Post Game Reflections: Montana

[kalm]

We didn't execute the game plan well offensively, but give credit to their defense. They were able to get a lot of pressure on Gubrud and force him into some mistakes. We made up for that lack of execution with a few explosive plays, and that was that.

The "D" played really well, especially the line. Really thought our defensive ends owned their line which led to their QB spending a lot of time on the ground.

I wish it could have been a little prettier, but all in all a very solid win.

Sincere question: Can you give up 540 and say you played really well on D?

I'm not casting judgement and honestly want to know.

Agree with Ranger that the box score surprised me.

Agree with Lucky that the LB's made some great stops.

I think that's a good question. I do think you can give up 540, and say you played really well on D. If you think about the flipside, if we don't rack up offensive stats, can you say the offense played well? Sure, maybe they received short field situations, or special teams and defensive scores reduced the amount of opportunities the offense had, etc.

In this case, looking at the drive chart, I think the D did some really good things. Out of 14 drives the Griz had, we forced 6 punts, one turnover on downs, and two interceptions. Additionally, when the Griz were desperately trying to pad the score at the end, the D kept them out of the end zone. So, over 2/3rds of the drives ended without points due to the efforts of the defense. Additionally, two of the scoring drives were held to field goal attempts, one of which was missed. I will take that, because I think more often than not, we will score touchdowns rather than FG's. Give up three so we can get seven...I'll take it.

The first TD that the Griz scored was due to a very short field. We punted out of our endzone, and Nguyen returned it from the 40 to the 23. So our D gave up 23 yrds at the beginning of the game for a TD. That's a pretty tough spot to put the D in. I don't call that a defensive failure. Our offense put them in a tough position at the beginning of the game.

The Griz scored a FG at the end of the half. That was it. That was all our D gave up in the first half. And then six points in the second half. Give them some yards. I don't care, if it doesn't result in scores.

I think we all can agree we've seen flashes of brilliance for extended stretches from our defense. It seems to me they are putting it together more and more. The Griz had their best receiver back on the field, and a QB that torched us last year, and held them to a significantly lower output. I know it's not the same Griz as last year, but this was not a bad offense we just went against. And our D just held them to their lowest scoring output of the season. Many, including me thought this would be a track meet. But I think our D is on the rise, and that is a very exciting thing to see!

That being said, I think the triple option is an odd offense to defend. EWU has historically handled it pretty well, but I still think this will be a big test. But what's great is that I think every player on the team views every week as a big test. They are not looking past anyone. And if they play focused, this team can go all the way!

From Blanchette's article this morning...

Eastern, at one point, had run 17 plays, and scored twice.

Which, regardless of the the Kuppology seminar in session, was a compliment to Eastern’s defense, and one which coach Beau Baldwin thought overdue.

“There’s a misconception, and it irks me a little,” said Baldwin. “Everyone thinks every game we play is 56-54. That’s not true.

“We play an incredibly tough non-conference schedule, and it’s different than some, so sometimes stats get skewed. Coming into this game, when you’re talking about Big Sky opponents? We were third or fourth in the conference in points allowed on defense. So I take it to heart for those guys when they read that and all they hear about is ‘another shootout’ or that they’re not going to be good enough and that’s the reason they’re not going to win.”

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/oct/29/john-blanchette-eagles-griz-rivalry-built-on-respe/

I also read on goeags that Montana ran 94 plays and to hold them to just 16 is pretty damn impressive. :nod:

 

[LDopaPDX]

Montana reminded me of WSU back when they had Connor Halliday at QB. Gustafson is a big, not-too-mobile QB who they just drop and throw every play. They have what seems like 10,000 route combinations with the vast majority being underneath the zone.

On defense, they show pressure every play. They drop out of it most times, but it is a weird defense to read. You could tell we had a lot of trouble identifying what we were seeing early in the game. Once we figured out how to get the receivers into one-on-ones, we had the upper hand.

I think Montana is still probably the second best team in the conference (although for full disclosure, I haven't seen a full game yet by UND or Cal Poly). The sort of comical thing is that I didn't think we played great yesterday and still beat a great program like Montana by 19. That's a high class problem to address some of our issues while noting we are able to beat some solid teams without playing our best football.

The defense got the job done. They kept points off the board. It still wasn't a great performance by any measure other than the score. We gave up a lot of yards, a lot of first downs, and let them bail themselves out of too many third and longs. Fortunately, we were able to make enough plays to keep the score down, so that's a big feather in the cap of the defense. The good news is that they'd have probably given up 40+ to this same offense last year, so the improvement is very noticeable.

 

[Atomic Eagle]

Here's one: I thought our DB's played really well. I watched the game on DVR today, and there were some plays I saw live that I thought were just dropped passes by Montana. But today I could see that some of those that looked like drops were actually plays where our DB slapped or ripped the ball away. They were PHYSICAL and made plays all day long. With that, I liked that Jake Hoffman was into a more regular rotation. He had a great game against Montana in 2014.

Overall, we were the more physical team. Montana left Cheney battered and bruised yesterday.

 

[Rjones61]

It seems a little Debbie downer to me to point at the yards as a flaw in our defensive play yesterday.


It was clear right from the beginning that our team's plan was to let Montana get yards and not points. And it worked. Not only did it work, but it destroyed Montana's scoring attempts. They left with their smallest point total of the season. They only git yards, because we gave them yards. It's a good thing games aren't decided by yards.

 

[dudeitsaid]

We didn't execute the game plan well offensively, but give credit to their defense. They were able to get a lot of pressure on Gubrud and force him into some mistakes. We made up for that lack of execution with a few explosive plays, and that was that.

