Coaching has to get better

[Clones85']

Plain and simple. 2 weeks in a row where I thought we really handcuffed our offense. We opened it up in the second half and things started to click. I don't know why we continue to go to an I formation when it hasn't worked all year. The play calling is so predictable when we run that formation it is a joke. Either a dive or a PA roll out but even than we only have 2 guys to throw to.

I liked the fight in our team and I think that is something the coaches are doing a very good job of. They could have quit many times in that game and they didn't. Kudos to Arnaud and the coaches for that.

Arnaud is a player. I remember watching him play basketball his senior year of high school and thinking the same thing. Some people just make plays. They have confidence and ability to make the big play when teams need it the most and he has that. I would hope the coaches start to realize that AA should be playing QB full time with Bates sprinkled in from time to time.

LJ's shot was cheap, dirty, and completely unacceptable. I love the intensity he plays with but he has to remain under control. He know has 4 personal fouls in 4 games by my count. Inexcusable. But for those who think he should get the boot....not a chance and let's stop that talk. It's not going to happen and it shouldn't happen. He just needs to learn how to play within himself. I wouldn't mind seeing Chizik suspend him a game after the Kansas game

Our LB's stunk from my view. They got caught cheating inside on play after play and never adjusted. Allen Bell made a terrible play on the ball to end the game, as did Smith. There were a couple catches that our WR's should have made and the one that Hunley dropped for an INT killed us early on. Also, hopefully Bass plays more b/c I think there is no doubt he is our fastest back and looked pretty good. He also blocked well

 

[djkent01]

Our LB's got caught cheating inside on play after play and never adjusted.

Key to the game right there. They'd get sucked inside where a player was already filling the gap, and couldn't bounce back out to close down the corner. Over and over. If that gets fixed and the players hold their assignments, this D will get better in a hurry.

Despite all the things that transpired during this game, that's what I found the most shocking and disappointing.

 

[ketelmeister]

I agree with you on needed coaching improvements. Both offense and defense are inconsistant. As for LJ, I believe everyone is being waaaay to tough on this kid. His PF last week was marginal. And the one that get him thrown out of the game was a kid trying to make up for his previous mistake. In my view, he was hoping to create a fumble on that hit. He has shown more energy and enthusiam than anyone on the defense. Let's correct things, not throw him under the bus.

 

[4429 mcc]

Deep breath people...this is still a very young team. And everyone looked like they were pressing in the first half.

LJ is 18 yr old kid..this will teach him a lesson, plus this one will put a label on him.

 

[MNclone]

I don't think that it would have mattered what plays were being called in the first half. We were being dominated in all phases.
It is hard to open up the playbook when every posession is a 3 and out.

 

[mike4cy]

I would have liked to see Chizik go for the juggular at the end of the game and go for 2 to win, we had no chance in OT. Great time for it if you ask me. Oh well, that is why I am not a coach. :dull:

 

[Aclone]

Let me put this simply, so that I make myself clear.

Horse Hockey. :yes:

If the team hadn't come out flat, had played with the intensity they showed in the second half, it would have been something on the lines of a ISU 42 UNLV 17 score. That's what the coaching that you're moaning about did. Simple enough to calculate, just take the points in the second half, and double 'em. And that doesn't even count the touchdown with 1:34 left. :skeptical:

So stop nitpicking. This is an extremely young, inexperienced team. amazingly, young and inexperienced teams come out flat sometimes. It's part of the learning process. They will get better--indeed, they already have. Stop nitpicking on the coaches, the players, anything else that you wanna whine about. Stop it. You're wrong. Face the facts, and get it over with.

If you want, take what you can, and learn from it. First game on the road, not in a huge rivalry game to get the emotions pumped? Done. Gone. Over with. In the past. They'll learn from their mistakes. That's what's called "maturity". One thing that "young and experienced" teams have to acquire the hard way.

Now then. It's time to look forward to Kansas. Not just dwelling in the past, ripping our own guts out nagging at an imaginary flea. GO CYCLONES!

 

[Wesley]

He needed to go for two on the road. Giving up 450 yards on defense made that imperative. We were very lucky to complete that last TD pass, so I say go for two. Usually the team that winms the coin flip, wins the overtime according to stats. That is more chancy than going for two im my book. The opposing defense was a little gassed. Oh well, just a loss.


Everytinme we are predictable the offense stagnates. The two trick plays did help to right the ship. Let's be more like Boise State than the KC Chiefs in our playcalling.

JJ Bass showed some new moves last night. Good for you.

