. Also didn’t get that much push on any of the running plays. It is hard to judge them with out having the game to watch back plus the stacking the box and bringing so many blitzers but they still didn't pass the eye test to me, could have done better
- Wide Receivers: Clearly the Okeefe injury hurt and that was on top of Hudson being out but the WR need to make some plays and help out their QB. Too many drops, two really bad ones on that last drive. I get that was a tough catch at the end there with Towsend but you got both hands on the ball. Baker a bit earlier then that. Other times throughout the game we almost made an incredible play but just didn’t.
- Punter: I was livid every time we punted. It wasn’t like we punted once or twice in the game, we punted 8 times. Only 1 was inside the 20 (shorter range punt) the rest were ones we punted from deep in our territory and desperately needed to flip the field and our punter didn’t flip the field once. Avg 38 yards a punt on 8 punts. They also were low, shit for hang time. Awful. This absolutely impacted the offensive starting field position which didn’t help at all.
- Kicker: Obarski missed another very makeable fg. No reason to miss that one, would have put us up by two scores and salvaged that drive. Would have helped put more pressure on Louisville and most importantly would have put us in a position where we could have tied the game with a FG at the end vs. having to score a TD. Obarski isn’t some freshman anymore. He is a veteran on this team. He must kick like a God in practice because if I was coaching him at this point someone else would be kicking those FG
- Penalties: I know UL had a bunch of penalties too but it just seemed like we were stuck in this pattern where we would get the ball and basically go backwards for a quick 3 and out and then we would kick a worthless punt failing to flip the field and then in short order commit some 15 yard penalty that put UL inside our 40 to start every drive. We had the roughing the passer, unsportsmanlike conduct, multiple holding calls, literally TWO touchdowns called back and we ended up with 0 points on both of those drives. Our penalties were just more impactful
- JRP: I do NOT blame JRP for the loss. We still should have won this game but obviously he had a tough game. We all knew he was going to struggle picking up the hot reads and likely wasn’t going to Payton Manning it down the field but he didn’t get much help to complement his game from any of the bullets noted above. The play calling, the offensive line play, the injuries, the special teams shit show, the lack of anyone other then Jrich (the man that isnt allowed to touch the ball) making a big time play is hard to overcome at this stage of JRP’s development. Anyone calling for Keene I personally do NOT think if every other part of the team played as poorly as they did tonight that we would have won with Keene either.
- Stadium In Game Experience (Replay & Connectivity): Can someone tell me why our in-game fan experience for replay is so horrible? Why can we not get a replay on the jumbo tron? Every now and then there is one but every play outside of a no huddle really should be on the jumbo tron. Very frustrating. Also, not sure how they can fix the cell phone connection issue but I wish we would try. It is completely lights out for me when I am in there. Can’t communicate, cant follow plays or stats or anything. Really makes writing these reports difficult.
- Dipping Dots: I got my two boys with me, no wife, they start whining for dippin dots. No big deal, I plan a good time to run down, maybe I should miss one or two plays. NOOOOO the vendor running the dippin dots has to share the credit card machine with the pizza vendor next door. It takes them 30 minutes to fill 5 dippin dots orders, I miss what felt like 20 plays including the fumble play. The vendor does NOT allow cash but has one working cc machine shared between two booths with two separate lines? Something aint right there.
- Defense: Defense played a solid game, certainly good enough for us to win that game. Outside of the first drive, which was just a head scratcher, the defense really shut Louisville down. If you break it down they had that first drive of the game and that damn 47yard QB run. That was literally it. They had tons of other chances, great field position and they got nothing. The defense kept us in the game.
- Montalvo: The play he had on that 3rd and 1 early in the game (2nd Louisville drive), he collapsed the entire line himself and stopped them short on what seemed like it was going to be an easy pick up and continued drive. That play was huge at the time and he had a bunch more solid plays. He may have played the best game of his career. Good revenge for him because the last UL game last year they put him out of position and he didn’t look good so great to see him rebound.
