Bear Down Wildcats

For the defense to play this well and the offense to suck so bad is really disheartening.

RichRod's loyalty to Anu is very disconcerting, not so much unlike Dick Tomey's loyalty to an awful senior Ortege Jenkins.

If you said we'd lose on a fg with less than a minute left I'd assume it was a 45-42 type game. This is like the 2006-2007 BYU games.

Merkin I don't understand your issue. Anu has more experience. Today wasn't his day.

Chicat wrote:For the defense to play this well and the offense to suck so bad is really disheartening.

According to an asshat, the game was lost on the last drive by the D.

I am not sure what I feel as I am not sure what I just saw. Is our offense that bad or did Sitake coach his ass off?

Is our defense dependable or was that 6 months of preperation and newness of the BYU offense?

Merkin wrote:RichRod's loyalty to Anu is very disconcerting, not so much unlike Dick Tomey's loyalty to an awful senior Ortege Jenkins.

What I don't get is that if there truly was such a close QB competition, why wouldn't we see Dawkins at some point?

Either RR really just likes playing games with the media (like Wilson and Bradford sharing carries) or he's blind to when Anu is obviously not making the right decisions.

Why did it look like were still running the 3-3-5 system.

cordera89 wrote:Merkin I don't understand your issue. Anu has more experience. Today wasn't his day.

When the color guy on the game praises the other team for running the zone read better than us, it's a problem. Solomon didn't pull be ball once and hanged the RB out to dry.

Chicat wrote:

Merkin wrote:RichRod's loyalty to Anu is very disconcerting, not so much unlike Dick Tomey's loyalty to an awful senior Ortege Jenkins.

What I don't get is that if there truly was such a close QB competition, why wouldn't we see Dawkins at some point?

Either RR really just likes playing games with the media (like Wilson and Bradford sharing carries) or he's blind to when Anu is obviously not making the right decisions.

What would have dawkins done against that BYU pressure defense???????

cordera89 wrote:Why did it look like were still running the 3-3-5 system.

We switched it up all game. We had 3, 4, & 5 man fronts.

wyo-cat wrote:

Chicat wrote:For the defense to play this well and the offense to suck so bad is really disheartening.

According to an asshat, the game was lost on the last drive by the D.

Defense definitely did their part. Surprised they weren't completely spent by the time the 4th quarter started.

This game could cost us a bowl. We could very well be 3-5 going into the last part of the season.

cordera89 wrote:

Chicat wrote:

Merkin wrote:RichRod's loyalty to Anu is very disconcerting, not so much unlike Dick Tomey's loyalty to an awful senior Ortege Jenkins.

What I don't get is that if there truly was such a close QB competition, why wouldn't we see Dawkins at some point?

Either RR really just likes playing games with the media (like Wilson and Bradford sharing carries) or he's blind to when Anu is obviously not making the right decisions.

What would have dawkins done against that BYU pressure defense???????

Wouldn't it have been great to find out???????

wyo-cat wrote:

cordera89 wrote:Merkin I don't understand your issue. Anu has more experience. Today wasn't his day.

When the color guy on the game praises the other team for running the zone read better than us, it's a problem. Solomon didn't pull be ball once and hanged the RB out to dry.

Like I said today wasn't his days.

cordera89 wrote:

Chicat wrote:

Merkin wrote:RichRod's loyalty to Anu is very disconcerting, not so much unlike Dick Tomey's loyalty to an awful senior Ortege Jenkins.

What I don't get is that if there truly was such a close QB competition, why wouldn't we see Dawkins at some point?

Either RR really just likes playing games with the media (like Wilson and Bradford sharing carries) or he's blind to when Anu is obviously not making the right decisions.

What would have dawkins done against that BYU pressure defense???????

He would relieve that pressure by pulling the ball and runnin to the outside. THAT opens up the middle for the RB.

wyo-cat wrote:

cordera89 wrote:Merkin I don't understand your issue. Anu has more experience. Today wasn't his day.