Statwise, we are not beating the other team in total yards offensively....

All games forward, we will continue to be the underdog...unless we go to the next tier of play.

 

[CarolinaCy]

I agree with you on needed coaching improvements. Both offense and defense are inconsistant. As for LJ, I believe everyone is being waaaay to tough on this kid. His PF last week was marginal. And the one that get him thrown out of the game was a kid trying to make up for his previous mistake. In my view, he was hoping to create a fumble on that hit. He has shown more energy and enthusiam than anyone on the defense. Let's correct things, not throw him under the bus.

Uhh.. the QB was 5 yards deep in the end zone and had already dropped the ball. It was a cheap shot, plain and simple.

 

[Clones85']

I don't think that it would have mattered what plays were being called in the first half. We were being dominated in all phases.
It is hard to open up the playbook when every posession is a 3 and out.

Is there not a reason we went 3 and out? No doubt that our execution was poor, but we went to the I formation every time and got shut down. QB's aren't going to be successful when you only give them one WR to throw to.

I love our coaches, but I think that we were very unprepared for this game and that concerns me. We used TO's in spots where we shouldn't, again.

I am not jumping of a cliff or giving up on this team. We are young and will get better, I am just disappointed in the staff for some of the decisions they have made.

 

[Aclone]

He needed to go for two on the road. .

Just gotta love that twenty-twenty hindsight. :wink:

We had tons of momentum, we'd been manhandling UNLV, it's really, really, really hard to second guess the choice.

When the game got close in the fourth quarter, I thought about going to the computer to start a thread on "If we score again, should we go for two, or kick the extra point?" However, the game was too interesting, and I was too tired to move. It would have been some interesting results--and people could be held accountable should they switch their tune afterwards.

Damn. :skeptical:

 

[Wesley]

Just gotta love that twenty-twenty hindsight. :wink:

We had tons of momentum, we'd been manhandling UNLV, it's really, really, really hard to second guess the choice.

When the game got close in the fourth quarter, I thought about going to the computer to start a thread on "If we score again, should we go for two, or kick the extra point?" However, the game was too interesting, and I was too tired to move. It would have been some interesting results--and people could be held accountable should they switch their tune afterwards.

Damn. :skeptical:

Sorry. At the time of the tieing TD last night, I wanted to go for two on the road. It was no hindsight at all. I stick to my comment. UNLV had been restricting their offense in the fourth so our defense looked better than it might have.

 

[CarolinaCy]

I said we should go for 2 before UNLV punted it back to us, should we happen to score by some miracle. During the drive my friend and I both said that if we scored, we should go for 2 to end it. When Sumrall squeezed in for the TD, every Cyclone fan in the bar I was at was screaming, "go for 2!"

It's like we all knew what would happen if we went to OT. :sad:

 

[Aclone]

Sorry. At the time of the tying TD last night, I wanted to go for two on the road. It was no hindsight at all. I stick to my comment. UNLV had been restricting their offense in the fourth so our defense looked better than it might have.

I'll take your word for it. Unfortunately, i'm reasonably sure that ninety percent of the folks out there whining about going for two hadn't even bothered to consider the issue.

And when I said "momentum", I was talking about our offense. And who'd a thunk that the kid who caught the game winning TD against ASU would do it again the very next week? :skeptical:

 

[Wesley]

Yep, we held the cards and gave them away. Make the two and game over, with so little time left.

 

[CarolinaCy]

I'll take your word for it. Unfortunately, i'm reasonably sure that ninety percent of the folks out there whining about going for two hadn't even bothered to consider the issue.

And when I said "momentum", I was talking about our offense. And who'd a thunk that the kid who caught the game winning TD against ASU would do it again the very next week? :skeptical:

I think taking the game to OT eliminated any "momentum" advantage we had. Every UNLV player and coach had to be just shocked to see us go 98 yards in under 2 minutes with no timeouts. Going for 2 would give us a chance to take advantage while the "shock and awe" was still in full force.

Going to OT allowed UNLV to regroup and give their D a rest, even if for just a couple minutes. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. Rule of thumb, go for 2 on the road, play for OT at home.

For the record, I would definitely stand behind Chizik had he gone for 2 and failed. It was the right call to make.

 

[Clones85']

Let me put this simply, so that I make myself clear.

