10 Thoughts from LU vs Hawaii

[Mike]

-Deja vu from UL-L except this weeks implosion waited until a little later in the game. Lamar seems to always have a problem of stopping the bleeding when things begin to go wrong. It turns somewhat competitive games into laughers in a hurry. It's hard to believe that that game was 7-0 and could've easily been tied midway into the 2nd quarter.

 

- I refrained from making too many comments last night and letting frustration on what was happening take over for logical thoughts. The game wasn't good by any means but it was another FBS opponent on the road in Hawaii. I thought UL-L was a better team than Hawaii going into the game and the Cards would play better vs Hawaii. We'll they started better but ran into the same problems towards the middle of the 2nd quarter and couldn't slow it down until the middle of the 3rd when the Warriors took their foot off the accelerator.

 

-Playing opponents like UL-L and Hawaii are suppost to prepare LU for SLC play but it's hard to think being outscored 94-2 and getting beat up physically is going to give the team confidence going into games like Sam Houston State, McNeese, UCA or SFA. Losing and looking decent on offense/defense is one thing but the Cardinals were manhandled by both teams. It doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy heading towards the big four of the SLC.

 

-the only think that was worse than the offensive production last night was the play of the special teams. You name it, it happened. With all the emphasis on special teams during all the practices I attended it was rather discouraging to watch bad play after bad play by that unit. I'm a strong believer in Coach McKnight and know it had to drive him nuts to see the special teams blunders play a huge role in that game getting out of hand. Kickoff coverage, punt coverage, decisions on taking kickoffs out of the endzone, dropping punts, fumbles and more fumbles....it was a total disaster. I'm sure it won't be pretty in that meeting room this week.

 

-Many were on here blaming QB Ryan Mossakowski last night for the offensive struggles and I'm sure if you ask him he'll admit that it obviously wasn't his best game, but he wasn't given much of a chance. As I mentioned in the game thread he was harassed the entire game by the Warrior defense and LU had no answers. They couldn't run the football to back Hawaii out of the box and the Warriors were having so much success blitzing that pass plays had no time to develop. To his credit Mossakowski didn't throw an interception and did complete more than 50% of his pass attempts he was able to get off.

 

-In my opinion the entire game could be summed up during a three play stretch in the 3rd quarter. It started with Hawaii kicking off and Mike Venson attempting to field the kickoff around the 1-yard line. If he lets it go it's a worst case scenerio touchback or at best maybe the ball bounces out of bounds. Instead he attempts to field the kick and bobbles it out of bounds at the 1 foot line. Then the offense gains maybe a yard on 1st down. On 2nd down they run a misdirection play action pass where Ryan Mossakowski fakes a toss right with the entire offensive line pulling towards the right. After the fake he rolls left and attempts to hit the TE on a quick pass. Well after the snap Moss faked the pitch and began rolling left and immediately had a Warrior defender in his face. the TE was blanket covered and didn't have time to get open because Moss was forced to throw the ball to his feet right before he took a shot that almost had him eating the goal post padding. If he had forced the throw up it may have been a pick six, if he holds it a second longer to give the TE time to break free, it's a safety. That about sums up how the night went for the offense and special teams.

 

- Captain obvious here but the offensive line play has to improve or they'll be more games like this down the road. I know it's FBS competition but i expected to see better results from an offense that put up a very balanced 430 yards last week versus PVAM. Coach Kueck tried to establish the running game but with defenders in the backfield right after the snap they had no chance.

 

-The defense again played their behinds off. This game was close until midway through the 2nd when the special teams and offensive implosions began taking place. The held their own until it looked like they started wearing down late in the 1st half. Jermaine Longino led the team in tackles to continue his good early start to this season.

 

- Where was Kevin Johnson again? I said it last week that IMO he's got a little of what every great receiver has inside of him......it's that need to have the ball in his hands early to get himself mentally into the game. This happened last week but it didn't happen versus UL-L or Hawaii. From my cheap seats I'd have designed quick passes or some sort of sweeping handoffs to Johnson early in every game to get him going. When he's not involved it's obviously not a good thing for the offense.

 

- SELA is in two weeks at Provost Umphrey so here's to hoping they get it together this week versus Langston and get some momentum again. Langston should be just what the doctor ordered to go into conference play on a higher note.

