Gchatting the Eagles #3: Northwestern Postmortem

timstwrt although i foretold doom with a loss, i didn't feel that way after  or didn't until i heard momah was out for the season

 percDM it depends on what you mean by doom

  3-9 is a possibility

  but i still think we can get to bowl eligibilitytimstwrtso, we've flipped here

  because a few days ago, 6-6 was crazy talk

  now 3-9 is on the table?

 percDMwith no pass rush, and a secondary that can't tackle, 3-9 is on the table

 i know i said i was not worried about the secondary, but i have not seen a BC secondary that afraid of tackling since the Lenny Walls era.

 timstwrt i actually think lenny walls might be starting against UCF

 can we start with rettig? i had an opinion watching the game, and i've been a little surprised by the reaction

  of the world at large

  like BC alum tom waddle, who i heard on the radio today say that BC lost "because the quarterback stinks"

  i just did not feel that way at all, and i was really encouraged by rettig's performance

 am i missing something?

 percDM i think rettig played alright

  he holds on to the ball too long

 timstwrt yes

 percDMsome of his throws were off

  but, he made some big plays

  and generally looked competent

 really, the offensive line and andre williams have to take the blame for the offense's woes

 timstwrt the main issue to me was pocket awareness, including obviously the last play of the game

  but my theory on that is that he's being allowed to go through his reads for the first time, really, and being allowed to actually play, and he'll adjust to the speed of the game

 percDMi hope you are right

  where is his internal clock

 timstwrt i liked a lot of his throws, and his decision making once he got the ball out was fine

 percDMif he can't get through the reads, then he needs to get rid of the ball by a certain time

 i liked his ability to throw on the run

  a couple of the times the pocket broke down and he would complete a quality pass on the run

  we might want to consider moving him out of the pocket some more

 that would give him less reads to make

 timstwrthe did throw a shitty pick

but i guess i feel like that's the cost of doing business when you throw the ball 45 times

 percDMdefinitely

  i don't mind the occasional pick

 timstwrtwilliams had 21 carries for 45 yards after the first run

  so, not good

 percDMyeah, andre williams looked like a quality replacement for harris for one play

  after that, he looked terrible

 timstwrt he didn't seem to have any desire to run between the tackles
it was like watching cedric benson (bears edition), where he'd get to the line and turn around and wait to be hitpercDMhe didn't seem to wait to pick holes

  and he left his feet multiple times

  what the hell is he doing leaving his feet?

 i think they missed harris more than we were expecting

 timstwrtmore than you were expecting

  you were sold

 percDM if he doesn't come back soon, this season is in trouble

 momah's injury was big, but harris's comeback is way more important

 timstwrtit's hard to measure importance when you're talking about your two offensive threats

  yes, montel is more important

 but who's going to catch the ball?

 timstwrtwe've lost three wideouts in two months

 percDMdespite momah's monster game, i think our other receivers can pick up the slack
i like swigert

  he is fast, and has good hands

 larmond jr is alrightwe can't completely lay the lack of a running game after the first play on williams, the line wasn't exactly opening up huge holestimstwrt the line was not, but the playcalling wasn't exactly revolutionary

  i liked rogers' game plan better than anything tranquill cooked up, but we're still running on running downs and passing on passing downs

 percDM i agree, i would like to have seen more passing on first down earlier in the game

  i think that 69 yard run may have hurt our playcalling for the rest of the first half

 timstwrtyeah

percDMits hard to tell with rogers so far, but i'm not mad at him yet, which is something

 timstwrti think he had some nice calls...i just wanted a few more first down playfakes, which i've wanted my entire BC fanlife

 percDMso, we are ok with rogers, how do we feel about spaz's gameplan and game management?

 timstwrt the biggest specific coaching issue i have with this game is that northwestern had mirror-image scoring drives on each side of halftime

  which says something to me about a lack of adjustmentslast three minutes of the first half northwestern goes 80 yards in ten plays, first three minutes of the second half northwestern goes 80 yards in ten plays. that's your ballgame percDMyeah, that is surprising, but generally, i feel like spaz makes good defensive adjustments

  my main issue was kicking field goals

 there is no way we should have attempted that third field goal

the time for field goals was over

  i think you are right about the drives

 timstwrtok, hold on, i'm checking the espn play-by-play recap to remember the situation for the last FG

  that's the one that almost went in the reservoir, right?