Horse Hockey. :yes:

If the team hadn't come out flat, had played with the intensity they showed in the second half, it would have been something on the lines of a ISU 42 UNLV 17 score. That's what the coaching that you're moaning about did. Simple enough to calculate, just take the points in the second half, and double 'em. And that doesn't even count the touchdown with 1:34 left. :skeptical:

So stop nitpicking. This is an extremely young, inexperienced team. amazingly, young and inexperienced teams come out flat sometimes. It's part of the learning process. They will get better--indeed, they already have. Stop nitpicking on the coaches, the players, anything else that you wanna whine about. Stop it. You're wrong. Face the facts, and get it over with.

If you want, take what you can, and learn from it. First game on the road, not in a huge rivalry game to get the emotions pumped? Done. Gone. Over with. In the past. They'll learn from their mistakes. That's what's called "maturity". One thing that "young and experienced" teams have to acquire the hard way.

Now then. It's time to look forward to Kansas. Not just dwelling in the past, ripping our own guts out nagging at an imaginary flea. GO CYCLONES!

:biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh:

AClone: The voice of reason. You always chime in to everyone of my posts. You didn't provide anything to the discussion, other than to say that I can't nitpick the team.

Let's start with this one. You yourself said we came out flat. Whose fault is that? I think that goes back to the coaches. We were playing a good team on the road and they had just gotten done beating ASU. No reason our players shouldn't be ready to go.

You use the word "IF" and than go onto say that we would have won 42-17. I'm sorry AClone, I don't know if you played sports, but that is not how the game goes. You don't get to play the "IF" game and say how we would have done "IF." Fact is that we did come out flat and got beat.

You are right though, that the team is young. They are inexperienced and will make mistakes. I don't have a problem with that and am no way down on the team. If you would have read my whole post you would have seen that. But there are some concerns right now, and I am a fan posting my concerns on a message board. That is typically what happens AClone.

As for your facts. Let's play that game. Our LB's continued to get sucked inside and than beat to the outside. FACT. For whatever reason we still don't have an identity on offense. FACT. Austin Arnaud is a leader/player. FACT. We need to do a better job of using our time out's. FACT. We came out flat. FACT

Our team will be alright and we have the right coaches to get them there, they just need to improve at certain things. If you don't like me typing than ignore my posts

 

[Clones85']

Also, I thought the coaches made the right decision when they kicked the extra point. We had outscored UNLV 28-7 in the second half and had the momentum. You put the whole game in the hands of one play. Kick the extra point and go to OT where you have done a good job on defense and moved the ball on offense. I agreed with the play calling there. Just didn't execute

 

[Rogue52]

He needed to go for two on the road.

A timeout might have helped with this. Unfortunately, we didn't have one. I will admit I thought about it too, but it took us like 8 plays to punch it in the endzone from the 5 yard line on the previous possession.

Playing for overtime was the safe thing to do, unfortunately, it just didn't work out for us.

 

[Aclone]

:biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh:

AClone: The voice of reason. You always chime in to everyone of my posts. You didn't provide anything to the discussion, other than to say that I can't nitpick the team.

Gee, for not providing anything to the discussion, you sure came up with a whole lot to respond to. :wink:

And if you think that I "always" respond to your posts, I hadn't really noticed (and don't care), but you might want to consider why that is--especially since you're the one that called me "the voice of reason". :biggrin:

I mean, if you like, you can just rehash every little error in the game, down to Joe Blow having his shoelace untied so he wasn't in position to make a tackle, and then say it's the coaches fault, and that's true, for the most part...but what does it matter?

Heck, if anything, I'm just happy that I got you to say something positive, instead of all this negatively pointed, run down somebody or another posts. After all, all I had to do last night was listen to Chizik to know that they already know they need to improve--so it's a waste of my time to tell him that. And you just might have noticed the title of the thread, after all.

Oh yeah--here's the positive you could have focused on instead--and maybe I've missed the thread titled that:

FACT. Austin Arnaud is a leader/player. FACT.

And by the way, if you don't like my responses to your posts? Just ignore me. CyValley does, and it would seem that you have a whole lot better reason to do so than he does, :skeptical: If you can't take it, then don't dish it out. That's something I learned from "my participation in sports".

Frankly, I'm just tired of the constant tearing down. Whoa, maybe we've got a connection here!

Want me to "add a little something to the discusion"? Rather than complaining about how they need to improve, I'll point out the mood on this board last night, when at halftime everyone was ready to eat a Hardees fish sandwich, dark, black, and bleak. And somehow, the staff got the team turned around, night and day, enough to take it into overtime. I thought that was a brilliant job of coaching.

And not to point straight at you, but...maybe I missed the part of the post where you gave credit where credit was due. If so, then I apologize. For that part, anyway.