Crimson Red Sports

I know this is a VERY touchy subject with some of the posters, but we need to discuss this since the Ole Miss game may have changed perceptions or revealed weaknesses.

First of all, what's the perception of QB Blake Sims now. Just one bad game, too much happy feet, no change and why or why not? I never thought he was a Heisman candidate or the next coming of Namath or Stabler but I thought he might be a stable, serviceable QB. We play Arkansas & A&M next. These games will tell us a lot about Sims. Personally, in the 2nd half, I saw a unconfident, and hesitant QB who appeared confused at times.

Second, the WR situation is somewhat confusing. At the start of the season, we were told we had the deepest WR corps in the country. Where did that depth go in the Ole Miss game? White was hurt and Drake injured, so that's a known, but what about the bench? We threw 1 pass each to Black & Jones. OJ Howard was a disaster with 2 costly penalties and having a 5'9" CB take a reception from him in the end zone (he's 6'5" 250). Instead of aggressively going after the ball, he waited for the ball to come to him and it cost us.
Maybe someone else has another take on the WR situation and I would enjoy hearing it, because the situation really has me confused about what was going on. Were they just covered up every time, did the QB not see them, or something else?


 :dunno:
 

Despite the understandable attention to Drake's horrific injury, the loss of Kelly at center was another pivotal challenge that Sims had to face at crucial point in the game. Crunch time deep in the OM student section. The only things I think Sims did poorly were running out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage when a toss out the sidelines would have saved 5-9 yards.

I don't even know our depth at WR past Jones and Black. Anyone on that?

There was a screen pass called.  Thus, the linemen had released down field.  It would have been called ineligible receiver downfield.

I am so confused I don't what one end of a basketball from a football. So I am no help at all in nothing. RTR!

First of all don't go blaming Sims for the offensive woes. Take a look at what the offensive line didn't do yesterday. When Kelly got injured it only made Sim's job that much harder, the OL had a bad second half. If you had been in my seat yesterday you could have seen that Ole Miss did a fantastic job on pass coverage, much better than Bama did. As far as receivers, we had our best receivers on the field and they could not get much space between them and the defender.

I give all the credit to Ole Miss, they played the way they had to to beat Bama and it was no one person's fault with the way the score ended up, they were not the better team on Saturday.

I don't know football the way most of you men do, but I am still sick over
Coach Saban going back on his word to walk-on quarterback Luke del Rio.

It's water under the dam now...but Luke (son of Denver Broncos defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio) worked his way up to wearing the headsets for A.J. McCarron.  He beat out all the rest of the quarterback recruits.  He is tall, very bright, and a game manager type quarterback like A.J and Greg McElroy.  His scholarship was given to Jacob Coker.      

So now, Luke will soon be starting for Oregon State where he turned down a scholarship to walk on at Alabama.  He will have several years to play.  I will feel sick for the rest of the year and maybe longer.

http://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/index.ssf/2014/09/oregon_state_beavers_contest_a.html

What's the del Rio relationship with Kiffin?

Your comments are somewhat confusing. First, who is blaming Sims? Do you think Sims had a good game? Also, I know we had our best receivers on the field, but if they could not get open, could we have tried a fresh and rested backup a chance to see if they could do better? The depth chart shows the backups for the starters (WR) but we did not use some of them.  I'm trying to have an honest discussion of a particular area of the offense which seem to struggle yesterday. What problems were the O-line having in particular that you saw after Kelley left the game?

They don't get along.  So I guess that answers it.
http://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/index.ssf/2014/09/oregon_state_beavers_contest_a.html

The del Rios were classy enough to keep it to themselves, but that was the implication.

Sims lost his starting center and after that was getting low snaps all night.

That naked bootleg to cross the goal line, the third time, to get that one td was beautiful.

I do not blame him for the penalties or dropped passes.

OJ Howard is a TE.  I hope everyone who has been crying about him is happy.
The int is his fault.

Penalties and dropped passes.  BAMA beat ole piss pretty much everywhere except the scoreboard.

Brown saved what he has left of his ass by blocking that pat.

Okay, we recruit and coach better than anybody, so why has the team sputtered so much? 

Cecil Hurt talks about it a little today in his article.  Hope I am not breaking any rules here. "First Opponent Alabama Must Overcome is in the Mirror."

