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Mid Season Football Grades

kickballpro

MI Miner Maniac
Mar 24, 2006
7,090
5,569
113
What do you have? Offense-Defense-Special Teams-Coaching

Offense - Starting with the most important position in Sports, the QB. Hardison has looked the part at times. His completion percentatge for the season is just above 50%. The SFA and ACU game he was above 60% and seemed to be content with throwing the short to intermidiate routes. Since the 51 yard completion and 82 yard completions in back to back games he's fallen in love with the deep ball and has been inconsistant. Hardison has 4 interception in 3 losses and 1 in 3 wins. The O-Line is young and deserves alot of credit. Only giving up 6 sacks on the season and only 1 in each of the last 3. The one against Charlotte was more of a coverage sack on 4th down. The run game had 170 yards and 4.5 yards per carry vs Charlotte. Deion Hankins (who for some reason is the #2 Back) is a bright spot with 3 Hundred+ performances. Fields has dissapointed. The WR core has been solid. Cowing is one of the top wr in the conference. TE Thompson has been used almost excusivley as a blocker and many have pointed out that we need a TE more prominant in the passing game.

Overall, the offense has shown glimpses of greatness like the 98 yard drive vs Charlotte. They've also shown the ability to make explosive plays and looked pretty exceptional vs. ULM. However, they have struggled with being effecient and consistant. They have weapons to put up points but just don't put enough points to be great.
Grade: C-

Defense - The Defensive Line is night and day from where they've been the last 2 years as has been the Linebackers. Praise deserves alot of accolades as he has 6 sacks on the season. Keenan Stewart and Kelton Moss have been impact recruits and have made multiple big tackles and tackles for loss. The LB core is also much improved. Stephen Forester, has been here more than half a decade, is the teams leading tackler and solid vs the run. Tyrice Knight has been solid if not above average. Some injuries to VanHook and Theard has been dissapointing because we are better when both are available. The Secondary has been a mess at times and exceptional at other times. Its very difficult to be a DB in College Football these days. Justin Prince is as good as they come in CUSA. Duron Lowe has both picks for the secondary and seemingly is the only one back there with hands. Caldwell, Inyang, Barnes, Harell, have all been decent.

The Defense has had their moments.
Grade B+

Special Teams- Gavin Baechle is a perfect 11 for 11 on Extra Points and 5-8 on Field Goals. Our Touchback Percentage is only 29%. The Punt game has been awful only averaging 35 yards per kick and there have been some real stinkers. Twice this season, Sloan has averaged less than 30 yards a punt. To put that into perspective, on any given Punt, we basically give the offense 10+ yards of field position or 1 to 2 First downs they don't have to earn. Sloan's best day was a 40.7 average vs La Tech. Duron Lowe and kick return game saves the Special Teams unit from getting a D.

Grade C-

Coaching- Impressed that this team has looked like a competitive college football team and if the ball bounces a few different ways, we could be 5-1 on the season. Dimel has certainly raised the level of this team in terms of talent. Alot of young players play major roles that make the team more exciting. But you have to wonder aloud, if the same group of players played a different brand of football, would they be better? Lots of concerning red flags surround the coaching. For example, the use of timeouts. Calling a Timeout after an official timeout, calling a timeout because of the wrong personell on the field, these things reflect poorly on preperation. There has also been some questions on if our best players are always on the field, ie....Fields to start thegame and Brownholtz situational offense. I know alot of posters slam the playcalling, I don't beleive its atrocious. But there are many times you scratch your head. The Deep ball is not an offense, its a 50/50 ball that has been more like 5/95 for us. So doing it 3 times in a row is poor play calling. Would love to ask Dimel if that's on him wanting to take shots or on Hardison making bad choices? And when things work, why not do it ALOT. Such as the bubble screen to Cowing has been consistantly 6 yards. And when we go Unbalance and run weak. Hankins had 2 carries for 52 yards on Inside zone away from strength in the unbalanced formation. But we only ran it twice when we were backed up against the goalline.

No Coach Should be given an F this season based on how teams have to navigate Covid. Dimel deserves alot of credit for everything that has gone right this season. However, he is not void of criticism.

Grade C
 
QB's C+
RB's B
WR's B-
TE's N/A
OL C+

DE's B-
DT's B+
LB's D
CB's C+
S's C

K C
P F

Coaching C-
 
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Reactions: Lil_Train
Correct on all counts! I cringe every time we punt; but that's right after I say "Don't go for it on 4th down before I realize that it may be a higher % option than punting sideways ". We give up field position either way, which is almost like a turnover. The lack of short and intermediate pass plays is ridiculous. No team can exist throwing Hale Mary's over and over. The defense has been a huge success, but they keep getting presented with impossible challenges because of the hapless turnover dilemma.
On the contrary we aren't creating any turnovers. This is a huge deficit.
 
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