My inexpert and mostly obvious observations.
1) To start with Maryland is simply a bigger, stronger, more athletic team than we are. They are not trying to scheme around obvious roster deficiencies the way we are. Their third string QB is good enough to play if given time,I and he had that all afternoon.
2) We are who we should have known we are. A team with some talent and big holes that cannot be hidden against real B1G talent.
3) If you are going to cheat against the run to get QB pressure, you have to get there sometimes. In payback for playing no real strong side DE, i.e. playing a weakside DE at the Strong DE position, a LB at WDE and gambling on a lot of blitzes, we got no pressure that bothered their QB. Basically zip pressure.
This not going to work with more than 2 teams on our schedule, and maybe not that many. Coughlin is not a young Joey Bosa, he is not a DE.
4) What we did get was numerous big runs including the game decider due to gaping holes against a 2 level defense. If the RB did not get hit at the LOS, he would not get hit until a Safety caught him at least 10 yds downfield.
5) The way to beat undersized DEs is to run right at them, get used to it. We do not have B1G DEs, not any. Playing Coughlin at the wide DE in Claeys Wide 9, 4-3 would have worked. Playing him at a real DE position against a real OT is a complete mismatch. He has no shot starting out locked up against OTs with a 70 lb weight advantage.
5) If we do not move Moore, Stelter or Silver to a DE position at least on 1st down we are going to just get run over all year.
6) If I can watch a rerun I will, but Maryland seemed to collapse their DEs to the inside all afternoon. We ran nothing to keep them honest. Rhoda kept the ball once. I don't remember an outside run by anyone at all. In contrast Maryland did a good job of mixing it up.
7) The WRs/TEs were not our major problem today. Tyler J, Carter, Lingen, and Wozniak all made big plays. Howard is a real threat if you can get him the ball, the problem is he does not make hard catches consistently over about 5 yds long. The first half interception should have been a catch. Rhoda also threw a beautiful throw over 2 defenders that would have sustained a drive, but P H did not catch it.
8) The problem was clearly the lack of a running game, which I thought was the easiest running attack to defend that I can remember for a long time. For a coach who is supposed to be creative, I saw Kirk C do nothing that caused the Terp D to have to adjust at all to our running game. I assumed we kept it vanilla in the preseason as a disguise, it fooled me then but not Maryland today.
Actually very disconcerting to me.
8) Rhoda played better than his coaches coached. He threw well, and is a better athlete at escaping pressure than I expected. He and the receivers kept us in the game, and that is all that did. He played as well in this game as most of Mase's QBs did on winning teams.
9) I know a sample size of one is statistically meaningless, but consider me completely unconvinced that coffin corner kicks with our kickers are worth the potential injuries and opponent big plays. Giving them the ball a the 35 was a very bad start to the game.
10) The most egregious screw up in the whole game happened first. I love the parasailing jump teams, but I knew we were screwed when I saw they were wearing Maryland colors. That can't happen again.
1) To start with Maryland is simply a bigger, stronger, more athletic team than we are. They are not trying to scheme around obvious roster deficiencies the way we are. Their third string QB is good enough to play if given time,I and he had that all afternoon.
2) We are who we should have known we are. A team with some talent and big holes that cannot be hidden against real B1G talent.
3) If you are going to cheat against the run to get QB pressure, you have to get there sometimes. In payback for playing no real strong side DE, i.e. playing a weakside DE at the Strong DE position, a LB at WDE and gambling on a lot of blitzes, we got no pressure that bothered their QB. Basically zip pressure.
This not going to work with more than 2 teams on our schedule, and maybe not that many. Coughlin is not a young Joey Bosa, he is not a DE.
4) What we did get was numerous big runs including the game decider due to gaping holes against a 2 level defense. If the RB did not get hit at the LOS, he would not get hit until a Safety caught him at least 10 yds downfield.
5) The way to beat undersized DEs is to run right at them, get used to it. We do not have B1G DEs, not any. Playing Coughlin at the wide DE in Claeys Wide 9, 4-3 would have worked. Playing him at a real DE position against a real OT is a complete mismatch. He has no shot starting out locked up against OTs with a 70 lb weight advantage.
5) If we do not move Moore, Stelter or Silver to a DE position at least on 1st down we are going to just get run over all year.
6) If I can watch a rerun I will, but Maryland seemed to collapse their DEs to the inside all afternoon. We ran nothing to keep them honest. Rhoda kept the ball once. I don't remember an outside run by anyone at all. In contrast Maryland did a good job of mixing it up.
7) The WRs/TEs were not our major problem today. Tyler J, Carter, Lingen, and Wozniak all made big plays. Howard is a real threat if you can get him the ball, the problem is he does not make hard catches consistently over about 5 yds long. The first half interception should have been a catch. Rhoda also threw a beautiful throw over 2 defenders that would have sustained a drive, but P H did not catch it.
8) The problem was clearly the lack of a running game, which I thought was the easiest running attack to defend that I can remember for a long time. For a coach who is supposed to be creative, I saw Kirk C do nothing that caused the Terp D to have to adjust at all to our running game. I assumed we kept it vanilla in the preseason as a disguise, it fooled me then but not Maryland today.
Actually very disconcerting to me.
8) Rhoda played better than his coaches coached. He threw well, and is a better athlete at escaping pressure than I expected. He and the receivers kept us in the game, and that is all that did. He played as well in this game as most of Mase's QBs did on winning teams.
9) I know a sample size of one is statistically meaningless, but consider me completely unconvinced that coffin corner kicks with our kickers are worth the potential injuries and opponent big plays. Giving them the ball a the 35 was a very bad start to the game.
10) The most egregious screw up in the whole game happened first. I love the parasailing jump teams, but I knew we were screwed when I saw they were wearing Maryland colors. That can't happen again.
