2019 season - preseason

[Oak Grove]

Six, Thanks for sharing your impressions of the first scrimmage.

[Ruckus28]

I have completely different view of the scrimmage. Not sure what I watched but it wasn’t what has been described here.
If we expect to win more than 2 games this season, we better get back to what we have always done well: run the damn ball because we dang sure can’t throw it in an ocean. Passing game look awful. missed swing passes, ovethrows everywhere, sacks galore. I am glad some of us are so enamored with the foward pass but I am not. Because we suck at it.jC admitted as much in Shanesy article, admitting we didn’t look good offensively.
Luther, while explosive, flat dropped a fair catch punt he was planted under. Van Cleave had some shifty moves but dances too much. He will learn he has time for one move then he better be upfield. “North South” he is definitely not, not yet anyway. Broussard and Walker look solid at FB if they learn to block. Walker got trucked trying to pick up stunting LB.
Defense looked pretty good. Way ahead of our O. Not yet so sure we are improved with our coordinator or schemes. Time will tell.

[Retiredterrier]

Media Guide https://woffordterriers.com/sports/2018 ... guide.aspx

[lawdog]

Read you loud and clear, Ruck. We need first and foremost to be an excellent running team. Our starting three RBs are excellent, and our QB prospects most promising too ... good ball handlers and runners.

Last year we were an outstanding and tough running team, even though our first two QBs got hurt. Opposing defenses hated to line up and see our offense come after them running the ball. AND we passed well but not often; we completed important passes at key times that saved our bacon, largely due to surprise and because we mastered a small repertoire of well designed pass plays, to RBs and TEs as well as WRs. We ground down a number of opposing defenses, plus well timed surprises. Our stellar defense was good at getting us the ball back, and should be again. We depart from that formula at our peril.

[WocoSix]

Ruckus it was the 1st scrimmage. Sounds like you were expecting a well oiled machine coming out of summer preperations. I'm sure Stoddard, McAfee, and Blake will be the show cows of the offense, but I think the practice was more geared to seeing what talent was on roster. Yes there were some bad throws, but the 2 main QB'S that I'm concerned with showed they are more than capable of coming to the modern age of football and completing forward passes. As for Luther he did drop a fair catch, but like any good coaching staff you find out if a kid with that much talent can be used on special teams. And you do that during scrimmages. VanCleave on the other hand is probably 150 lbs at most. He has made a name for himself making people miss. Im sure he will get coached up that he can't use spin moves in the SoCon and that every carry is not a TD.

As for the offense not looking good. Could our Defense have something to do with that. Our DL and secondary should be tops in SoCon as a unit. Let's see what 2nd scrimmage holds. There will be more game planning for citadel and the coaches will have a chance to correct mistakes from this past weekend

[Ruckus28]

This may come as a shock but I love the modern age of football especially Wofford football: we run the football and win. Passing for the sake of looking modern and like everyone else but losing would stink. Hey but at least we’d line up four wide with empty backfield and look fantastic doing it, right? Maybe some slick zone read spread trips with single back in motion. An incomplete pass would look GREAT doing that!!!!! Man, I am getting so fired up thinking about it. We could all just talk about all these great sets and looks we give while we have a 100 yards total offense and get our butts handed to us.
So we complete 7 passes (tops) yesterday (at least 3 or 4 by F QBs) in a 60 play scrimmage and that is progress? And certainly our defense had something to do with it, but last I checked FU, Sammy, Chatty, Mercer, Cid, ETSU and VM all have defenses too. Several as good as ours. Don’t have to be too good of a D when wide open passes are thrown over receivers’ heads.
Serious question: Did Newman even complete a pass? Because I honestly don’t recall one.
And BTW explosiveness means nothing if you don’t catch it first.
Sorry to be so negative but it wasn’t a great day for Terrier football yesterday. We looked much better in the Spring IMO.

[Oak Grove]

Thanks for your perspective on the scrimmage, Ruck.

[WocoSix]

Ruckus I respect your opinion, but I don't think we can take the 1st scrimmage and say we have abandon the run game and we are full fledged air raid attack team. Stoddard, McAfee, and Morgan rarely played and I am pretty certain they are going to get their touches. As a team with a new coach you have to see where you are in every aspect of the game, in this case passing. Oregon under Chip Kelly was a spread power football team, but most think they were some air raid attack style offense. I personally like the formation changes because it doesn't allow defenses to put 8 players in the box. In fact it should open up run lanes, and if teams do want to crowd the box, we have weapons on the perimeter and with the deep ball. I agree our consistency and accuracy in the pass game must improve, but what you didn't touch on were the big run lanes that were created for Newman and Mosley. They broke off runs of 10 or more yards several times before being touched, all due to the defense having to at least respect the trips or doubles formations to the field. During the season if our QB's can complete at minimum 60% of 16 passing attempts with no turnovers I am happy.

