Maryland-Wake Forest Report Card and Helmet Stickers
by Ben Broman on Oct 11, 2009 9:20 AM EDT
in Football
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PrintThat was a terrible game. Time to read a terrible grades post.
QB: D
No, they won't all be Fs. That's a copout. I'm going legit here. Unfortunately, that probably means they'll all be Ds.
It's not like Chris Turner had a ton of time to throw, so it's tough to really pin the woes of the offense on him, but he certainly wasn't great. He needs to realize he has to get rid of the ball as quickly as possible when the blitz comes; you'd think after four games he would've realized that. At the very least, he should call an audible when he reads blitz, like Riley Skinner did several times early in the game. We also got to see his woefully underpowered arm on a few occasions. Not one of CT's better days.
RB: D
For yet another week, it's not like they really had that much to do. Davin Meggett had 6 carries, and that led the backs. Making it worse, there were no real holes, either, so they were pretty restricted. Da'Rel Scott's presence wouldn't have made a difference, to be honest. At least Gary Douglas got in the passing game, which is where he can do some major damage.
WR: C-
Torrey Smith did have ten catches, but he only had seventy yards. That translates to doing absolutely nothing after the catch. Adrian Cannon showed some of the big play ability that many of us had expected from him early on with two TDs. Other than that, there wasn't much positive to draw from, but that's partly from Turner's arm; he underthrew one ball criminally and missed an open LaQuan Williams in the endzone. Still, they could've done more with the opportunities they had.
OL: F
If the OL was better, Turner has time to throw and the RBs have holes to run through. It's not breaking news, but there's the root of the offensive troubles. Wake had no problem controlling the game by getting to Turner, and probably should've had more sacks than they did (4). They also clogged up basically every hole for Meggett or Douglas to run through in the few attempts they had.
It all goes back to the OL.
DL: F
I'm now reminiscing about how we used to be, about four weeks ago, when the lines were ridiculously bad. Remember those days? Well, they're back.
The defense had trouble getting to Skinner even with a blitz, let alone with just the front four. A team that was previously unable to run the ball simply gashed the defensive line and had some truck-sized holes. Nothing positive to draw from this performance, sadly. The line took one huge step back after all that improvement.
LB: D+
Alex Wujciak looked good again; slow and unathletic, but good. He was back in the double-digits for tackles. Darin Drakeford got in on the action a bit too, with five tackles; that's his first real action of the season. He needs to be getting seriously enhanced reps at this point. Demetrius Hartsfield didn't look nearly as good as he had in the past few weeks, unfortunately. Really, it didn't matter what they did, though; the line was so bad that they were screwed either way.
Surprisingly, Adrian Moten didn't fare too well. He only had two tackles, not even a full TFL. He was hurt, so I'm not criticizing, but he's usually pretty impactful regardless of the line's performance. His quiet play hurt tonight.
DB: F
Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
Anthony Wiseman got picked on like a second grade nerd all day long. Wake Forest is still probably eating Wiseman toast this morning for breakfast. Insert other Anthony Wiseman joke here. He can't be the #1 corner against UVA.
Cameron Chism wasn't much better. Falling down in coverage is unlucky, but somebody's gotta take the blame there. He also missed a couple of tackles and got straight up beaten a few times.
The safeties were just as bad, if not worse. Kenny Tate, Jamari McCollough, and Terrell Skinner were basically invisible. I'm not even sure Antwine Perez played. None of them helped out against the pass, which was burning the D, and run support was nonexistant. Not a good day for this group.
Special Teams: B
Nick Ferrara looked awesome again; he could be the best since Novak, maybe even better. 50 yarders aren't easy. Torrey Smith had the 85 yard return, which set up the only first half TD. Not much else happened, but it wasn't a particularly bad day for the ST.
Coaching: F
How, in god's name, does a team come out this flat and emotionless in a game that actually has ACC ramifications? How?
Oh, and when did we decide that running the ball isn't even worth trying anymore?
Also: why do we continue to run the QB draw again and again? Haven't we learned? It has lost its effectiveness, puts Turner at even more risk, and maxes out at about six yards. Not at all worth it.
Oh, and good decision to leave Turner in instead of give Jamarr Robinson some much needed reps after the game got out of hand. Not like we're going to need to know if he can play in a couple months.
Helmet Stickers:
- Adrian Cannon: I mean, he did have two TDs.
- Alex Wujciak: Well, he had double-digit tackles.
- Nick Ferrara: 50 yarder!
- Torrey Smith: Ten catches, plus an 85 yard kickoff return. Probably regained his lead in the all-purpose yards battle.
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A different perspective for the LBs and Dbacks
Brown’s defense is predicated on pressure that has to begin with the DL. If there isn’t any pressure, Wake made it obvious that picking up the blitzing LB or back isn’t a problem. The QB has time to throw and the offense can stretch the field. It also allowed Wake the opportunity to use the pass to set up the run. So, without a DL, the LBs have to both stop the run and drop back in pass coverage. The backs have to stay in single coverage for long periods. Worse still, running blitzes without a DL just took defenders out of the D backfield. The backs and LBs had to fill the holes. The bottom line is that to me that game didn’t tell us much about LBs and backs. The LBs could have been playing the games of their lives but you wouldn’t know it from those circumstances. What we do know is that if the DL doesn’t show up, we are toast.
As to our OL, I’ll have to see a replay of the game to know if the Wake DL was running stunts. It looked to me like our OL was getting beat in straight one-on-one battles. So, I don’t know that the entire line didn’t play well. On pass plays in particular, it seemed to be individual breakdowns.
Respectfully disagree
When the pass protection broke down, there were generally two or three guys in the backfield.
I agree re: LBs, but the CBs were getting burned even on short passes. They destroyed Wiseman with quick slants, curls, bubble screens, you name it.
I agree with wmterp
There were a lot of times when it was nothing more than the OL HORRIBLY missing blocks. If I remeber correctly, that was the case where Turner threw the interception, which pretty much clinched the game for WF and let them burn enough time off the clock to put the game out of reach.
I also agree about the scheme. If the pressure fails against the QB, it creates all kinds of dangerous matchups, where one of the safeties is always blitzing and forces the LBs to take up a lot of slack. The LBs performed a lot better in my opinion than the grade here indicates (Also think ST merited an “A-”. Not sure what more they could have done).
It was also interesting that the coaching staff thought Chism played poorly enough to replace him with Taylor…. And yet, Wiseman has played in every game that I can remember for years…
LBs could be higher, I guess, but I don’t think they’re criminally low. The DL has been horrible all year, but that hasn’t stopped good performances by the LBs. Adams averaged 7 ypc, which is more than just the first level – that’s the second level, too. Not to mention that their TE, Rinfrette, had a couple of really big receptions, IIRC.
In the LBs defense, two of them were hurt, and Ben Pooler doesn’t look like a starter just yet. Maybe that factored in. They just didn’t look good to me; when they blitzed they were picked up, when they didn’t blitz they didn’t cover well. That’s not just on the OL.
As for the ST, they did have the 50 yarder and 85 yard return, but were mediocre outside of that. Torrey only averaged 18 yards a return without that one, and Tony Logan had -2 yards returning; not saying either are their fault alone, but those units weren’t great. Not complaining about Nick the Kick, either, but his kickoffs were short and punts weren’t as good as last week.
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