When the color guy on the game praises the other team for running the zone read better than us, it's a problem. Solomon didn't pull be ball once and hanged the RB out to dry.

This is an issue and I am shocked RR doesn't solve it

cordera89 wrote:

wyo-cat wrote:

cordera89 wrote:Merkin I don't understand your issue. Anu has more experience. Today wasn't his day.

When the color guy on the game praises the other team for running the zone read better than us, it's a problem. Solomon didn't pull be ball once and hanged the RB out to dry.

Like I said today wasn't his days.

He didn't do his job as a QB. That's the issue. It wasn't a bad day.

Chicat wrote:

cordera89 wrote:

Chicat wrote:

Merkin wrote:RichRod's loyalty to Anu is very disconcerting, not so much unlike Dick Tomey's loyalty to an awful senior Ortege Jenkins.

What I don't get is that if there truly was such a close QB competition, why wouldn't we see Dawkins at some point?

Either RR really just likes playing games with the media (like Wilson and Bradford sharing carries) or he's blind to when Anu is obviously not making the right decisions.

What would have dawkins done against that BYU pressure defense???????

Wouldn't it have been great to find out???????

No, Because when you picture it, You have to ask yourself, Was he ready at some point. How would it look of him being on the field against that defense. We will never know because RR didn't make that choices. He would of torn up by BYU pressure defense all day long.

Did you all actually think Anu was going to lose the job to Dawkins? Ever? Without injury?

azcat49 wrote:I am not sure what I feel as I am not sure what I just saw. Is our offense that bad or did Sitake coach his ass off?

Is our defense dependable or was that 6 months of preperation and newness of the BYU offense?

Those are the burning questions for me too. I think the offense was mostly that bad (although their D plan was good). I wouldn't call the defense dependable, but maybe shades of 2014 where it can keep us around on occasion (how frequently remains to be seen). So offense bad, defense has a glimmer of hope.

BTD, I don't know the solution, but Solomon not pulling the ball once on zone reads is a problem.

Oh lord, cordera/the jethie is back.

There's two things Dawkins would done that Anu didn't. Keep it on the read occasionally, and pick up a lot more yardage out of scramble situations (compared to taking a huge sack,throwing it away, or overthrowing a 10 yard pass instead of tucking for the first).

And that would kept a bunch of drives alive.

Merkin wrote:RichRod's loyalty to Anu is very disconcerting, not so much unlike Dick Tomey's loyalty to an awful senior Ortege Jenkins.

Tomey and his handling of Ortege was an issue. He was never developed properly and got hung out to dry his senior season as having not enough talent.

I'm certainly not going to say Anu did a good job today, he wasn't the reason we lost though. I think the offensive play calling has been spectacularly bad for about 15 games now. I don't care who has been playing Quarterback, the offense has been so basic and predictable for a long while.

Brandon Dawkins was never going to be more than a 2nd string, and a distant 2nd string at that. The game was close all night, you are going to keep the experienced guy in. Anu has to play better, so does that offensive line, those wide outs, and the play calling has got to be so much better.

Nick Wilson has to remain healthy, as he is clearly our best play maker. I hope he continues to rack it up.

Please no more all pass/all run drives... and for the love of god get better on first down!

We were never going to win the National Championship, and we all know we've seen worse losses in the first game then this stinker.

It sucked, to be sure. But it's not a conference game, and the defense performed well against a damn good QB. They didn't get burned deep. Last year's team would have had 45 dropped on them.

I will say that this one is on Solomon. He seemed lost for the first three quarters. He made some stupid throws and bad decisions, which cost drives and points. That pick he threw in the second quarter was thrown where there were three white shirts, when he could have run for several yards. I thought the line, which had struggled early,figured things out. Wilson battled and damn near won the game. Washington is going to bring a ton of heat against Solomon so he had better figure things out.

Just got back to East Mesa from the game. My thoughts:

Its going to be a Loooooooonnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggg year. This is a very mediocre BYU team. Nobody
should confuse this game for a moral victory.