Also not to make excuses, but you do recall the first play to open up the scrimmage was a fumble of a missed snap. It was an overcast and wet morning during most of the scrimmage. I'm sure the balls were a little slick. And yes, I do recall Newman completing passes and I also recall him breaking some big runs in the Option game as well as scrambles. And to be fair the practice started off "good vs good". Our secondary made a nice INT and had some great pass break ups, all due to those defensive adjustments most of us were complaining about last year. And most of those sacks you are refereeing to were coverage sacks. Literally if our secondary can continue to give 3-4 seconds coverage, who in FCS is going to limit a Miles Brown, Horton, Dt Wilson, Roundtree, and Hinton caliber player with the new schemes that is being implemented up front from getting sacks and QB pressures. Hell even our safeties had QB pressures.

Also to note the kicking game had a horrible showing(he was only 3-4). But I have confidence that Luke will get back to last seasons form...(sarcasm) by the time Citadel rolls around. So I agree it wasn't a great day for Wofford Offensively but it gave the coaches something to correct this week in practice and things to add to the Citadel game plan.

Quotes from Conklin...
====================
“We have to do a better job of systematically going down the field,” Conklin said. “A little bit of that was a result of us wanting to see certain looks. Some of the time, we were just running third-down packages. So we were throwing on second-and-long so we could get a look at the pressures. There was a lot going on behind the scenes that probably made it look worse than it really was out there.”

"We have a long way to go. We knew we did. But it was good. We got a lot of young guys in there. Some of the young guys have to understand the urgency of stepping up. Next week (9 a.m. scrimmage on Aug. 18), we’ll probably rep the older guys a little bit more than we did today. We have a lot of work to do in all phases. I think it was kind of good to get that wake-up call to everybody.”

"T.J. Luther is a guy who has had a good camp so far but has a long way to go. VanCleave is a good player but has a long way to go. Broussard did a lot of good things. He’s a fast guy. It’s our job to get them into certain situations. We’ll get there."

Quotes from Shansesy...
====================
"Wide receiver T.J. Luther (Arcadia, Fla.) caught a perfectly thrown deep ball from quarterback Miller Mosley in stride for a 66-yard score"

"Running back Jamari Broussard (Jacksonville, Fla.) flashed his speed as he burst up the middle for a 60-yard TD."

"Landon Parker (Concord, N.C.) came back on an underthrown ball from quarterback Joe Newman and beat the defender (losing a shoe in the process) for a 46-yard gain that set up a touchdown run by Newman"

"Running back D’mauriae VanCleave (Danville, Ky.) put a spin move on defender at the line of scrimmage to turn a screen pass into 19-yard gain."

"Newman had a 13-yard run to set up his 15-yard touchdown."

[youngterrier]

I think it's worth noting that we've probably only passed for 1000 yards or more in 2-3 seasons of the last 20. Widmeyer and Goodson were probably the only QBs with a completion percentage higher than 50% (but you'd have to check me on that)

[WocoSix]

YT I for one trust your stats. But anything close to 50%, even 40% is only 7 of 16 passing. Majority of the game will be on the ground with the QB's using their legs. But the threat of Newman and Mosley putting the ball in the air and if only accounting for 4+ big plays of 20 yds or more, is enough to scare any D-Coordinator.

[youngterrier]

the point I was alluding to is that our pass game is usually garbage and anything is an improvement over the baseline. Last year and 2008 were outliers. I welcome any improvement.

[lawdog]

I would guess that the number of passes last year was not significantly greater. However, the levels of creativity and execution were improved. We must keep it that way, including the well timed home run ball.

BTW, I think Landon Parker is going to be a good one for us. And enjoying Ruck’s and Woco’s back-and-forth.

[WocoSix]

Cmon law, there is no back and forth between Ruckus and myself. Hopefully he knows I respect his opinions and contributions to this site. As the old saying goes there are to sides to every story and the truth lies somewhere in the middle!
And I agree this Freshman class has some raw talent. I can see at least 8-9 players contributing this year and avoiding the redshirt barring injury

[Ruckus28]

I wasn’t going to post at all about the scrimmage because it looked like just what JC said it was: situational work in areas we need improvement on with majority of reps going to young guys. I regret saying anything about it, at this point.
I will conclude my diatribe by leaving this here: when your HC says “It wasn’t as bad as it looked” it likely wasn’t very good.
I understand we are spreading formations and getting motion to get the defense out of the box and improve our strength of formation for running the ball. We just don’t throw it well enough out of those formations. Maybe one day we will. But until then, I would love to see numbers 4 and 8 running upfield (which they do well) rather than trying to throw it.

[Retiredterrier]

Another preseason ranking. While it does not mean a whole lot it is interesting and fun to discuss http://insider.afca.com/north-dakota-st ... p-25-poll/