A few things on the Pac-12 Championship game

[Justin M Guerriero]

I wanted to open up a discussion here regarding a few things that happened in the Pac-12 Championship game.
A lot is Sefo related.

1. Sefo's three picks: What's the blame situation here? All three were intended for JayMac, so explain to me your thoughts on where that blame should be directed.

2. Sefo's ankle injury: I watched from the press box as Sefo walked off the field after hurting his ankle following being sacked. First of all, he wouldn't have stayed down on the field that long if he weren't in pain. Secondly, he spend a good deal of time stretching and working things out with the training staff. I've received many opinions that he never shoulda gone back out there...but he (and yes, coming from Sefo, who's a tough dude and is always going to say he's 100%), coach Mac and that training staff cleared him to go back out and compete. Mac said after the game that he didn't notice Sefo limping and I would agree, it didn't seem like the injury was a factor on his bad play. Obviously, that doesn't mean that he was in zero pain or anguish, but I'm saying yes, he should have finished that game, it was the right call.

3. The defense: what the actual hell happened in terms of the run game. 260 total yards allowed...5.5 YPC average allowed to Washington's Myles Gaskin and Lavon Coleman. Those two had their way with our defense for the entire game. I simply just did not expect them to be able to run the ball that well. How do you assess the defense's performance against the run? Just outmatched? A bad game? On the year, I'd categorize CU's run D as "good." The team held Utah to a 4.4 YPC average, but surrendered 179 total rushing yards. Against Wazzu, the Buffs had a hard time with Jamal Morrow, who rushed 7 times for 87 yards. Was this type of performance destined to happen? What do you make of Colorado's weakness against the run vs. the Huskies.

4. Not too major, but Alex Kinney was pretty bad...averaged just 33 yards per punt.

5. D-backs played well. Browning was pretty limited in the contest, but it didn't really matter, did it. I thought John Ross was going to catch at least one deep ball. But I do have to say, Chido, after playing a near flawless season, made a few bad plays in that game, not that the resulting plays were really that influential, but on that TD to Ross in the third quarter, I think Chido just vastly misread the ball when it left Browning's hand, which put him in a bad spot to defend and allowed Ross to waltz into the endzone. Hard to criticize Chido for all he's done this year, but not his best game on Friday.

Comments and concerns?? Who is watching this basektball game now too...livestream link is here if you don't have it: http://wccsports.com/game-center/57d88eb8e4b014f38519c77c/ this team cannot afford more non conference losses. Better get it in gear.

 

[Agent Dave Kujan]

A couple of points:

1. The defense looked very disorganized pre-snap. That was the first time this year that they had looked that way. I was wondering if the coaches had tried to do too much and it made us play a bit slow.
2. I still can't believe that Tedric didn't pick off two passes early in the game. Both of those passes were way under thrown and he has made that play all year long. To me it looked like Tedric, and several other players were playing scared and in fact giving Washington too much respect. Had he made those picks the complection of the game changes dramatically. Those were the type of plays we were going to have to make if we had any chance of winning.
3. Early in the season we made our bones on slant passes and quick reads but those were taken away late in the season. I would have like to have seen a lot more bunch formations yesterday that allowed our receivers a chance to get open. Without help, they could get no separation all night.
4. Sefo has had accuracy propblems all year and really his whole career. If we are going to take the next step, we need a qb that hits receivers in stride and has way more zip on the ball.
5. We need to develop a pass catching tight end. The passing game simply needs that dimension.

 

[bpc5180]

I'm sure the team played tight. They had never been under the spot light like that.

That being give credit to UW. They were coached better, more talented and had a better game plan. They dominated all three phases, killed us on top and field possession.

Not only did they beat us, they didn't beat themselves. They were content to slow play us as they knew we would mess up and they make us pay. Game was 14-7 at halftime. Sefo comes back and we get blown out.

Why? Our offense hasn't nearly played with the swagger and fire it did in first two months of the season. Sefo reverted to frustrating Sefo of old with errant passes all over the place.

We have the worst special teams of any good team ive seen in recent memory. We're on our 3rd pk and honestly the other two weren't good anyways. Punt was a disaster over 1st half of season.

Defense was playing tough until 2nd half when Sefo started throwing pics putting our team in hopeless situations. That causes landslide and d looks like it gave up. That browning scramble screen pass for a TD? All the broken tackles? I saw gillam miss so many tackles I'm sure he was looking for his jock after the game. That was embarrassing. Uncharacteristic but I think a bigger team just wore them down along with frustration of watching how little our offense did to change anything. This was by far the least imaginative I've seen our offense especially the routes we ran. It was HB swing pass, tunnel screen, dig or out route. Very disappointed in how that went down.

 

[AeroBuff99]

I wanted to open up a discussion here regarding a few things that happened in the Pac-12 Championship game.
A lot is Sefo related.

1. Sefo's three picks: What's the blame situation here? All three were intended for JayMac, so explain to me your thoughts on where that blame should be directed.