Freddie "The Monster" Tagaloa still can't pass block at left guard

Debeer wasn't much better than Tagaloa in the pass blocking dept.

It appeared to me that BYU used the Todd Graham defense for a good portion of the game..they overloaded
the defensive line and brought a ton of pressure from the corners. RRod still hasn't figured out how to attack this type of defense

Our defensive line is as undersized and underwhelming as advertised

The secondary is still the slowest in the PAC12. How Jace "4.7 40" Whittaker even sees the field
is beyond me. That fact that he does gives one an idea of how bad our corners are.

Our offense seriously misses the Big Receiver (eg Criner/Buckner/Cayleb Jones). The smurfs are going to struggle
to get it done. This is yet another area where our recruiting has been less than stellar.

Our odds of getting to 6-6 are now definitely less than 50%. We are going to have to beat Hawaii/Grambling/OSU/Colorado/asu
and one of either WSU or Utah on the road. Not impossible but not easy.

Mr. Byrne is going to have serious issues putting more than 35,000 butts in AZ stadium the latter half of the year except for asu.

RR mind games to put pressure on Anu to cause him to improve has failed. Anu has been in a "battle" every year and splitting practice reps. I wonder if Anu would do better being the main guy not looking over his shoulder all the time.

cordera89 wrote:

Chicat wrote:

cordera89 wrote:What would have dawkins done against that BYU pressure defense???????

Wouldn't it have been great to find out???????

No, Because when you picture it, You have to ask yourself, Was he ready at some point. How would it look of him being on the field against that defense. We will never know because RR didn't make that choices. He would of torn up by BYU pressure defense all day long.

I should know better than to respond to you but that makes zero fucking sense. In one sentence you say "we'll never know" and in the next you say he would have been "torn up ... all day long". Try not to contradict yourself from one sentence to the next and maybe someone will take you seriously from time to time.

BibbysTowelDude wrote:Did you all actually think Anu was going to lose the job to Dawkins? Ever? Without injury?

Silly me for believing what RichRod says.

OSUCat wrote:RR mind games to put pressure on Anu to cause him to improve has failed. Anu has been in a "battle" every year and splitting practice reps. I wonder if Anu would do better being the main guy not looking over his shoulder all the time.

And therein lies the issue: You've got an offense predicated on a QB's ability to make split-second decisions and you've got a kid so worried about losing his spot that he's paralyzed when those moments come. Makes you wonder if he'd play better if he felt more secure.

Anu is Anu at this point. The concussions are absolutely generaling every zone read he makes and you will never see him tuck and run in a pressure situation again.

I wish I could feel worse about this loss, but that would imply I'm still buying into what's being sold. Hats off to the defense playing its heart out, but beyond Wilson, this offense isn't getting the best out of its recruits.

catgrad97 wrote: I wish I could feel worse about this loss, but that would imply I'm still buying into what's being sold.

I'm in the exact same position and have been for some time.

All of this ' Anu didn't do this' 'Anu didn't do that'

How could he with the offensive line play? When they doubled up the TE is when we were finally able to do something. Not all On Anu

Nope, I'm not entertained at all.

prh wrote:There's two things Dawkins would done that Anu didn't. Keep it on the read occasionally, and pick up a lot more yardage out of scramble situations (compared to taking a huge sack,throwing it away, or overthrowing a 10 yard pass instead of tucking for the first).

And that would kept a bunch of drives alive.

Hell if anu did that just once at the end of the first half we are kicking a 30ish yard field goal rather then taking a 16yard loss/sack and leaving out kicker out to dry with a 52 yr fg that missed slightly wide.

Anu is terrible. No progression from the fiesta bowl game against noises. Which is incredible concerning.

I wouldve loved to have see some Dawkins last night.

The defense was impressive though.

After witnessing that game In person, I'm finding it hard to see how we even get more then 4 wins.


