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Every Simon throw against Temple

More than half those passes were not even catchable.

the one play where I know for sure Verdal is the bettter option where it was 3rd and 6 or 7 and Simon runs and faces a defender about 2 yards short. Rather than trying to make a move upfield he turns and goes lateral to the sideline only to be easily tackled. Verdal would’ve kept it going up field and not shied away from the contact. Likely getting the first down on that exact play
 
Hoping Wimsatt is OK. At this point I just want him to be the official starter...Take the bad with the good and get him every ounce of experience you can this year. At this rate all the QBs will be terrible next year too with this flip flop crap.
 
I figured it wouldn't be fair to bash him without looking to see if anyone was open. I don't think he missed a lot of open guys. If we change the play calling some, that could help. Younger QBs often have trouble going through multiple progressions. Hopefully the added reps will help him.
 
For those that were not at the game here is every throw that Simon threw. IT was not as bad as I thought, there was 1 pass on the right side where the ball hits Cruickshank in the chest but he does not adjust and catch it.

Seems like a lot of throws into tight coverage. Can't tell if that is bad decision making and/or our receivers still are challenged with getting separation from DBs.
 
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Arm strength and accuracy doesn't seem to be that much better than Vedral's...

Can't believe I'm saying this, but a healthy Vedral should start with Wimsatt getting a few series. Simon had a great opportunity against Temple but didn't really impress.
I think you should go back and watch Vedral throw a football again.
 
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Hoping Wimsatt is OK. At this point I just want him to be the official starter...Take the bad with the good and get him every ounce of experience you can this year. At this rate all the QBs will be terrible next year too with this flip flop crap.

There’s no way he can be an every down starter against BIG competition right now. He isn’t even a servicable passer against Wagner level talent.
 
Want to beat Iowa? Make Johnny the primary QB. Doesn’t panic, he can throw, always a threat to run which helps our RB’s, has the motivation and guts to succeed. I also think Sam Brown needs more touches. He has proven he can protect the ball and he will be the star RB we have been looking for
 
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I didn't focus on the throws...but the routes were ugly. Simple fix is pre snap reads. If DB is playing off WR need to throw it at snap get 5 yds. Cruiks needs to drive his db back ( fear his speed) comeback for easy completion. Too many times WR's keep running into coverage just sit down in space show your numbers to the QB..Jones finally did for 15 yds.
Again routes are horrible by design. Fix the routes for more open WR's.
 
Between my Titans getting absolutely F'd in the A on Monday, and this offense, I may be done with football for the year after this game. It's too painful to watch.
 
I felt he had an off day at Temple but still think he should be the one going forward. The play calling is predictable, leading to third and longs, and I think he has been instructed on the outside balls to put it where defenders can't get it, leading to many going too far out of bounds. He hasn't fumbled or been intercepted and his qb rating is 141 so I would stay the course with him for now.
Yes. This is how a HC can affect and influence an offense without calling plays.

All a HC has to do is:
1) to instruct his OC to do anything possible to prevent turnovers in the passing game and establish the run at all times.
2) when passing, get the ball out quickly, 3 step drops, passes to the sidelines and DO NOT UNDERTHROW.

If a HC sticks to this mantra in game planning, practice and reminders during the game…there you have it. An ultra conservative offense without the HC calling the plays.

Again, this worked so far and Schiano deserves full credit for 3-0. Being undefeated now is a huge accomplishment and is something a bunch of B1G teams wish they could say. Huge kudos to Schiano and this Rutgers Football team!

Going forward, Gleeson needs the latitude to game plan and call the game he wants, because we are going to need to score more against tougher defenses.
 
That is not a highlight reel. Maybe a lowlight reel
 
That is not a highlight reel. Maybe a lowlight reel
Interesting to watch a few of his high school highlights and breakdown by Knight Report analyst. He looked fine in these plays. Maybe he had a bad day, or maybe it's the way he is being coached and the WRs not getting open. You can criticize those two corner routes in the end zone, but the receiver was not open, and maybe he threw it out of bounds to avoid the INT?