[AceHigh]

Completely agree. When an O-line is outmatched and special teams are not tight, everyone looks bad. We have good skill players. They normally get blamed for things out of their control. Here's a good example - someone on here wrote that Sims is slow, or he looked slow. He's not slow, he's freakin' fast. I witnessed his speed one year ago at Jones Stadium in Lubbock playing for Oklahoma State against Texas Tech. He was electric that day. He torched Tech. While Tech was no great DI team last year, they were still a Big 12 team. Sims looked like the fastest player on the field, and Oklahoma State had a superfast team last year. After seeing him play firsthand, I couldn't believe that Lamar was fortunate enough to get him. This kid is an excellent RB, but needs a block every now and then to get going. Same with Johnson, Ford, Moss, Garrett, etc. I mean, refer to the PVAM game, all on here seemed happy with the team. Things are different when the O-line isn't overmatched. The trenches are where games are won or lost. O-linemen and D-linemen are in a dogfight every play. They are at war. If one continuously wins plays, eventually the other wears down and lopsided scores happen. All Moss could do last night was to stick to the plan (as best he could) and NOT start winging it. That would probably have been interception city. Moss is good enough; he is not the problem. Crazy to blame one player in a team sport.

 

As we all know, momentum is huge in football. Momentum swings were killers last night, and we caused some bad momentum swings on special teams. If any of you watched Baylor - SHSU yesterday, you saw momentum swings kill Sam Houston. I honestly thought those teams were pretty evenly matched. SHSU was ahead at half. Baylor doesn't have anything on SHSU except momentum, because of less critical mistakes...and some depth. If Sam would have played clean football in the second half, they would have won that game. When you're overmatched, don't make it worse with mental mistakes. Like Mike said, Moss threw no interceptions last night. The score could have been 80-2 if he had been chunking deep on the run.

 

I think we are still ok. This game was no indication of how we will do in conference play. It's going to be tough, but I still think we are getting better each year. Nobody predicted that we'd be 3-0 after the first three games, so we're good. Man, I still have to say that I was bummed about the game. I think the PVAM game got my hopes up too much.

[Guest bossman73]

I agree with what everyone says but when they load the box and run stunts (Hawaii D) we need a hot route or something. when Hawaii blitz 7 to 8 and you only have 5 O-LINE to block... not even NFL teams can block that!!! one more thing USC only had 53 yard rushing against HAWAII ALOHA :D

[coachacola]

Just a few quick thoughts:

 

1. O-line is a weakness as we've known since the spring. How much can they improve as the season progresses?

 

2. Special teams again made poor decisions and bad plays. Seems like the coaches should be able to fix that problem.

 

3. Starting the season playing 2 FBS teams and a FCS team is a big step up from the last 2 years. Seems the team has suffered relatively few injuries compared to this time last year.

 

4. I would not be surprised to see Lamar shut out Langston next week. Lamar shut them out in 2010, and this year they have only beat Bacone, a team Central Arkansas demolished 70-3 last night.

 

5. Lamar should win all their home games except for the SHSU game. The bad news is that they play most of the good teams in the conference on the road (McNeese, UCA, SFA, NW State). Will they go winless on the road?

[walter17]

What we need are bigger and faster lineman on both offence and defence.Also when recruiting starts we need look all over America for the for the best players that can be found. The same guys Texas and

Texas a&m wants ect.

 

Walter

[dirtybird]

its not all the coaches fault. You cant keep making stupid mistakes and espect to be competitive. Most of the players have been playing since pee wee football. How many times has fundamentals of the game been drilled in their heads. To late to coach fundamentals now. Either you got it or you dont. Stupid mistakes is what caused Lamar to get a butt whipping. Offensive line has to get stronger,bottom line.

[Guest LU 17]

Bossman you are correct. We need to hit the hot receiver. But wait, we don't have a hot receiver. That is coaching and you are correct when you say they are coming with 7-8 and we are blocking 5. If the rush is that strong, we have man coverage on the outsides and we need Soto or someone else to break off a short route and look for the ball in a hurry. I hope our coaches know this, cuz I'm to dumb to be calling this.