2. Sefo's ankle injury: I watched from the press box as Sefo walked off the field after hurting his ankle following being sacked. First of all, he wouldn't have stayed down on the field that long if he weren't in pain. Secondly, he spend a good deal of time stretching and working things out with the training staff. I've received many opinions that he never shoulda gone back out there...but he (and yes, coming from Sefo, who's a tough dude and is always going to say he's 100%), coach Mac and that training staff cleared him to go back out and compete. Mac said after the game that he didn't notice Sefo limping and I would agree, it didn't seem like the injury was a factor on his bad play. Obviously, that doesn't mean that he was in zero pain or anguish, but I'm saying yes, he should have finished that game, it was the right call.

3. The defense: what the actual hell happened in terms of the run game. 260 total yards allowed...5.5 YPC average allowed to Washington's Myles Gaskin and Lavon Coleman. Those two had their way with our defense for the entire game. I simply just did not expect them to be able to run the ball that well. How do you assess the defense's performance against the run? Just outmatched? A bad game? On the year, I'd categorize CU's run D as "good." The team held Utah to a 4.4 YPC average, but surrendered 179 total rushing yards. Against Wazzu, the Buffs had a hard time with Jamal Morrow, who rushed 7 times for 87 yards. Was this type of performance destined to happen? What do you make of Colorado's weakness against the run vs. the Huskies.

4. Not too major, but Alex Kinney was pretty bad...averaged just 33 yards per punt.

5. D-backs played well. Browning was pretty limited in the contest, but it didn't really matter, did it. I thought John Ross was going to catch at least one deep ball. But I do have to say, Chido, after playing a near flawless season, made a few bad plays in that game, not that the resulting plays were really that influential, but on that TD to Ross in the third quarter, I think Chido just vastly misread the ball when it left Browning's hand, which put him in a bad spot to defend and allowed Ross to waltz into the endzone. Hard to criticize Chido for all he's done this year, but not his best game on Friday.

Comments and concerns?? Who is watching this basektball game now too...livestream link is here if you don't have it: http://wccsports.com/game-center/57d88eb8e4b014f38519c77c/ this team cannot afford more non conference losses. Better get it in gear.

1. 2 of the picks hit JMac in the hands, should have been caught. Sometimes a high throw is necessary to get the completion, receiver needs to make the catch. Still QB always has to shoulder some blame, so give it 50-50.
2. The fact that they didn't run him much says what you need to know. Unfortunately we couldn't stop their pressure and our receivers didn't get open fast enough. His ability to make adjustments was sorely needed in the second half, but unfortunately they just couldn't get it done.
3. Their line was big and athletic. also a 3-4 defense is not necessarily the best alignment to stop a power run game and we don't have the personnel to adjust to a 4-3. The 3-4 really relies on the two middle backers to be big and strong to stop the run, ours are athletic and lean and cover the majority spread teams well, but couldn't match up with their pulling linemen. We got owned on the middle, but mostly contained the outside.
4. Kinney mostly did alright outside the one real bad punt, but was otherwise a non-factor in the outcome.
5. Browning was atrocious throughout most of the game on his passing. Our DB's were decent, but failed to make a couple critical plays. I thought they played well enough to win. The pass game of UW wasn't what won the game, it was their rushing that did.

 

[Liver]

ok, i'm at a point where i can offer some thoughts from the perspective of a non-expert, but i was at the game, too.

sefo couldn't push off that leg after the injury -- he was no threat to run after that and uw knew it.

i agree that 2 of the 3 picks weren't on sefo-- they were not "perfectly" thrown balls, but in both case to which i am referring, he was adjusting to where the defense was and he was trying to go around it. that said, he wasn't as accurate as he needed to be for us to win.

we had some real problems along the offensive line. firstly, uw doesn't blitz much and they were still able to get into the backfield. they did that all year so it wasn't just us, but it took away something sefo is really good at-- read, change, exploit.

montez simply did not run the offense as crisply. he didn't get them to the line as quickly and he didn't adjust as well. that was true in his previous appearances as well. i am not super-concerned because now i believe he will win the job and will get the snaps and he can physically make the plays. he just needs to go faster and own the offense.

on defense, we got owned upfront. my personal opinion is that we weren't good enough at the lb position to fill the holes and cover the edges. i thought tupou held up well but they keyed him and they certainly knew that our lbs couldnt handle the pounding. their ability to run at will, of course, was the difference in the game. part of browning's bad stats is that they didn't need to throw much-- they were going for about 5 yards a pop whenever they felt like it.

our secondary was ****ing legendary. honestly, they were going against down/distance nearly every play and they were facing a heisman candidate (i know he didn't look like it-- thank our secondary). that was a lights-out performance. sadly, it is still a team game.

and, of course, our special teams sucked royally. we'll all scream about the coaching, me included, but we don't have enough bodies to succeed-- that's a big part of this. when we can plug in more young ones who have pure athletic ability to play on special teams, things will improve. at the specialty positions, we were more than a little unlucky-- kicker blows his acl, seriously? so, i think we'll upgrade there.

uw was the better team. we could have won it but didn't do nearly enough to have a chance. they will get rolled whomever they face in the playoffs. but, we'd get rolled too. the key now is to recruit. recruit. recruit.

we have a base to build upon and we need to thank the seniors for what they achieved. it was an epic turnaround and they should be proud of it forever. we can and will get better from here. i feel like this staff schemes well and builds well. we need more athletes. this isn't a knock on the guys that got us 10 wins this year-- they are always going to be the guys who got us going again and i'll never forget what they did for the program.

