Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/10-thoughts-on-oklahoma-states-17-14-loss-to-ucf/
So close, but yet so far.
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IMO QB play is the main reason for the past two games. Yes, Flores is a RS freshman, but this is his 3rd year. Even with time missed due to injury, he should have progressed some. I think the team wins one of these last two if Heyny was the QB. Simply because of his legs and athletic ability
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He hits the occasional out-route, but generally lacks accuracy. He missed several easy crossers, and generated zero defensive fear deep which let UCF tee off on all the short stuff.
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I agree, but our other positions (except for RB)doesn’t have “dudes.” The play designs aren’t set up for success either. There’s so much blame to go around it’s tough to narrow it down to one thing. This game proves more and more that we need Morris, his game plan, some of his players and his staff!
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After Fields’ interception, we should’ve had the ball at 35-yard line with :52 and ALL the momentum. With our offense, we probably wouldn’t have been successful in getting into field goal range (or better), but…
…we took ourselves out of knowing with boneheaded celebration penalties.
We also spent a lot of time “shhhing” the crow after our two scores.
I suggest someone show this team every TD Barry Sanders scored all the way through the moment Barry handed the ref the ball and trotted back to the sideline.
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You’re expecting kids to play with the maturity and wisdom of a 40 year old man. That rarely happens, even in the NFL.
Maturity and wisdom? Or humility?
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RE #10 Orange facemasks? The game itself was frustrating, too many wasted opportunities. Have to love the effort though from the kids!
I agree that we lack dudes. That’s what happens when half your offense is transfers from FCS or lower division schools. That said, I disagree about the offensive playcalling. I do wish we’d attack the edges more on run plays, because we lack the push up the middle, but we’ve got lots more motion and variety to the offense than what we saw last year or the start of this year. We ran mesh concepts with our crossers, we just couldn’t hit them consistently. And because we don’t threaten deep, we are facing single high safeties almost the entire game. But in the end, better QB play alone would have won each of the past two games.
It wasn’t the celebration that was the problem. It was that all 3 of those players took their helmets off during the celebration.
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I’d just rather lose so we get a higher draft pick in the spring……
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That’s actually my point: the play calling isn’t conducive to the lack of skill (pre-snap reads) of our QB.
I feel that humility often comes with wisdom and maturity - so yeah, it’s always refreshing to see humility on display. But we’re expecting humility as a byproduct of an extremely competitive sport, we’re probably going to be disappointed more often than not.
This. Was at the game and Flores missed or threw behind so many receivers. He is just not a good QB.
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Not sure I agree. Didn’t feel like I saw many cases of where ZF misread the defense but rather just an inability to successfully complete the play. He’s reading and throwing the slant when he’s got off coverage, but just missing the target bringing the defense into play. Same with reading man coverage and throwing the crossing route (correct read) but being a yard behind the receiver so its either defended, or if caught, there’s no RAC possibility. The best comparison I can come up with for ZF is Al Pena (another QB Gundy way over-evaluated). But unlike when Al started, there’s no Brandon Weeden waiting in the wings for his shot.
He doesn’t pre-snap (or post-snap) read defenses quick enough. I think he needs to be in a hurry up to have a chance to be successful. This will allow him to get reads without the D being in position. The downside to the hurry up, is it isn’t conducive to a lot of drag routes, which is what he seems to do best. He doesn’t seem to trust his legs consistent enough when it comes to RPO’s either. I have counted multiple times per game where he should have pulled it and taken off himself. That being said, the coaches may have told him not to keep it because of the lack of depth at the position.