We are 106th in penalty yards and our aggressive man coverage on pass plays seems to open up big running lanes for QBs who are chased out of the pocket. And Desmond Ridder is one of the best in the nation at scrambling. He turns nothing into something quite often. I feel we’re going to struggle getting off the field on 3rd down which will tire our defense.
I also feel we have to play a super clean game to get it down to the final possession; something we’ve struggled to achieve all season.
I think we’ll perform well enough against their offense but Ridder is the x-factor. Containing him is the most important thing and I just don’t see Belk having some trick up his sleeve to suddenly change our one glaring weakness on defense.
Tune has to play a perfect football game. And I don’t mean by throwing for 350 and 4 TDs. He needs to avoid momentum killing sacks, don’t force throws (see Memphis, ECU, &. Tech games), and he needs to scramble earlier than normal due to the ridiculous talent Cincinnati’s secondary has. I imagine Dell is going to be lined up with Gardner most of the game so that leaves Tune with Herslow, Singleton, and Trahan as his primary targets.
CDH could get creative by finding ways to get Marcus Jones involved but I seriously doubt it. If Cincy is smart they won’t punt or kick to Marcus Jones.
Bottom line…Desmond Ridder is the perfect weapon against our D.
I am looking for a great training week and can’t wait to see how our OL is going to block for our RB’s and protect Clayton. It always starts with the OL. I appreciate how we have progressed and evolved in our running game. This is for me a huge improvement from year’s past. This is allowing us to finally have a balanced offense. Our opponent is surely zeroing on that very same point. You pointed it out earlier. This is for me an area where we can reap dividends. We will see multiple TE’s and personal often. This is just MO.
We will be the best defense Cincy has seen all year by a huge #. See my figures above, we match up incredibly well! This is a championship fight not some exhibition
My gut tells me 13 is either too much or too little. What I mean by that is if we play to our potential with a stout defense and Tune taking care of the ball we can keep it to one score if not win. However, if Tune starts running around and slinging INTs and our defense can’t stop Ridder and Cincy senses blood in the water to make their CFP statement we could be in for a long afternoon and a 20+ point loss.
Tune’s performance is obviously dependent on his receivers. Drops in a game like this will kill our offense - just can’t have them.
I have a feeling that our defense will have something ready for the QB. You haven’t seen the defense focus on containing a running QB much, because that hasn’t really been needed. We have the guys to do it.
Still have work to do
We had an pretty easy schedule and the guards still look lost causing continued sacks and penalties
Need to fix this before Saturday
The defensive numbers don’t tell the entire story. The Coogs have been fortunate to not face QBs who are brilliant at scrambling. Our defensive line is great at getting pressure upfield while playing aggressive man coverage. Desmond Ridder is the best in the country at scrambling for big chunks of yards when the play/pocket breaks down.
Per PFF , Cincy has a ton of players on AAC 1st-4th teams, however no OL are on the first 3 teams and only 1 on the 4th team. As a comparison PFF has 4 UH OL graded on the first 3 teams. Looks like we will need to try to exploit their OL and try to knock Ridder out of his comfort zone. Only problem is unless we get all the way to him he is likely to scramble a bunch on us.