Keep in mind that Simon had a grand total of 28 passing attempts in 2021 and only 27 passing attempts in 3 games going into the Temple game. By way of comparison, Jurkovec had 41 passing attempts in the Rutgers game, and Warner had 32 passing attempts in the Temple game. Indiana's QB has had 55 and 52 passing attempts in two of their games. We are not exactly and air raid offense, are we? 🥴

On the other hand, Minnesota, which is an offensive juggernaut- their QB has averaged 17 attempts per game. Similar for Wisconsin. JJ McCarthy of Michigan has attempted 18 and 12 passes in his past 2 games--but they got over 200 yards in their games against Hawaii and UConn.


 
That was bad all around. It's hard to distinguish what was portion of the bad was due to Simon, porous OL, covered WRs.
 
My opinion: He's good on the short passes. Takes too much time to throw. His mid range and long throws are widely inaccurate. Arm strength is ok. In fairness, both Simon and Gavin are basically "Freshmen" and will improve.
 
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Alright, looking at this one play at a time.

1st - throws to Langan. His man makes the easy read and comes up to tackle Langan well short of the first down. If Simon went to Jones across the middle, he may have had a better chance at the first down.

2nd - Long's man comes on the corner blitz and Simon is looking right at him as the play develops, yet decides to throw long on the right side. If he checks off to Long, again, a better chance of getting the 1st down. Long could've sat down on the sticks and it's an easy first down.

3rd - I like the decision to run with it rather than force a pass into trouble, but he may have had an opportunity to get Monangai on the out pattern if he has the arm strength to get it out there before the defender could jump the route. This may have been a case of him ensuring he didn't turn it over, as that could've resulted in a pick six if the route was jumped.

4th - He locked onto Ryan and they hooked up to convert the 1st down. Slant play - see, they aren't totally out of the playbook.

5th - Possible disconnect between Simon and Ryan. Looked like Simon threw it where he expected Ryan to stop. We cannot know if either messed up there. However, Simon had no more time to wait as he was decked on the follow-through and he put it where it could not be picked, so I'm going to say he made a good decision there.

6th - Three receivers in the route, all well covered. I don't think any QB was going to complete the pass at that point. He didn't force it into trouble, leaving us with the FG attempt.

7th - Deep ball to Cruickshank, possible pass interference that was not called. I think Langan on the right side hash/skinny post may have been the better option.

8th - Cruickshank slipped coming out of his break. Not likely a 1st down on 3rd and 17, but it looks like a good throw.

9th - Deep bal lto Cruickshank on the left side drew the flag for PI. Borderline call but we'll take it!

10th - Not a pass, Simon keeps it on the RPO and picks up six on 1st down. Good decision.

11th - We only had two WR in the route and neither was open, so Simon put the ball out of bounds. Smart decision.

12th - Looks like a nice grab by Long on a quick out that was a little off target.

13th - Hits a wide-open Jones in a hole in the zone for a first down. Very nice play.

14th - Quick screen to Cruickshank, complete for a short gain. Temple played it well.

15th - Lots of pressure, Simon stepped up and away from the rush and made the easy dump to Cruickshank to get close to the 1st down. If he could've kept his eyes downfield, Ryan was open for a likely TD but that may be a play that is hard to make without more experience.

16th - Another quick hitter to Cruickshank, picks up the 1st down and a nice tackle saved Temple some extra yardage.

17th - Quick dump to Salaam, who gets four or five yards. Simon was heavily pressured by a blitzing defender and made a good decision here.

18th - The sack. Poor pass protection. Cruickshank got in the way of the OL that was trying to slide over and pick up the man who ended up getting the sack. The timing at the start of that play just looked off in this replay, and the play clock shows zero when the replay starts. If Cruickshank clears the backfield before the snap, maybe the OL (Direnzo?) could make the block and save the play. There was holding called on a different OL anyway. You can't really see the receivers enough in the video to judge what opportunity was there to get rid of the ball and avoid the sack.

I'd say his decision making improved as the game went on.
Good analysis. That’s the way I see most of it as well. A couple of throws away. A couple of throws that were slightly off target. But you can only make the plays when the plays are called and this was a very plain vanilla and predictable call sheet. I see this less of a QB talent issue and more of a risk averse play calling issue.
The biggest easily fixable problem I see with the offense is at the pace they are playing. Plays are coming in late which slows down any momentum and ability to be aggressive. This also puts young players in panic mode which leads to players being out of position and procedure penalties. Which we have seen.
 
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Kudos to the OP for this post, which was very helpful to watch. Hoping this continues.

Well.... I was not impressed by the line/protection or the receivers ability to get open or the QBs throws/reads/presence.

