Although many of you would argue that Rice is a bad measuring stick (being a one win teams and barely escaping a fcs team) I thought they played us well. They seemed well coached and clearly had a game plan in mind. Here are my impressions from game one.
The good:
*King had around 15 yards per completion, didn’t get sacked once, and didn’t give the ball away.
*Every RB but T.Will averaged more than 5.8 yards per attempt. I cant remember the last game we put up over 250 rushing yards.
*Chambers, Turner, and Roman Brown looked great on the D#. P.Car was a MAN at RB.
- In only 20 minutes of TOP we managed to get off 65+ plays and nearly 600 yards of O.
- Wrs looked great, I was ecstatic to see them use B.Smith all over the in the O even if he did have a special teams blunder. I could see him being used as a weapon in trick plays also. Stevenson can sure RUN.
*Kings Arm is unreal, especially if he’s given time. The wider splits seem to give him a better pocket and makes it easier for an outside scramble
The Bad:
*3rd and long seemed to be no issue for rice. Our dbs were never burnt but seemed to have issues finding the ball, that’s not going to cut it against a Memphis or a USF.
*even with the 250+ yrd rushing game, I felt like we got stuffed every time we tried to hit the A or B gaps. 3rd (and 4th) and short are going to be a major issue for ur O.
Things I wanted to see:
- Really wanted to see Raelon Singleton catch a pass, see JuJu out there, and see Peyton Sawyer return a punt or too.
*thought Grant Stuard was all over the ball when he came in the second half, I liked his grit and speed more than J.Will.
Moving Forward:
*If we can get 65+ plays in 20 minutes, I bet we will average 70+ plays a game for the season.
*After today does anyone see P.Car getting more touches?
*Can we get people off the field on 3rd down? Our DB play gave me flashbacks of last year. This aspect Is the most concerning to me with AZ coming in next week.
*was our Speed at WR a real weapon or was it just Rice having slow DBs?