 it was 17-10 with 12 and change to go in the game

  40 yards, freese is generally reliable, this game notwithstanding

 percDMbut i'm saying, northwestern was moving the ball well at that point

  and we knew we were going to need points to win the game

  bc has had a good defense for a long time now, but spaz relies on it too much

 it was clear at that point that it was going to take more than 20 points to win that game

 timstwrt4th and 4 from the 23, i actually don't think it's overly conservative for spaz to expect his groza-watchlist kicker to get the job done

 percDMi don't care

  i don't think a field goal does much there

 timstwrtso spaz is thinking we win 20-17, and you're saying that at that point, that's not going to happen?

 percDMcorrect

 i mean, that is easy for me to say now

  but i was saying it during the game too

 timstwrtat that point, the defense had righted the ship and stopped northwestern easily on back to back drives

  i have no problem with the FG try

 percDMi can see the other side, but i didn't like that attempt

 i didn't even like the first fg

  which certainly puts me in the minority of football fans

 timstwrtok, so you have a general aversion to kickers

 percDMi have a hatred of getting the ball within the 5 and kicking

 i think it gives a boost to the other team when they hold you to three

  and i think you lose very little by coming away with nothing

 drives that start from within the 5 are notoriously bad...almost always 3 and out
timstwrt what the fuck happened that we're calling timeout on 2nd and goal from the 1 with 6 minutes left?percDMyeah, that was ridiculous

 timstwrthow does that happen?

 percDM i wish i knew

  i definitely couldn't hear the announcers of my yelling

  over my yelling

 the whole end of the game smacked of typical spaz game management

  i hate hating on spaz

  because he was a top notch defensive coordinator

  and really, he became a real BC guy

 but, he is so conservative, and really seems to hate using timeouts intelligently

 you combine that with his general, we'll do what we can do attitude, and its frustrating for fans

 timstwrtit says something about spaz, or me, or both of us, that when momah was on the sideline during the last drive (because of the ACL injury that may have ended his career), my assumption was that spaz was playing some sort of hunch that the guy with 157 receiving yards might not be able to help the team when it needed a touchdown

  there's not much faith in the head football coach

 percDMspeaking of momah and touchdowns, what happened with that ball in the end zone when he was wide open

  i know it was not a great pass, but did momah turn the wrong way

  he seemed to turn to look for the ball on his inside shoulder when he is 6'6" and there was nobody to his outside

 timstwrtyeah, definitely miscommunication

 maybe he thought he was supposed to play defensive end on that play

 percDMit would be nice if somebody played defensive end

 although, it is probably unfair to go after the ends when the tackles were so bad

  the only bright spot on defense were the linebackers

 percDMfour of them played well

 i thought clancy was a nice surprise

 timstwrtand kuechly and KPL had like 50 tackles

  actually 34, i think
timstwrtmaybe the defensive line is just aiding kuechly's quest for the single-season tackles record?
percDMi'm actually shocked how many tackles kuechly got with the defensive tackles doing so little

  at some point, it seemed like the northwestern line was looking to get the second level immediately

you know something we had right on the nose?

a persa-less northwestern offense would not have much qb mobility

 timstwrtwe are expert prognosticators

you've sufficiently doomed me upi hate our team and we'll go 3-9

  you winbut at least duke lost to a 1AA team and notre dame lost to USF

  so, two wins therepercDMhaha, let's see how i feel on thursday

  if i have them beating ucf, then i will have come back around to optimism

  the team can come around

  if the o-line gels and harris comes backi have no idea what we can do on defense, but i think spaz can figure that out

  in a video game, i'd switch to a 3-4

 timstwrti know nothing about UCF. i expect little to change in the next couple of days, but i'll be sure to fake it

 percDM

  ha, i'll read one to two ucf articles

  and expert the hell out of it