That said, hoping all improves with another week of game experience, practice and more risk taking with the calls.
 
Kudos to the OP for this post, which was very helpful to watch. Hoping this continues.

Well.... I was not impressed by the line/protection or the receivers ability to get open or the QBs throws/reads/presence.

That said, hoping all improves with another week of game experience, practice and more risk taking with the calls.
It's easy to throw the QB under the bus, but it's not that simple. Greg and Shameen Jones addressed this:

“There are several,” Schiano said on what needs to be fixed offensively. “You know, I think some things happened that part of it was technical and part of it was schematic. And when I say ‘technical,’ I mean technique. And part of it was cultural. So throw all three things together, and you had kind of a perfect storm."

“As a team we just have to execute and play one play at a time,” Jones said. “Whoever has the opportunity to make a play we have to make it.

“Everybody has to look at themselves in the mirror and take in what they did wrong. Can’t point fingers on what went wrong and what didn’t. Just have to execute better on every play.”
 
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As usual.


Schitts Creek Comedy GIF by CBC


Did you check to see what Rutgers' defense is ranked?
It's impressive too, but we don't want to tell that part of the story.
On this board we already know about Rutgers defensive prowess.
 
Some solid analysis here with diagrams and breakdowns of the plays, and where things when wrong on several levels:


"Facts: Simon played well enough for Rutgers to win: he did not turn the ball over or ever really put the ball in harm’s way. Despite an insanely conservative game plan and no real run game threat, he did complete 60% of his passes including a critical 4th down conversion. Simon also protected himself physically as the only healthy scholarship quarterback available for the final three quarters of the game."

"Do I agree Gavin Wimsatt has a higher ceiling than Simon? Absolutely! But right now Gavin has completed just 19 of his 44 career passes with four interceptions, and just a single touchdown (that required an insanely athletic catch from Chris Long despite being wide open)."

 
Hoping Wimsatt is OK. At this point I just want him to be the official starter...Take the bad with the good and get him every ounce of experience you can this year. At this rate all the QBs will be terrible next year too with this flip flop crap.
this is how I feel
 
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Some solid analysis here with diagrams and breakdowns of the plays, and where things when wrong on several levels:


"Facts: Simon played well enough for Rutgers to win: he did not turn the ball over or ever really put the ball in harm’s way. Despite an insanely conservative game plan and no real run game threat, he did complete 60% of his passes including a critical 4th down conversion. Simon also protected himself physically as the only healthy scholarship quarterback available for the final three quarters of the game."

"Do I agree Gavin Wimsatt has a higher ceiling than Simon? Absolutely! But right now Gavin has completed just 19 of his 44 career passes with four interceptions, and just a single touchdown (that required an insanely athletic catch from Chris Long despite being wide open)."


This. I don’t see how anyone is hoping for Gavin to run the offense this Saturday unless the thinking is we should throw away this whole season to develop him for the future. At 3-0, that seems ridiculous based on Gavin’s stats to date. He’s not ready. Plain and simple.
 
this is how I feel

It’s not going to be “flip floppy”. Noah is going to be the starter. There will be a few set plays designed specifically to leverage Gavin’s skill set if he returns. If his injury is such that it ends up keeping him out for weeks, our staff could even decide to milk it to qualify for a medical redshirt.

I don’t know if Plum was joking or serious, but I don’t see a 7th year in the cards for Noah. I think he’ll move on after this year from playing no matter what. He wants to get into coaching.
 
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This. I don’t see how anyone is hoping for Gavin to run the offense this Saturday unless the thinking is we should throw away this whole season to develop him for the future. At 3-0, that seems ridiculous based on Gavin’s stats to date. He’s not ready. Plain and simple.
The gut reaction of most fans when the passing game fails is the QB sucks and should be replaced. But a rational analysis of the Temple game shows the QB is not the only problem, and Greg and Shameen Jones squarely addressed this. Multiple blogs, articles and podcasts have said that Gavin is not ready to start full time. It can be frustrating to fans to see freshman QBs starting on other teams with success, and it may be due to the QB, but it is more likely due to a solid supporting cast of the OL, RBs and receivers.
 
I do not think the play calls have helped our QBs. But Simon vs Temple looked different, and worse, than any action we have seen Simon in prior to that.. including the BC game.