 

[PAHIBuff]

Just to backtrack on a macro level for a minute, there's that old saying that "when you pass the football three things can happen and two of them are bad". CU, as currently configured, has a one dimensional offense built around the passing game, as are many teams in college football. When it works it's beautiful but when it gets exposed, it's bad news. Washington (now), Stanford (usually), and USC (at times), make serious efforts to have balanced offenses. When the Buffs do the same they will be consistent and legitimate candidates for the PAC 12 title.

As for defense, MFJL and the other D coaches did a miraculous job here coaching these guys up, but the UW game was a stark reminder of how far we still need to go with recruiting, actually on both sides of the ball.

 

[Sykobuff]

1. Sefo 2 of the 3 pucks were on him.
2.MM said they cleared him, didn't rum much after. He finished the game and should have.

3. The run defense started to get exposed in the arizona game and they didn't improve upon it. Serious upgrade at inside LB is needed.

4.kinney was bad, kicking game/special teams need to be fixed and taken more seriously, take that how you want.

5. Secondary was great but missed on some opportunities. Thompson could have had 2 picks, oliver had one for an easy 6 and awuzie misread on that td pass to ross. Awuzie didn't have as many wow plays as last year but qb's stayed away from him.


Washington was better on both lines. CU has to recruit these areas very well and are doing so on OL. DL recruiting is crutial but our LB recruiting should be better.

 

[CUav8er]

and, of course, our special teams sucked royally. we'll all scream about the coaching, me included, but we don't have enough bodies to succeed-- that's a big part of this. when we can plug in more young ones who have pure athletic ability to play on special teams, things will improve. at the specialty positions, we were more than a little unlucky-- kicker blows his acl, seriously? so, i think we'll upgrade there.

One of the things I remember from the broadcast was the announcer saying that Udub puts their starters on special teams. It seems like the Buffs don't do that. I don't know that we have the depth to be able to pull that off, either. It would really suck to have a starter get hurt on ST with no one to back him up. I guess where I am going with this is that ST may continue to suck until we get the cupboard restocked with some 3 and 4 star jimmy and joes, and we get some good kickers/punters.

 

[RiverBuff]

One of the things I remember from the broadcast was the announcer saying that Udub puts their starters on special teams. It seems like the Buffs don't do that. I don't know that we have the depth to be able to pull that off, either. It would really suck to have a starter get hurt on ST with no one to back him up. I guess where I am going with this is that ST may continue to suck until we get the cupboard restocked with some 3 and 4 star jimmy and joes, and we get some good kickers/punters.

I agree, but I was real surprised when Lindsay(!) recovered our fumble during that kick-off runback and then had a good run.

 

[White_Rabbit]

1. Well one Sefo just didn't see the guy in front of JayMac, so that one was clearly on Sefo. The other two were bad passes, but the saying exists that if a WR gets 2 hands on a ball he should catch it, Mac didn't both times.

2. idk, in hindsight going with Montez probably would've better (couldn't have been much worse), but if Sefo says he's good to go, pretty bad if the coaches ignore that and go with Montez. Montez also wasn't exactly tearing it up in the first half moving the ball.

3. bad linebackers, we need an upgrade there next year.

4.

5. Our DBs were incredible all year. We're going to miss them, hopefully the younger guys are ready to step in. Also worth mentioning, UW's DBs were probably almost as good. Our WRs were seemingly never open. Jones and Baker are definitely top notch players.

 

[89BUFF89]

Watching some great punting in the other games this weekend just makes me shake my head again why we can't find someone to consistently hit it 50 yards at altitude.

 

[PAHIBuff]

Looking forward to the Montez Era.

 

[ZandiBuff]

On the 3 picks, I put 2 of them on Macintyre - 2 volleyball sets straight up in the air and the 3rd, he quit on the route. Yes, both passes were a touch high / behind, but he put both hands on them without much twisting / contortion, really should have had them.

One other things that hasn't been noted, Oliver had a route that he jumped, would have been a pick 6 and tied the game in the first 1/4, dropped. That could have been a HUGE momentum shift.

 

[bpc5180]

1. Well one Sefo just didn't see the guy in front of JayMac, so that one was clearly on Sefo. The other two were bad passes, but the saying exists that if a WR gets 2 hands on a ball he should catch it, Mac didn't both times.

2. idk, in hindsight going with Montez probably would've better (couldn't have been much worse), but if Sefo says he's good to go, pretty bad if the coaches ignore that and go with Montez. Montez also wasn't exactly tearing it up in the first half moving the ball.

3. bad linebackers, we need an upgrade there next year.

4.

5. Our DBs were incredible all year. We're going to miss them, hopefully the younger guys are ready to step in. Also worth mentioning, UW's DBs were probably almost as good. Our WRs were seemingly never open. Jones and Baker are definitely top notch players.

LOL. #4, picture is worth a thousand words. No way a top 10 team should ever have special teams as bad as ours this year.