First, to the vast majority of you who watched on T.V., you missed a real treat in the stadium. The Charlotte P.A. announcer, just a magician. A normal person would, with a week to prepare, notice that the opposition’s RB was named “Jahad Thomas”. The Charlotte P.A. announcer, you’d think he’d practice those two words with his speech therapist. Apparently, frustrated, at some point, he decided “Heck, I’m going with ‘John Tollis’, how many Temple people will be there to know anyway?” At one point, Ryquell Armstead became “Rick Anderson”. Further I had to check and make sure Pro-prospect and 4 year Charlotte Starter Larry Ogunjobi wasn’t Larry Okeechobee (“Guy ain’t from Nigeria, he’s named after the lake in Florida!”). We ought to pay for him to come up here and read the roster at half time, that’d be WAY better than Pee-Wee football.
I’d read that the T.V. coverage was terrible, mainly because of the inability of CBS to wipe the camera lenses, you fellas weren’t kidding! Having never been to a CBS broadcasted game, I can’t believe how long their commercial breaks are! It seemed like every one was a six minute long block. Pathetic. CBS, leave football to a network that can handle it. NFL games too!
To put the entire game into a capsule, this is exactly where we were 10, 15 years ago. They have talented players, they’re smartly coached, but, as you’d absolutely expect for such a young program, they didn’t have the depth to keep with us. Speed was lacking too, which is often the case with Our Service Academies.
They touched on it during the broadcast, and they were right, Kyle Friend vs. Larry Ogunjobi was certainly heavily scouted. Head to head, it was a landslide Friend Victory. However, while Friend did well getting out to the second level on screens, when Shabaz Ahmed (who, frankly, struggled with a VERY good NT) he seemed to have trouble locking onto LBers on the second level on runs. A lot of this might have been his man was usually Nick Cook who’s very good. Although it’s a weird descriptor for an OL Kyle doesn’t seem to “work through the garbage” well, by which I mean in tighter quarters, he doesn’t excel like he does head to head or in an open field.
Dion Dawkins, I was thinking I don’t sing his praises enough, but there are only so many superlatives. He makes me feel sorry for the DE that lines up against him each week. Not only will he not have any role in the game, but he’s going to be beaten mercilessly by a giant who’s a maniac between the lines. I’ve watched Mathias Nkwenti, Alex Derenthal, John Gross, Eliot Seifert, none of these guys can hold a candle to Dawk. He and Friend are the two best Owls I’ve seen at the position.
While the OL has been derided, they’ve kept P.J. clean a respectable amount of time, and done a decent job on the run. There are definitely strong and weak points, but the unit works well.
Robbie Anderson’s first “drop”, that was going to be tough to make one handed, he was out of bounds, I give him a pass. The second, over the middle, was late and well defended. The third one, that I honestly could see better in person than off CBS’s feed, was a flat out drop. He turned his head before pulling it in. We’d have been better off if he just caught it and fell.
Ventell Bryant is on the field A LOT for key plays. Keying on him, he’s very difficult to cover, sets up rubs well, and is a willing blocker. This kid is going to be GOOD!
P.J. has a live arm, escape-ability, and toughness, but he needs to develop his reads. I know there’s disagreement over this, and yeah, he’s been very successful, but we’re talking about improvement not accomplishment. Easily more often than not, he locks on to his first read and throws regardless of coverage. Not only that, he has a tendency to bird-dog. The kid has gifts, but he’s still young and needs to take advantage of time to improve.
I’ve been a little unhappy with Coach Snow’s play calling, I, like most armatures, am enamored with blitzing. Snow almost never calls them when the ball is on the opposition side of the field, and, although I hate to admit it, that’s a smart call and it works.
Stephaun Marshall got a LOT of playing time and was probably the Defensive player of the game.
When Jared Alwan T-ed up Lee McNeil (Char QB), that seemed to be the major shift in Charlotte’s ability to really move the ball. There really wasn’t a deep passing threat after that play.
Tyler Mat had another great game. However, he was beaten a couple of times on pass coverage. I think by now, it’s pretty clear the kid is a tackling machine, he can blitz, and he’s totally aware of his surroundings. But, why is he EVER tasked with covering a WR? He’s close to, but not, Superman.
Gateway’s Delvon Randall is quickly working his way into serious playing time. He may have leap frogged Kareem Ali, but it’s likely Ali has been red shirted.
Austin Jones’ first missed FG was due to the play clock running out (I don’t think they mentioned it on the broadcast). Tough conditions and disorganization. Other than that, this kid has a heck of a leg.
Nate L. Smith annoyed me, whiffing on his tackle on the fake punt. He really irritated me on the next punt, when it looked to me like he’d pulled up when he could have had a shot on blocking it (which I’ve been whining about all season), however, on the next punt, he proved me wrong. He paused at the exact right spot to scoop up the block I’ve been calling for. [Privatemessageforedfoley]Ed Foley, since you obviously come to Tannhauser's posts on Owl Scoop for your strategery, keep on keeping on with the punt blocks and don't bother with the returns. I believe I've proven my point. [/Privatemessageforedfoley]
Alex Starzyk continues to be our unsung MVP. Interestingly, I learned that Senior K Tyler Mayes is something of a trick kicker. Not only does he routinely fool/enrage teammates in practice with the surprise onside, he’s the rugby style punter.
Matt Ionaidis absolutely destroyed the Charlotte long snapper on their one score. It looked way worse in person than on the terrible CBS feed.
Coach Rhule, although I ridiculed him for it at the time, did a pretty good job with time outs, but it’s still a weak point. Also, almost unique to coaches, Matt Rhule, actually TELLS you things in interviews!!! All NFL Coaches give you coach speak, and I understand not wanting to give stuff away. But Rhule tells you what happened, and why it happened, yet never gives out anything that would give the opposition an advantage and he does it on the fly. Why don’t more coaches do this? Because they’re not as smart.
