and one of the stupider rules in sports shows up again. for some reason if you force a fumble out of bounds at the 5 yard line, the other team gets the ball back at the 5. but if you let them get farther down the field before forcing a fumble and it goes out of the endzone, you get the ball at the 20. hopefully kd's lack of heart doesn't rub off on the team.
He has good timing and recognition on the routes, but a lot of the passes are floated and dangerous of being picked off. Still the best passer we've had since Colt.
Defense played great tonight. Need to do a much better job of limiting penalties...Boyd is going to be running laps tomorrow. Most of the starters on the offensive line were held out for the game or left with minor injuries (pretty sure nothing serious). Elijah Rodriguez (#72) was terrible. Otherwise, the offense was just fine. The WR depth is great, and you could never tell Heard was a QB last year. Buechele didn't throw a lot downfield but became more comfortable and made stronger passes to the sideline as the game went on. Warren simply doesn't fit Gilbert's system as well as Foreman because CWIII lacks an explosive burst. His downhill style would be better out of the I-form. The coaches didn't play any of their cards tonight, and hopefully some of the starters who were banged up got some needed rest.
Ya pretty much played with the 2nd string OL but sloppy game overall. Way too many penalties/mistakes these first 2 games, especially in key situations. But Buechele continues to impress and Heard/Warrick are playing lights out. IIRC, Warren missed some camp due to a hammy and believe he also came into camp heavier than his playing weight, hopefully he is getting back into full form.
I don't think any of his deep passes have been able to be picked off. He floats some by intent to let his receivers run under them, but they've all been hitting receivers in stride where the defender can't do anything. What worries me more are his endless out passes. At some point, a good team is going to guess right and get some easy pick-6's on those. He hasn't seemed to get comfortable throwing up the middle of the field on short or intermediate routes. He throws a lot of passes that travel 20 yards horizontally to gain 3-5 yards. I thought UTEP would have been a great game to develop some more variety there.
He had a throw against ND that was really underthrown and we were lucky that the corner didn't turn around to play the ball and it resulted in a defense PI. Almost all of his deep passes are to receivers who have beaten their man down the field. Credit to Buechele for recognizing that and delivering the pass on time to an area his receiver can make the play. He floats a pretty deep ball and corner fade, but opponents are going to catch on. I agree that we haven't seen Buechele throw any short or intermediate passes in the middle of the field. We haven't seen a throw that required good timing routes or tight windows. Maybe Gilbert hasn't called those type of plays or Buechele hasn't developed it yet, but I hope it's coming to add variety to our offense. Our offense needs to consist of more than long bombs to streaking WRs. I'm happy that the deep ball is finally accurate enough to be a threat. We have some good talent at WR.
Yeah, Buechele has a limited playbook. New quarterbacks always do. But Buechele is playing like you put Major Applewhite's head on Colt McCoy's body. Give it time, the playbook will open up as he and our talented but inexperienced O-Line and receivers can be trusted to execute riskier plays.
yeah, he had about 5 "oh crap" passes where you saw the defender break and just barely not get there. maybe he just has a good sense of that, but my guess is he's getting fortunate against a team like utep. and yeah, they definitely aren't letting him throw over the middle, which is fine. to this day, i think i'm still traumatized when it comes to over the middle passes by the early greg davis/chris simms' days. and i know buchele has underthrown some deep balls, but those generally aren't bad in 1-on-1 coverage because as often as anything, the defender gets a PI and sometimes the receiver just straight up adjusts better and gets the catch. pretty much any 1-on-1 deep ball is fine with me because it's so hard to intercept.
I understand the concern, but I think you may be giving the defenses on our schedule too much credit. Yes, I expect Buechele to come back down to earth a bit this year, but we also face a lot of bad defenses the rest of the way... and we now have an offensive scheme built to take advantage of bad defenses (and sometimes good ones).
Looking forward to the game against Cal, it should be a fun nightcap after Ohio State hopefully beats OU.