Our offense is terrible.

whatisee wrote:All of this ' Anu didn't do this' 'Anu didn't do that'

How could he with the offensive line play? When they doubled up the TE is when we were finally able to do something. Not all On Anu

Scouting would tell you that Anu does not tuck and run, even though the threat of that is what makes RR's system difficult to defend. So if you know he's not going to run, the read option becomes two-dimensional. If you blitz from the edges either Anu will step up and throw or retreat and throw it away. Every time the ball did not go to Wilson, the secondary just needed to stay home and the blitzers kept their ears pinned back and charged hard.

Anu needs to run or RR needs to start someone who will.

And when he doesn't run, Anu can't find the open man. He gets deer in the headlights. He lacks some serious situational awareness. This does not bode well for the season in Anu's 3rd year.

No more games in Glendale. We're 15-2 against non conference opponents under RR, with both losses at UofP stadium.

The Anu hatred is very misplaced.

Tuck and run will never work against the asu/Todd Graham type of defense we saw last night. If Anu had tucked the
ball he would have been killed by the LB or DB coming in untouched from the corner. There are two ways to attack
the asu pressure defense:

1) Run the ball up the gut and hope the OL blows a hole. If the RB gets through (like Wilson did on our 4th quarter
TD) he usually picks up big yardage. Unfortnately we don't have Stanfords OL.

2) Drop the read zone entirely (audible out of it): The QB doesn't bother with the fake to the RB. He simply steps up in
the pocket and picks out a target from one of the 4 receivers who has man-man coverage. The RB, instead of faking
into the line, pass blocks whichever rusher is coming in unblocked. This gives the QB another second or two the make
the pass. Texas Tech did this to perfection against asu a couple of years ago in their bowl game and slaughtered them.
One issue I think we are starting to see is that there is a lot film out there now on AZ's zone read and everyone is starting
to figure out how to scheme against it. Sitake, who got his ass kicked the last couple of years by the UA when he was the
Defensive Coordinator at Utah, had all summer to come up with a game plan. It appears to me that he chose to largely
emulate the same defense Todd Graham runs against RRod.

dmjcat wrote:The Anu hatred is very misplaced.

There's a difference between "hatred" and pointing out what DCs have figured out: If Wilson does not come out of the option with the ball then it's going to be a pass. Anu is absolutely no threat to run and everyone knows it. That makes this offense very easy to scheme against.

On a different note, how pissed are you if you're Dawkins right now? Everyone is told coming out of camp that you pushed the starter to the brink of losing his job and then when after three quarters we have 3 points and a bunch of drives that went nowhere, but you still can't get a chance to take some snaps and try to make something happen? I'd feel like I was lied to.

Chicat wrote:

dmjcat wrote:The Anu hatred is very misplaced.

There's a difference between "hatred" and pointing out what DCs have figured out: If Wilson does not come out of the option with the ball then it's going to be a pass. Anu is absolutely no threat to run and everyone knows it. That makes this offense very easy to scheme against.

On a different note, how pissed are you if you're Dawkins right now? Everyone is told coming out of camp that you pushed the starter to the brink of losing his job and then when after three quarters we have 3 points and a bunch of drives that went nowhere, but you still can't get a chance to take some snaps and try to make something happen? I'd feel like I was lied to.

Disagree

Tuck and run is NOT an option when you have an unblocked rusher coming in off the edge who's sole
mission is to kill the QB and ignore the RB. RRod pretty much stated in the post game that Anu wasn't
the issue last night.

No one here hates Anu. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Anu flourished in a BYU type of offense.

Scott, Denker, and first year Anu is evidence of what this offense can do with a QB that is willing to ruck and run. I'm not saying it would work every time, but the defense would atleast have to account for the possibility. I mean the zone read is based off the edge rushers actions. If the edge rusher breaks for RB the QB keeps it, if the edge rusher stays then the RB gets it. If the QB isn't going to try and run, why wouldn't the edge rusher go straight for the RB?