I did like Simon going longer early.. and we had a missed PI call and a PI call on those as well as a throw OOB. If we had Simon play the whole first half maybe he gets in a rhythm.

Simply put.. we need more deceptive playcalling... right from the first snap.. especially on the first snap where a D will be over-aggressive.

Let me ask you all this.. you are calling the D against Rutgers on the first play of the game.. do you go run stop D or some pass coverage nickel? Do you have run stop personnel in or pass rush / pass coverage guys?
 
The gut reaction of most fans when the passing game fails is the QB sucks and should be replaced. But a rational analysis of the Temple game shows the QB is not the only problem, and Greg and Shameen Jones squarely addressed this. Multiple blogs, articles and podcasts have said that Gavin is not ready to start full time. It can be frustrating to fans to see freshman QBs starting on other teams with success, and it may be due to the QB, but it is more likely due to a solid supporting cast of the OL, RBs and receivers.

For whatever the reason, our coaches a) have gone out of their way to limit our pass attempts as a general strategy to date and b) have kept the pass routes that we do run extremely simple. No use of tight ends. Very limited use of RBs.

Not having a veteran QB certainly makes sense as a possible reason they would want to keep things simple. It’s also obvious that losing Pacheco is hurting us in a number of ways that were probably underrated. We’re definitely missing his blocking on pass routes especially since he was also a threat as a receiver - defenses had to account for him in multiple ways.
 
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Based on those videos, Vedral is easily our best QB at the moment. Unless he somehow went backwards during the off-season.

Wimsatt has the strongest arm of the 3, but his accuracy has been off and appears to have the worst decision-making. Simon can make the throws, but we aren't seeing a lot of open WRs for him - not nearly as open as they seemed for Vedral in this videos. But Vedral's decision-making speed is way faster than either Simon or Wimsatt, and he seems to make good decisions more often than not.
 
I didn't focus on the throws...but the routes were ugly. Simple fix is pre snap reads. If DB is playing off WR need to throw it at snap get 5 yds. Cruiks needs to drive his db back ( fear his speed) comeback for easy completion. Too many times WR's keep running into coverage just sit down in space show your numbers to the QB..Jones finally did for 15 yds.
Again routes are horrible by design. Fix the routes for more open WR's.
EXACTLY!... this is what the OK State type offenses are all about.. take what they give you... pass (or QB run) first. That opens up the regular running game because opponent is always in pass D sets. We have had YEARS now to establish this and have failed. WTF
 
Based on those videos, Vedral is easily our best QB at the moment. Unless he somehow went backwards during the off-season.

Wimsatt has the strongest arm of the 3, but his accuracy has been off and appears to have the worst decision-making. Simon can make the throws, but we aren't seeing a lot of open WRs for him - not nearly as open as they seemed for Vedral in this videos. But Vedral's decision-making speed is way faster than either Simon or Wimsatt, and he seems to make good decisions more often than not.

I think you may have nailed it. We’re not at practice, but your right in that in the limited sample size outside of Wagner (meaningless) Evan’s decision making doesn’t seem to be as good as Vedral’s was last year yet. Definitely an experience thing. If the coaches aren’t confident in his ability to make quick decisions, that perhaps explains their hesitancy to mix in too many different play options.

All this said - Iowa’s defense might be better than what we faced last year on average and depending on Noah’s injury, his release time could be impacted until he’s well worked back into the rotation. A lot TBD.
 
This video literally hurt my eye balls.

Had to drink a large glass of Jack Daniels to ease the pain.
 
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His pocket presence and short passes seem fine to me. The deep ball is a bit of a disaster. Saw shades of that with his first throw against Wagner. Even if he can't nail down a 20+ yard pass, it would be nice to open the door to some pass interferences/defensive holding calls.
sadly it seemed that the long sideline fades into multiple coverage were intended only as a strategy to gain yards with PI calls.
 
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sadly it seemed that the long sideline fades into multiple coverage were intended only as a strategy to gain yards with PI calls.
Now that could clearly be an inexperienced QB who doesn't look off the safety.. but there were several man coverages he threw to.. that is good recognition pre-snap.. I think... I don't know. To KNOW you would have to know what play was called and who the hot receiver was... and if he changed prime target at LOS because of a read. BUT.. I don't see him obviously going through a progression. Some of that was pressure.. some of that just inexperience.. or if he first read was open.
 
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