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20141004/NEWS/141009781/1015/sports?Title=CECIL-HURT-First-opponent-Alabama-must-overcome-is-in-the-mirror

That's the $10 million question that no one answers. Problems always start at the top, that's Coach Saban, but in the minds of some, criticizing him is like criticizing the Lord. Why do we keep the same lousy Special Teams coach, Coach Saban gets mad if he is asked about that. Coach Saban is a great coach, but he's not perfect (as some of the posters rain thunderbolts down on me for making such a sacrilegious statement about him). The sunny side of all this is we can recover. I expected us to go 10-2 during the regular season due to the competition, and the loss of 7 starters on the defense. The defense, except the DB's, have looked better this year. My biggest concern or lack of understanding is how we could have a week off to prepare and look so out-of-sync on the offense? Is Kiffin not attending to the fundamentals and looking too mutch at play calling? I don't know, I'm just throwing stuff out there to help me understand. We should beat Arkansas & A&M handily, but we will see.



 :dog:

Thanks.
No rules broken.  You can add a link (as you did), and quote up to ~ 1/3 of the article without incident. 
Any more and you have to answer to Jamos (aka. REC Treasurer).  :lol2:

Thanks CheChem. :D   

Well what a nice big smile I have!

(http://www.mallorydodgeblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/brad-pit-hat-tip.gif)

Thanks again.   :D  Its about time we're getting some cuties I can enjoy!

What, the real 'us' ain't cute enough for ya??   :lol2:

(http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y401/gkconn52/8d112c77-5c1b-4685-85dc-e06ac7ee3078_zps29ec272b.jpg)

Oh yes....I saw that picture in another thread.   :D  Now let me see....

Extrovert  Chechem with the funny glasses, maybe Jamos in the middle, and 2 Stater at the end.  Right?

I'm going to dinner....see y'all soon.  P.S.  Yes....you are all cute enough!

These players practice for hours in learning their playbook and when game day arrives it's the players responsibility to be mentally prepared to execute the plays the way they have been taught. You can never tell until game day if the players are mentally prepared and I think yesterday they had a lousy day mentally. Whether it was the injuries during the game, crowd noise, or personal matters on some of their minds, they didn't perform to what they are capable of playing. This happens to all teams at some point of the season and you hope the team can play bad and win any way but that didn't happen yesterday but it almost did. The real test of this team will be next week when they go to Arkansas, the coaches have a huge task in front of them this week in getting the team over this loss. Good teams bounce back from a disappointing loss, we will see how good out team is next Saturday.

Great Post! :clap:

That is the real test and I believe we can nail Arkansas & A&M. 

My opinion on Sims has not changed.  I never thought he was a heisman candidate, although I did post that in jest to have some fun with all the critics after the Florida game.  I do think he is plenty good enough to win a national championship though.

Now, his leadership skills, that is a different matter.  From what I have seen those are off the charts.  This lifts up the entire team.  For example, he took full responsibility for the interception at the end of the game, while some think that it was OJ's fault.

I tend to agree with Chechem's analysis on that play.  OJ had no idea that there was another defender closing from behind, so he went for the easy over the shoulder catch instead of the more difficult stop running and high point the ball technique.  I think had Sims stared down Cooper the whole time on that play, then looked to OJ right as he threw the ball, it would have been a TD pass with the 2nd defender way out of position to make a play on the ball.  But by staring down OJ the whole time, he lured the defender right over to the play.

When the ball is perfectly thrown, as this one was, and you are behind the defender by several steps, then you don't generally stop running to high point the ball.  Instead you run under it and catch it over the shoulder in stride.  The issue here is that neither Sims nor Howard knew the second defender was closing in.  Both expected him to be cheating over behind Cooper, no doubt.  Had Sims been aware of that defender he would not have thrown the ball.  Had OJ been aware of that defender he would have stopped, high pointed the ball, and fought for it.

Well, you and I seem to be the minority.  I've been dismissed by every other poster (and on another forum too).  Most people would rather blame OJ for not wanting the ball badly enough (although their grammar was lacking).  OJ was as surprised as the referee who missed the in-bounds call.

Another e-cred to you, sir!   :worship:

That play happened right in front of us. OJ had to crane his neck and took a double look, trying to locate the ball, and had no idea that the much shorter Golson was running up underneath him. Credit to Golson for the play, and the entire Ole Miss secondary.

We made more than our share of mistakes, but Ole Miss played very well and the crowd was a major factor in the game.

Correction: 3 votes for; 102 against.   :dunno:

Might be easier with a poll, but I'm tiring of the discussion.
Like I said, maybe I'm blinded by having been a WR, not a coach.

I was a WR too, so maybe that's it.

:toast4:

May your elbow scars finally heal!