ND vs. UMASS 09/26/15 thoughts

[88ND]

We can RUSH the football. We have a collection of nice backs and there is not much drop off from #1-#3. That is attributed to the line. The first thing I see with this o-line unit is they are a smart group. There seldom seems to be missed assignments.
The one area we have trouble with is on empty sets. The other teams have been blitzing on that set because Kizer is green. He needs to find the hot read on those right away to make the defense pay. Then they will start playing empty sets straight up.

But our o-line is tremendous!
Our offense can score on anyone. Going into the year I said that before snap 1, game 1, our offense can just score whatever it needs and that is proving more the case every week. We are extremely athletic on offense. Everywhere.

Defense. Well.....
Let's put it this way. Our defense started stopping umass alright. Want to know when? We started to blitz guys so he wouldn't have any time because not blitzing anyone he was very quietly picking apart our defense. Even still serveral of his throws if a tad more accurate would have been big gainers. The receivers were that wide open at times.
Our offense helped the defense out by scoring so quickly, often and just deflating the umass aspirations.

The special teams ...
As soon as that ball was kicked I said to the others here is a rocket return. I hope Kelly keeps spending time on special teams. Including onside receive. He should have learned from the GT game we were not ready for the onside.

Overall a great win.

Into Death Valley we go, 4-0

 

[shooter1977]

Couple thoughts from being at the game Saturday:

-The UMass bench was fired up in the first half and had some interesting words directed at the crowd. They kept their heads down in the second half. It also didn't help that they had A LOT of players seriously injured, I counted 3-4.

-Maybe it's his height, but Kizer seems really effective throwing crossing routes over the middle. That's an area Golson and Rees seemed to shy away from. Kizer isn't as accurate when he's throwing across his body to the left. Probably a mechanics issue.

-Wimbush has a presence, you could hear his cadence from the stands. Kelly should put together some packages for him to get meaningful snaps. With his redshirt gone, he's too explosive not to see the field.