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Post by FUBeAR on Nov 15, 2016 15:56:39 GMT -5
Maybe you chould see if you can get CBL's job. You seems to have it figured. At least I won't insult our players claiming we have a talent gap. Can I play Henry Kissinger here and find some common ground, perhaps.... Mercer does NOT have a Talent Gap with the best Teams in the SoCon. Mercer DOES have a Depth Gap with the rest of the Teams in the SoCon. A Depth Gap will not (and really cannot) be 'fixed' until 5 to 7 Scholarship Classes have been Recruited and 5 Scholarship Classes are on the Roster/Field for the Bears. A. The Depth Gap can be mitigated by great conditioning, faster climbing of the learning curve by younger players, hustle/heart/want-to, excellent coaching (both in gameday decision-making & player development), strong Player Leadership, and excellent execution. B. The Depth Gap is widened by INJURIES, lack of Player retention (for whatever reason), less-than-excellent prospect evaluation, less-than-excellent Player development (for whatever reason), and less-than-excellent position depth planning. 1. A Talent Gap manifests itself when Teams are consistently unable to compete with their opponents and is marked by big losses. 2. A Depth Gap manifests itself when Teams don't seem to be able to put together complete games on a consistent basis, but are clearly competitive with their opponents. It is marked by close wins and/or losses. I think we have seen some from 'Column A' and some from 'Column B.' I think we have seen very little of #1 and a WHOLE LOT of #2 Speaking of "Gaps." This is the "GAP" by which highly-ranked, playoff-bound Samford beat Mercer last Saturday...   |
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Post by BearDownMU on Nov 15, 2016 16:35:41 GMT -5
Maybe you could see if you can get CBL's job. You seems to have it figured. At least I won't insult our players claiming we have a talent gap. You think that's an insult? Did you play sports? News flash, talent levels are different. It's not insulting to anyone. I've seen players with less talent whip more talented players and I've seen players with more talent get whipped by players with less. I pitched against JD Drew in college. He was infinitely more talented than me.... Struck his ass out, tho. And stick to having a conversation instead of all of a sudden turning self-righteous. |
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Post by mercerfan on Nov 15, 2016 17:43:20 GMT -5
At least I won't insult our players claiming we have a talent gap. You think that's an insult? Did you play sports? News flash, talent levels are different. It's not insulting to anyone. I've seen players with less talent whip more talented players and I've seen players with more talent get whipped by players with less. I pitched against JD Drew in college. He was infinitely more talented than me.... Struck his ass out, tho. And stick to having a conversation instead of all of a sudden turning self-righteous. Oh. I see how this works now. You get to be snarky cause its your site. But forbid anyone responding to it. I stand by my assessment of Mercer's talent. I do not think there is a talent gap or a depth gap. Case in point and example would be Sat. Mercer won the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters once we made the appropriate defensive adjustment. I just think we should have done a better job scouting Samford and making this adjustment on the first Samford drive. The loss had nothing to do with talent or depth. |
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Post by mercerfan on Nov 15, 2016 17:50:50 GMT -5
FUBeAR, I'd like to make one big correction (or clarification) to your analysis. On the 3rd Samford TD, it was not a long TD pass. Our CB was giving a 12 yard cushion on the play on the edge. It was right in front of where I was sitting on my side of the field. It was another 8 yard pass on the edge and then a juke on the DB and no one else around to prevent the TD. This was the same defense employed on the first and second Samford drives. So it was not a 47 yard bomb. It was an 8 yard pass with 39 YACs. Yep - You're right - I had remembered that play wrong. It was a 12 yard down the field pass though - not a hitch/screen/quick stop route. The LOS was the MU 47 & the ball is caught on the MU 35. It's on the highlight below @ 0:55, but I can't really tell the D alignment they are in on this play. OLB #16 does get in the frame, but he did not get in the throwing lane of what looks like an out or a smash route. Hard to say how far walked he was from this clip. Looks like S #30 jumped down on #83's In or Stop route, which is, I imagine why #26 was giving a big cushion and didn't have any run support behind him. Maybe if #16 was walked (back) more, #30 doesn't have that 'down' responsibility and #26 could have played tighter and #16 could have gotten to the WR quicker as well. So, I don't know if they were in the "5-in-the-box" alignment on this play or not - you say they weren't, so "OK", but they definitely were in it BY the 3rd series. They didn't go with 5-ITB EVERY Play the rest of the game. Seemed to be in it mostly on 1st downs and what I'll call 'medium-to-go's.'...such as this play (2nd & 8). On shorter or longer yardages, they mixed things up a bit and did some blitzing also. 12 yard cushion. |
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Post by BearDownMU on Nov 15, 2016 18:05:48 GMT -5
You think that's an insult? Did you play sports? News flash, talent levels are different. It's not insulting to anyone. I've seen players with less talent whip more talented players and I've seen players with more talent get whipped by players with less. I pitched against JD Drew in college. He was infinitely more talented than me.... Struck his ass out, tho. And stick to having a conversation instead of all of a sudden turning self-righteous. Oh. I see how this works now. You get to be snarky cause its your site. But forbid anyone responding to it. I stand by my assessment of Mercer's talent. I do not think there is a talent gap or a depth gap. Case in point and example would be Sat. Mercer won the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters once we made the appropriate defensive adjustment. I just think we should have done a better job scouting Samford and making this adjustment on the first Samford drive. The loss had nothing to do with talent or depth. I was snarky because you decided to act like you were morally superior and I was somehow insulting players. That's just silly. And I don't forbid anyone to do anything. You can post until your fingers bleed for all I care. |