[cardinal]

I agree with what everyone says but when they load the box and run stunts (Hawaii D) we need a hot route or something. when Hawaii blitz 7 to 8 and you only have 5 O-LINE to block... not even NFL teams can block that!!! one more thing USC only had 53 yard rushing against HAWAII ALOHA :D

 

Agree on the hot route. Our offense was awful and don't blame it all on the o-line.

[cardinal]

its not all the coaches fault. You cant keep making stupid mistakes and espect to be competitive. Most of the players have been playing since pee wee football. How many times has fundamentals of the game been drilled in their heads. To late to coach fundamentals now. Either you got it or you dont. Stupid mistakes is what caused Lamar to get a butt whipping. Offensive line has to get stronger,bottom line.

 

Agree that it is not ALL the coaches fault...just a lot of it. Totally agree that we can't keep making stupid mistakes and EXpect to be competitive. Totally disagree that it is too late to coach fundamentals. Obviously we need a great deal of coaching on fundamentals. Offensive line has to get stronger but offense needs to be more creative. People say Scaredakowski didn't have time to throw down field..b.s. It takes very little time to throw the ball down field...many times that is one of the quickest throws and what should be done when we are getting blitzed. He hasn't thrown the ball down the field for the last two games and maybe against ULL also?? He freaks out when his primary receiver is covered. And our running backs HAVE to do a better job running the ball. I don't recall them making anyone miss nor did they break many (if any at all?) tackles. I know, our line didn't help much at all but they didn't appear to be putting out much effort.

[Guest eagle eye]

Just a thought or two since I stayed up and watched most of the game Saturday night.

 

> Mossikowski was harassed most of the night but he didn't do a very good job passing the ball. He was not accurate at all. He does seem to have a little chemistry with Cory Soto. Shame on those who wanted to make Soto a tackle! Moss needs to tighten it up and look for Soto when he gets into trouble.

 

> The running game is being critisized but you can't run if you don't get any blocking. Garrett and Sims had no shot. They did a good job just getting what they did. The O-line was not good and that's going to have to be addressed or Lamar will be sub .500 again this year.

 

> Part of good decisions comes from good coaching. Part of the good decisions comes from personal awareness and the rest comes from on-field communication. We can't say for sure why the 2nd half kickoff that was botched but it had to be one or any combination of the three. This is disturbing. Coach Woodard and his staff need to clean this up.

 

> Don't forget Hawaii is a D-1 school that played a major bowl game just a few short years ago. With that and the fact that Norm Chow, Hawaii's new head coach is a HIGHLY respected coach who has been an award winning assistant coach at USC, UCLA, Utah and BYU and was OC under Jeff Fisher at Tennessee for the Titans. This guy is a quality coach and he sure had Lamar's number not to mention playing then No 1 USC tough. Hawaii actually had a better 3rd down conversion rate and held the mighty Trojans to 81 yards rushing. Lamar has no reason to hang it's head.

 

> Lamar may need to use the passing game like a running game. Something to loosen up the pass rush. Screens, reverses and trap plays all can slow down a pass rush but the skill people have to execute. 5 can't block 7 or 8 but if you dink and dunk and move the chains the defense will have to give at some point. Play action won't work if the other team doesn't respect the run. Good thing is we won't have to play Hawaii every week!

 

> Let's see how we rebound vs the Langston this week. If jet lag doesn't kill us then we should see a lot better result this week.

[coachacola]

This year's team is the opposite of last year's team: they went from being decent on offense and terrible on defense to decent on defense and terrible on offense. Special teams is still a weakness.

 

I'm still hopeful that the offense will improve as the season moves along because it's a whole new system with a lot of new faces. Last year the QBs would just scramble and toss the ball to a good group of receivers, now there's a pro-style QB in a new system with young receivers. Last year the offensive line wasn't that good, but they had QBs that could scramble and make plays. That's proving to be a lot harder to do this year.

[TBonesLU]

Mossakowski threw no picks; for anyone to blame the game's outcome on him is folly and ignorant. That is all.

[coachacola]

Special teams gave Hawaii 3 easy touchdowns. Could have been 0-0 going into the 2nd quarter and we would have been talking about 7 scoreless quarters by our defense. With 2 minutes left in the half they block the punt and the score is 28-0 at halftime. Lamar could have been 14-0 at halftime and we would have been talking about how close the game is, just need to get the offense going.

