My Reconsideration

[ncgo4]

I've rewatched this game twice now and I'm seeing it a lot differently. First and foremost, you cannot watch what our offense did after the first quarter without note of what the defense was doing. Our defense had the best game for the maroon & gold perhaps in a generation. A defensive shutout and we held them inside their own side of the field all but 2 plays. It was frightening.

In light of that, following the two interceptions Kill & Limegrover effectively shut it down. I believe in an attempt to avoid any further injuries and in acknowledgement that we were without our anticipated tight end strength. It was, for the most part, runs up the gut and very simple short pass plays. In light of what our D was doing and in light of how decimated our O Line is, this was the absolute correct thing to do.

As to Demry, there is no way whatsoever, he should have been put in that game behind a crippled O line. He might have been killed.

I still have issues about why the line has been injured for what seems like the last 3 years, but as far as Mitch Leidner and what was done Saturday, the game was managed just as it should have been.

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

I don't doubt they shut it down, but if you think that is your best option, to keep it within a score vs ..... Kent State. That's not good, intentional or not. Kill came away from that game seeming down, noted the players seemed down.... all according to plan?

 

[MNVCGUY]

I don't doubt they shut it down, but if you think that is your best option, to keep it within a score vs ..... Kent State. That's not good, intentional or not. Kill came away from that game seeming down, noted the players seemed down.... all according to plan?

They 100% shut it down at the end of the game and played not to lose on offense figuring the defense was playing well enough to shut Kent State down for the remainder of the game.

But let's not confuse that with a situation where the game is in hand and you call off the dogs. The offense was a trainwreck in the game. Fortunately KSU was so bad that our defense could completely shut them down and cover up for the weak play of the offense. It worked against KSU but it won't work against better teams going forward and we absolutely could have used a game against a weak team like KSU to gain some confidence on that side of the ball. Instead we left with more questions then answers over there.

Hopefully on Saturday we will see a much stronger performance out of the offense because once we get into conference play we are going to need them to compliment the defense if the team hopes to contend in the West.

 

[RolGnav]

ncgo4, I agree with your observations.

But that's what made me more upset. If you guys remember last year, Coach Kill was only down a touchdown (as I can recall) with time running out, and he just accepted the loss and punted on forth down even though there wasn't enough time to get the ball back anymore. I'm starting to think he'd rather not let the game get out of hand (lose by a bigger margin), than to try to win it. This strategy/style won't work if the other team is more talented than yours. If you are the underdog, you have to take chances. It worked with Kent State because we are physically more talented... but try Saturday's strategy vs Wisconsin or Michigan or anyone in the B10, and it will be a loss. Then Coach Kill will blame the defense for not holding, but how much can you ask out of them before you realize you need to keep them off the field to help them out too.

 

[ncgo4]

The O line is decimated. The tight ends we were counting on are out, maybe for the year. That's a time when you circle the wagons and try to not lose or get anyone else injured.

 

[RolGnav]

The O line is decimated. The tight ends we were counting on are out, maybe for the year. That's a time when you circle the wagons and try to not lose or get anyone else injured.

The thing is though, he's done this type of conservative shut down before many times in the past... I don't think it was an O line issue those times.

 

[Spoofin]

I don't doubt they shut it down, but if you think that is your best option, to keep it within a score vs ..... Kent State. That's not good, intentional or not. Kill came away from that game seeming down, noted the players seemed down.... all according to plan?

Even with shutting it down they could have believed they would be able to RUTM to some more points. Kill was likely very disappointed they couldn't do it against Kent State no matter how many they had in the box.

Derek Burns showed some examples of us RUTM against 10 men in the box. 10. Hard to say that was intentional and a sign we shut it down. I'm in no way supporting that decision, but I think it was made.