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Post by jackal on Nov 15, 2016 20:57:13 GMT -5
At least I won't insult our players claiming we have a talent gap. You think that's an insult? Did you play sports? News flash, talent levels are different. It's not insulting to anyone. I've seen players with less talent whip more talented players and I've seen players with more talent get whipped by players with less. I pitched against JD Drew in college. He was infinitely more talented than me.... Struck his ass out, tho. And stick to having a conversation instead of all of a sudden turning self-righteous. Occasionally you would run into guys in the high school game that made you go "woah." My first "woah" moment was standing in the box against Edwin Jackson (we both played for local high schools). First time I'd ever seen a fastball thrown in the low 90s with sink and fade. You could give me ten hacks at it and I probably still couldn't get a bat on it. |
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Post by BearDownMU on Nov 15, 2016 22:07:48 GMT -5
You think that's an insult? Did you play sports? News flash, talent levels are different. It's not insulting to anyone. I've seen players with less talent whip more talented players and I've seen players with more talent get whipped by players with less. I pitched against JD Drew in college. He was infinitely more talented than me.... Struck his ass out, tho. And stick to having a conversation instead of all of a sudden turning self-righteous. Occasionally you would run into guys in the high school game that made you go "woah." My first "woah" moment was standing in the box against Edwin Jackson (we both played for local high schools). First time I'd ever seen a fastball thrown in the low 90s with sink and fade. You could give me ten hacks at it and I probably still couldn't get a bat on it. I had a similar experience. This kid Rodney Brown from Stetson. 95. Just silly. Also, Nomar Garciaparra at Georgia Tech was like that. We were all in the dugout like, "I this guy for real?" |
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Post by FUBeAR on Nov 16, 2016 1:29:36 GMT -5
I stand by my assessment of Mercer's talent. I do not think there is...a depth gap. Case in point and example would be Sat. Mercer won the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters once we made the appropriate defensive adjustment. The loss had nothing to do with...depth. I know you know ball, but if you don't want to acknowledge the Depth Gap that exists, then I'm not sure it makes much sense to discuss this any further. Let me try to convince you with a few Socratic examples...and if you still don't see the obvious, then I think we'll just have to, as Jackal says so often, agree to disagree. * Why did John Russ have 41 rushing attempts last Saturday? * Why are 2 of Mercer's 3 RB's with carries last Sat. a converted DB and a very recently converted LB? * Who was Mercer's backup Center in 2015? How about this year? How many game reps at Center did/do those guys have? * When the LT went down earlier this season, why did Mercer move the RT to LT and sub in a back-up OG @ RT? * When the starting LG had to miss a couple of games this season, why did another back-up OG (not the one mentioned above), a TRUE FR, start in his place? * I really could go on, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings (if I haven't already). I'm sure it's easy to notice something about all of the situations I called out above - they are all on Offense. So, you might say, "I'm talking about a DEFENSIVE situation," BUT the lack of depth situation on Offense DOES have a direct affect on what happens on both sides of the ball. Think about a HYPOTHETICAL decision to punt on 4th and 1 from the other Team's 40. Why would a Coach with a good Offense do that? Maybe his Defense is very short-handed and the LAST thing he wants to do is risk giving the opponent a short field. Only putting 5 in the box on Defense when the Offense has 7 in there is a HUGE risk (as Chatt found out last year vs. VMI). It violates basic principles of Football Coaching. It's a risk that Mercer, IN HINDSIGHT, should have taken against Samford last week from the opening whistle. But, with the situation on Offense what it was, I certainly understand not taking that kind of risk, until it became obvious that it was necessary - after the 2nd series. Oh...and the cushion was 9 yards (not 12) at the snap and had closed to 5 when the ball was thrown, but Mercer did APPEAR to play 6 in the box on that play - probably what you saw from your seat. BUT...just before the snap, the ILB on the backside did walk out on the inside WR on that side, so, they WERE actually playing 5 in the Box (in a 4-1 alignment, instead of a 3-2) on the 3rd TD. The play-action sweep motion to the side where the ball was thrown held the OLB on that side (who WAS walked out/off) for a second so he did not get into the throwing lane to the outside WR as I suspect he, ideally, should have and he wasn't able to close quick enough to make the tackle. The post by the inside WR on the playside occupied the Safety on that side. I'm thinking that perhaps, the backside Safety should have rolled more to the middle of the field/toward the wide side at the snap (or pre-snap) and then the post could have been his guy, freeing up the Playside Safety to support the CB. The backside Safety stayed between the hash and numbers on the boundary side though. I believe the coverage was Quarters...and THAT may have been the problem. With the ball on the right hash and Sammy running doubles/RB set to the boundary, that left the Field CB to cover from the sideline to the middle of the field (once the Playside Safety rolled away on the Post route) with no deep help and and the underneath help (the walked OLB) was 'held' by the Play Action. So...I think the Playside OLB was a bit wrong (hard to get those cats not to think RUN FIRST though) and I think 1 or both of the Safeties may have been wrong (Quarters coverage shouldn't leave 1 guy covering 1/2 of the field, should it?) or a different coverage would have been better. Maybe they were SUPPOSED to Check to Cover 3 Strong to the Field in that situation and didn't do it...I don't know. BUT...what I do KNOW...is there were 5 in the box on the 3rd TD |
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Post by jackal on Nov 16, 2016 6:22:50 GMT -5
Schedule plays a role as well. Mercer is upping their schedule difficulty, more conference games, fewer home games, more consecutive road tilts. That will test depth no matter what team you are.
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