I don't think RR really thought that a QB competition was happening, but a way to push Anu to improve only. So, I guess I do think RR lied to Dawkins.

dmjcat wrote:
Disagree

Tuck and run is NOT an option when you have an unblocked rusher coming in off the edge who's sole
mission is to kill the QB and ignore the RB. RRod pretty much stated in the post game that Anu wasn't
the issue last night.

I disagree that the edge rusher sole mission was to get to the QB (outside of 3rd and long). I saw a handful of plays that saw the edge rusher go straight for the RB without giving the QB a second thought. Heck, I don't think I ever saw the edge rusher hold his ground but for the long runs.

whatisee wrote:All of this ' Anu didn't do this' 'Anu didn't do that'

How could he with the offensive line play? When they doubled up the TE is when we were finally able to do something. Not all On Anu

This.

I would've thought the passing of Zach and honoring his life pre-game would inspire this unit to play exceptionally well. I thought wrong! The defense held a bunch of grown men with kids to 18 points and that gives me something to believe in.

Time to earn that big check Coach and I look forward to a inspired week of practice with the goal of getting the offense back on track.

Bear Down

OSUCat wrote:

dmjcat wrote:
Disagree

Tuck and run is NOT an option when you have an unblocked rusher coming in off the edge who's sole
mission is to kill the QB and ignore the RB. RRod pretty much stated in the post game that Anu wasn't
the issue last night.

I disagree that the edge rusher sole mission was to get to the QB (outside of 3rd and long). I saw a handful of plays that saw the edge rusher go straight for the RB without giving the QB a second thought. Heck, I don't think I ever saw the edge rusher hold his ground but for the long runs.

Your point is valid when the defense is lining up in a conventional 3 or 4 man front. The problem last night is that BYU frequently was not doing that. They copied asu and lined up in 5 and 6 man fronts. In this type of defense the defensive end doesn't have to make a choice between the RB and QB...he simply goes after the RB every time. The extra Lb/Safety on the edge takes responsibility for the QB. Dawkins would have been killed trying to run against this defense last night. The solution to this defense is what TTech did to the scum in the Holiday Bowl a few years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqLTLYsihQc" target="_blank

There were times when Anu could have got 4-6 yards but threw a 1 yard pass instead. If he would have ran the ball more it would have opened up the inside a bit more for Nick as well.

I did not like the call for the 2-point attempt. Having a qb who can run and throw in that situation has a better chance of converting.

OSUCat wrote:No one here hates Anu. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Anu flourished in a BYU type of offense.

Scott, Denker, and first year Anu is evidence of what this offense can do with a QB that is willing to ruck and run. I'm not saying it would work every time, but the defense would atleast have to account for the possibility. I mean the zone read is based off the edge rushers actions. If the edge rusher breaks for RB the QB keeps it, if the edge rusher stays then the RB gets it. If the QB isn't going to try and run, why wouldn't the edge rusher go straight for the RB?

I don't think RR really thought that a QB competition was happening, but a way to push Anu to improve only. So, I guess I do think RR lied to Dawkins.

This. All of this.

A QB who is at least willing to run keeps defenses honest. The fact that Anu isn't willing to run in a run-first zone read offense makes it very easy to scheme against us. BYU proved that.

has anyone asked RichRod about the qb situation? i haven't had the chance yet to see if there was a presser or interview after the game. my assumption is that coach kept anu in because he's the better of the two at scrambling and evading the rush, and it was uncertain whether our offensive line could've bought dawk the extra time he needs to make his reads. all of that being said, folks may have talked a little too much sense into anu after all the stuff he said during camp about playing more physical and "poly style". i mean, i don't want the guy to be reckless or get another concussion, but his tentativeness will be a liability. gonna be tough for him to be successful if he isn't all-in when he's on the field.

also great point earlier about how costly the last drive of the first half ended up being. in the past tho, casey might have bailed us out. i remember him hitting more than a couple of near-50 yarders through the uprights with room to spare.