 

Instead it's 28-0 at halftime and no way for Lamar to make a come back. So of course, on the first play special teams let's them score a TD on the kickoff. Instantly it's 35-0, and throw in the penalty, Lamar starts on their own 9 yard line. Lamar can't run and Moss has no time to throw. Game is basically over at this point.

 

Of course better teams force mistakes, like the blocked punt. But the fumble that led to the first touchdown should not have happened. Lamar had some decent drives until Hawaii turned up the heat. Come conference play, probably only SHSU and McNeese have defenses approaching what Hawaii and ULL have.

 

Stop the mistakes and work on the offense and they'll have a chance to upset a few SLC teams. These games should help Lamar play against the top teams in the conference. The defense can slow down other teams, but can special teams and the offense do their part to keep the games close?

[puddin tane]

in the end...there is a huge difference between an average FBS team and a below average FCS team...

 

 

one thing thru 3 games...at no point have i felt , on offense, that we could score a TD at "any time"...maybe its due to all the damn running y'all wanted, maybe the receivers, maybe cuz i havnt seen a pass over 10 yards.....chunk it long once...if for nothing else, make the db hafta break a sweat.

 

[Guest CardAmbassador]

in the end...there is a huge difference between an average FBS team and a below average FCS team...

 

 

one thing thru 3 games...at no point have i felt , on offense, that we could score a TD at "any time"...maybe its due to all the damn running y'all wanted, maybe the receivers, maybe cuz i havnt seen a pass over 10 yards.....chunk it long once...if for nothing else, make the db hafta break a sweat.

 

Do you really want to go back to the days where we lived and died by the long pass? That was possibly the worst offensive scheme I've seen. The only thing that made is bearable was that it worked every 10th time and Hayes would make a stellar catch.

[geezer]

Said it on another thread but most games are won and lost on the line of scrimmage. I do like having a balanced offense but I agree you have to throw the long ball occasionally. Even if it intercepted a 40 yard rainbow pass gives the receiver an opportunity to run under the ball and 40 yards is a good punt, so why not chunk it just once.

[Guest LU 17]

Agreed, why not open up just a little bit. If everything is short and underneath, those safeties will creep up. It's an occasional deep ball that keeps those safeties honest. Of course, we will need a few seconds to throw it. Soooooooo, if we don't have that, the short passes and screens will just have to be it. I'm still disgusted with what I saw last Saturday night. WE ARE BETTER THAN THAT!!!

[puddin tane]

Do you really want to go back to the days where we lived and died by the long pass? That was possibly the worst offensive scheme I've seen. The only thing that made is bearable was that it worked every 10th time and Hayes would make a stellar catch.

 

not what i said CA.....just a long one here and there to let em know we can and make the db at least have to run....but, as for as running is concerned, i could give a damn if we ran very much..dink, dunks, slants, work the middle, lesser teams can compete and win by passing...

 

 

[Guest NorthoftheBorder]

For some crazy reason I couldn't post here on the board Saturday night but it is just as well. I was just as frustrated as everyone else and I didn't have anything good to say. I think the real key is what they do going forward: do they get mentally tougher, do they correct the things that need correcting, and do they get better as the season progresses? That is the most important thing. Do they improve over the length of the season!!!!

[cardinal]

in the end...there is a huge difference between an average FBS team and a below average FCS team...

 

 

one thing thru 3 games...at no point have i felt , on offense, that we could score a TD at "any time"...maybe its due to all the damn running y'all wanted, maybe the receivers, maybe cuz i havnt seen a pass over 10 yards.....chunk it long once...if for nothing else, make the db hafta break a sweat.

 

Do you really want to go back to the days where we lived and died by the long pass? That was possibly the worst offensive scheme I've seen. The only thing that made is bearable was that it worked every 10th time and Hayes would make a stellar catch.

 

Not really but we HAVE to throw the ball down the field some. This dink and dunk crap is too easy to defend. WE HAVE TO MAKE THE DEFENSE RESPECT THE DEEP BALL. If not, they will just sit on the short routes.