Plays Missed at Key Moments

There were some breakdowns at key moments that really killed our offense. Some of the main ones that I recall:



- Jacobsen wide open on the corner route with Heaps rolling to his right. Over thrown well out of bounds. That should have been his easiest throw all night. Had time to set his feet and make the throw. -7 points



- Ashworth finally is in position to catch the only well thrown deep ball all night and lets it fall between his hands. Even being interfered with he should have catch the ball and walked into the end zone. -7 points



- First and goal from the 4 and we get a false start call. End up with a field goal. -4 points



- Throw a screen pass to Kariya on 3rd down and have two blockers on one defender. Both blockers miss and Kariya is tackled short of the 1st down.



- Next play we go for 4th and Heaps decides to run for it. He has one defender to beat who is being blocked. Heaps elects to run for the sideline instead of cutting back to the field. He dives out of bounds stretching for the 1st and doesn't get it. Had he done the same thing back towards the field he probably would have easily gotten the first.



- 4th down. Heaps hadn't been sacked all night. Kariya is in for pass protection. He runs up and puts his right hand on the guard's back and has a LB run through the gap right past him untouched from his left. The LB makes the sack, drive over. Still don't know what Kariya was thinking.



This was a winnable game. We had no turnovers. We had only one accepted penalty all night for 5 yards. If we make the above plays next time we score a lot more points. We actually are pretty close to turning it around.

I think what we have right now is a case of the O being so bad, it makes the team look worse than it is. Reminds me of he year Beck started as a freshman, in fact. The defense is not all world, but not horrible. But with teh poor O we have, the time that D is on the field this year, we get worn down. The O, and in particular the QB, needs to imrove drastically. Our red zone O is garbage right now, and it is usually a strength. Our 3rd down conversion rate is garbage, and usually a strength. Jake needs to learn that moving the chains comes first, deep balls 2nd, and he has not figured that out. Jake needs to keep his O on the field, move the chains, and then we really do improve. Until then, the rest is nice, but we will still lose.