Mis-Wake Prone (WFU Game 3)

Thud. Pow. Kaboom, Crash…and all the other original Batman sounds…

The bad guys got into our secret lair and stole our identity. They strode confidently around Doak Campbell Stadium like Bruce Wayne while we imitated the infamous bumbling crooks that improbably banged into each other and then threw the jewels right into their hands.

The offense was pathetic. No other way to describe it. And Penalties. Yeesh. You have seen the old movies where the dashing Englishman pulls his matching handkerchief out to the relief of the gorgeous leading lady who politely sneezed. Our movie clearly featured a female Jabba the Hut shooting snot all over the rest of the crew while Pierce Brosnan is pulling yellow flags from his pocket like a clown in the circus.

Sorry -got distracted.- back to the errr offense. Blame. Who do we blame? I know the World wants to blame youth and the officials etc. I am placing my black mark squarely on the shoulders on the coach-in-waiting. We heard last week about how we were holding back 50% of the offense for this week. Well, Coach the shrimp cocktail and petit filet that you served the first two games was a helluva lot more tasty than the tripe and monkey brains that you plated up this week. Whaddya say we revert back to the first half of the offense, and leave that other 50% on the cutting room floor.

Jimbo had a choice and he out-thunk himself. WFU played a simple zone coverage scheme. They disguised their safeties and had them hang around about 4-6 yards off the line of scrimmage (in place for a run), and then dropped them back into a two deep zone. In an obvious passing situation, the MLB also dropped back about 12-17 yards back to make a three-deep zone. This is a defense we do not play and that our young QB’s have not seen this year. So, if you are wondering why every toss deep over the middle was thrown to the wrong jersey, it is because the kids were not familiar with what they were seeing. How do you beat this D? You throw short intermediate passes over the middle to late-cutting wideouts and flaring backs. You have to have patience. I do not care if a penalty makes it 2nd and 25…you take the 8 yards and move up the field. You force the QB’s to look off their first read and dump. Neither Jimbo nor the kids showed this poise or patience.

What was even more frustrating is that once again Mickey proved that no one in the college game adjusts better than he does. Wake had 20 yards of offense in the second half. Twenty. I bet they ran 30 plays. That is ridiculous. On the flip side, we did not change a thing on offense in half #2. And no - changing the number on the QB jersey does nt count. That lack of recognition (or stubbornness) really bothered me. I hope everyone on that side of the ball – including the real HC – figures this out this week. Have the scout team play a deep zone all week. Every team we play is going to employ this until we beat it. And we can. Throw the brown funny shaped thing to those fast little guys who line up away from the big fat men in a hurry and let them run down the field and score a home run or summin like that.

The defense was terrific. Bud Thacker and Kendrick Stewart may not have made many tackles, but their presence changed the game. By midseason, Marcus White and Everette Brown are going to be like Ethiopians that stumbled into the Coney Island hot-dog eating contest. As good as the pass defense has been, and I can only recall two major hiccups this year (both on perfectly thrown balls – one on TC this week and another on Darius McClure last week), it will get much better this week with the return of Patrick Robinson and maybe the best player on the field in OLB Dakota Watson.

Wake is the dirtiest team we play all season. They chop block on every play. They grab jerseys until the “echo” of the whistle. They goad Seminoles into post-play scraps and know that the second guy gets caught every time. If Alphonso Smith (#2) was a Nole, he would get 6 personal fouls a game. He is not. He is just a lovable little Deacon. Yeah, the kind of Deacon that steals from the offertory and then uses the confessional to find out who his best adultery candidates are…you know… a Demon Deacon. I digress. We just need to act a little more mature than the clearasil crowd that we are.

Colorado has a terrific offense. I believe it is better than Wake’s. They have a more effective running game and a QB who understands his Dad’s offense like – a son.
CU has 9 guys back from a defense that confounded Drew last season and brought out the famous Jimbo postgame comment – “I a’int gonna lie to y’all – we stink!”.

There are enough talented kids on the field for us on both sides of the ball to win every game we play this year. There are enough good teams on the other sideline to say about the same thing. I hope our coaches put our kids in a position to succeed to take advantage of that talent.

It also would not hurt if we played a game where the officials were not a factor.

Let’s win this one and go to our house of horrors in Miami 3-1.

Go Noles!