1) Yesterday is the last time I check the game thread while watching - I swear this time, lol. I posted something similar in the game thread but wanted to repost.
Lots of posters with unrealistic expectations of Trace that are just never going to be happy. It seems that their memories of last year are something different than mine and they are expecting even better this year. He is what he is - which is a terrific college football quarterback and, more importantly, a winner who comes through in the clutch. What he's not - Drew Brees. He is maddeningly inconsistent with his accuracy and will go through some rough patches. I expect I will be screaming at my TV more than a few times more this season. What he's not - JT Barrett. He still struggles with decision making at times (and TBH so do some guys who are playing on Sunday and about 99% of CFB quarterbacks). I just put Barrett there because I just watched him play a masterful game in terms of running the RPO albeit against a D2 team. But he's getting better each week, but at the end of the day he's not going to be dynamic or explosive running the football.
So he'll drive you a little nutty at times, but then later he will do some things that make you forget all about that. He gets results and you want him on the field with the game on the line - those things are by far the most important things you want in your QB.
BTW, spyker and all the Tommy Stevens pumpers (not to be taken as a rip on Tommy) - in the limited action that we've seen him operate behind center I'm willing to concede that Stevens will probably be a better running threat than McSorely when he finally gets to take over after Trace is done. But there is no evidence available that he will be better in the passing game. None. Which is what everyone bitches about with Trace.
2) Not sure what we are going to do about the FG unit except cross our fingers. Early on IMO this was strictly a snap-hold issue. You could see the timing off on a bunch of snaps which resulted in misses or near-misses. They had to get that fixed. Yesterday, I don't think there was any of that. But we probably have a kicker whose confidence is shot - which is a problem. This is really our #1 problem going forward IMO and is likely to lose us a game.
3) Pre-amble - I know players develop over time in college and you have to be patient. But in watching and coaching football for a long time you get to know that the vast majority of stars announce themselves in some ways right away. They are somehow ready to play even before they should be ready to play. The guys with the great physical skills to be stars but can't show it on the field because of some issues that need to get fixed - well they may get better in those areas but they generally don't go away. We have a bunch of solid guys playing WR right now. I know some of them have some very rare physical skills, but I don't think that the guys playing are ever going to be very rare players. Take them for what they bring - solid guys, great in the run game - we can win with these guys. But our passing game definitely misses Godwin - he was by far the best receiver of the group. Juwan is a solid kid, but he's never going to be spyker's Calvin Johnson. It concerned me that he couldn't get on the field last year and he shouldn't have been expected to be a break-out guy who was going to take the B1G by storm as some did. We don't have one of the best WR groups in the country - which was posted by more than a few including some guys who are more than fust fans. But take in account their contributions in the run game and they are good.
4) If I have to read one more time about why Barkley wasn't getting any more outside runs, well. Please understand our offense and the RPO - this is what we have and it is successful and not going to change. The bread and butter play for Barkley to get outside was called more than once yesterday and everytime with an unblocked (by design) player right in Barkley's pocket. IU played great yesterday in large part because they have a tremendous player in Scales who allowed them to play that way from what I saw just watching on TV - don't know, reviewing the game might say differently but that was my initial impression. He gave our OL fits and allowed IU to overplay things with other players. Barkleys 35 yard receiving play was a great example of us designing something to get him outside. And it basically took a superhuman play on Barkley's part to make it happen because Scales was there to limit it to a minimal game. So they try to take Barkley away and then have Scales there to clean up the rest. Good philosophy by me when you have a guy like that. Don't underestimate how good that guy is. I know Michigan's defense is good, but I don't see anyone as good as him in their LB corp right now including spyker's favorite Bush. Same with tOSU. He's probably the best LB we face all year.
Lots of posters with unrealistic expectations of Trace that are just never going to be happy. It seems that their memories of last year are something different than mine and they are expecting even better this year. He is what he is - which is a terrific college football quarterback and, more importantly, a winner who comes through in the clutch. What he's not - Drew Brees. He is maddeningly inconsistent with his accuracy and will go through some rough patches. I expect I will be screaming at my TV more than a few times more this season. What he's not - JT Barrett. He still struggles with decision making at times (and TBH so do some guys who are playing on Sunday and about 99% of CFB quarterbacks). I just put Barrett there because I just watched him play a masterful game in terms of running the RPO albeit against a D2 team. But he's getting better each week, but at the end of the day he's not going to be dynamic or explosive running the football.
So he'll drive you a little nutty at times, but then later he will do some things that make you forget all about that. He gets results and you want him on the field with the game on the line - those things are by far the most important things you want in your QB.
BTW, spyker and all the Tommy Stevens pumpers (not to be taken as a rip on Tommy) - in the limited action that we've seen him operate behind center I'm willing to concede that Stevens will probably be a better running threat than McSorely when he finally gets to take over after Trace is done. But there is no evidence available that he will be better in the passing game. None. Which is what everyone bitches about with Trace.
2) Not sure what we are going to do about the FG unit except cross our fingers. Early on IMO this was strictly a snap-hold issue. You could see the timing off on a bunch of snaps which resulted in misses or near-misses. They had to get that fixed. Yesterday, I don't think there was any of that. But we probably have a kicker whose confidence is shot - which is a problem. This is really our #1 problem going forward IMO and is likely to lose us a game.
3) Pre-amble - I know players develop over time in college and you have to be patient. But in watching and coaching football for a long time you get to know that the vast majority of stars announce themselves in some ways right away. They are somehow ready to play even before they should be ready to play. The guys with the great physical skills to be stars but can't show it on the field because of some issues that need to get fixed - well they may get better in those areas but they generally don't go away. We have a bunch of solid guys playing WR right now. I know some of them have some very rare physical skills, but I don't think that the guys playing are ever going to be very rare players. Take them for what they bring - solid guys, great in the run game - we can win with these guys. But our passing game definitely misses Godwin - he was by far the best receiver of the group. Juwan is a solid kid, but he's never going to be spyker's Calvin Johnson. It concerned me that he couldn't get on the field last year and he shouldn't have been expected to be a break-out guy who was going to take the B1G by storm as some did. We don't have one of the best WR groups in the country - which was posted by more than a few including some guys who are more than fust fans. But take in account their contributions in the run game and they are good.
4) If I have to read one more time about why Barkley wasn't getting any more outside runs, well. Please understand our offense and the RPO - this is what we have and it is successful and not going to change. The bread and butter play for Barkley to get outside was called more than once yesterday and everytime with an unblocked (by design) player right in Barkley's pocket. IU played great yesterday in large part because they have a tremendous player in Scales who allowed them to play that way from what I saw just watching on TV - don't know, reviewing the game might say differently but that was my initial impression. He gave our OL fits and allowed IU to overplay things with other players. Barkleys 35 yard receiving play was a great example of us designing something to get him outside. And it basically took a superhuman play on Barkley's part to make it happen because Scales was there to limit it to a minimal game. So they try to take Barkley away and then have Scales there to clean up the rest. Good philosophy by me when you have a guy like that. Don't underestimate how good that guy is. I know Michigan's defense is good, but I don't see anyone as good as him in their LB corp right now including spyker's favorite Bush. Same with tOSU. He's probably the best LB we face all year.
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