The "D" played really well, especially the line. Really thought our defensive ends owned their line which led to their QB spending a lot of time on the ground.

I wish it could have been a little prettier, but all in all a very solid win.

Sincere question: Can you give up 540 and say you played really well on D?

I'm not casting judgement and honestly want to know.

Agree with Ranger that the box score surprised me.

Agree with Lucky that the LB's made some great stops.

I think that's a good question. I do think you can give up 540, and say you played really well on D. If you think about the flipside, if we don't rack up offensive stats, can you say the offense played well? Sure, maybe they received short field situations, or special teams and defensive scores reduced the amount of opportunities the offense had, etc.

In this case, looking at the drive chart, I think the D did some really good things. Out of 14 drives the Griz had, we forced 6 punts, one turnover on downs, and two interceptions. Additionally, when the Griz were desperately trying to pad the score at the end, the D kept them out of the end zone. So, over 2/3rds of the drives ended without points due to the efforts of the defense. Additionally, two of the scoring drives were held to field goal attempts, one of which was missed. I will take that, because I think more often than not, we will score touchdowns rather than FG's. Give up three so we can get seven...I'll take it.

The first TD that the Griz scored was due to a very short field. We punted out of our endzone, and Nguyen returned it from the 40 to the 23. So our D gave up 23 yrds at the beginning of the game for a TD. That's a pretty tough spot to put the D in. I don't call that a defensive failure. Our offense put them in a tough position at the beginning of the game.

The Griz scored a FG at the end of the half. That was it. That was all our D gave up in the first half. And then six points in the second half. Give them some yards. I don't care, if it doesn't result in scores.

I think we all can agree we've seen flashes of brilliance for extended stretches from our defense. It seems to me they are putting it together more and more. The Griz had their best receiver back on the field, and a QB that torched us last year, and held them to a significantly lower output. I know it's not the same Griz as last year, but this was not a bad offense we just went against. And our D just held them to their lowest scoring output of the season. Many, including me thought this would be a track meet. But I think our D is on the rise, and that is a very exciting thing to see!

That being said, I think the triple option is an odd offense to defend. EWU has historically handled it pretty well, but I still think this will be a big test. But what's great is that I think every player on the team views every week as a big test. They are not looking past anyone. And if they play focused, this team can go all the way!

From Blanchette's article this morning...

Eastern, at one point, had run 17 plays, and scored twice.

Which, regardless of the the Kuppology seminar in session, was a compliment to Eastern’s defense, and one which coach Beau Baldwin thought overdue.

“There’s a misconception, and it irks me a little,” said Baldwin. “Everyone thinks every game we play is 56-54. That’s not true.

“We play an incredibly tough non-conference schedule, and it’s different than some, so sometimes stats get skewed. Coming into this game, when you’re talking about Big Sky opponents? We were third or fourth in the conference in points allowed on defense. So I take it to heart for those guys when they read that and all they hear about is ‘another shootout’ or that they’re not going to be good enough and that’s the reason they’re not going to win.”

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/oct/29/john-blanchette-eagles-griz-rivalry-built-on-respe/

I also read on goeags that Montana ran 94 plays and to hold them to just 16 is pretty damn impressive. :nod:

You can watch the interview where Baldwin makes those comments, and he seems genuinely aggravated by comments the players read. Interesting to think of active players on here reading some of the comments of fans. They certainly aren't as toxic as some other boards out there, but seem like a slap in the face nonetheless. I have heard some coaches ban players from reading online materials about the team (though I don't know how they'd enforce that). Just interesting to consider.

 

[ewueagfan]

My biggest observation was how much fun the team was having out there playing the game. You look around at the guys and they were having a blast the entire time. Especially Kupp, Bourne, and Hill, but the guys on defense as well.

Secondly, I need to give a shout out to Samson Ebukam. Not only is the guy a freak athlete, he plays with a ton of heart and never quits on a play. Against MSU, he nearly chased down their QB on the long gainer at the beginning of the game. Against Montana, he came from the opposite side of the field to run down Montana's running back. What a player!

 

[bertram]

[youtube]Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_4WxvNgU2E[/youtube]
Full game replay (somehow the TV Network audio dropped during the upload, but stadium noise stayed)

 

[Rjones61]

You can watch the interview where Baldwin makes those comments, and he seems genuinely aggravated by comments the players read. Interesting to think of active players on here reading some of the comments of fans. They certainly aren't as toxic as some other boards out there, but seem like a slap in the face nonetheless. I have heard some coaches ban players from reading online materials about the team (though I don't know how they'd enforce that). Just interesting to consider.

Back in my prime as a high school wrestler, my coaches had a no online message board activity policy. I definitely broke the policy by creating an online alias called "Underdog" and would talk about my team (and myself) all the time. One of my favorite memories is riding on the bus home listening to the coaches in front of me trying to figure out which wrestlers were participating on the message boards. I was the only one they weren't able to figure out.

Anyway, I totally get why players would want to read and even participate in discussion in their performance. However, they are not children and it is their choice to read these things. I remember I would reading people saying I had poor technique, got gassed, and couldn't score points, only prevent them. It only fired me up more and I ended up getting second in state.

We are a place to discuss Eastern Washington football. The good things, the bad things, and the occasional healthy banter. We aren't a place to flow endless praise toward players. I think I can attest that some of the best EWU fans frequent this board and our team has our full support and their efforts will never be discounted, regardless of what is typed in the Red Zone.

 

[dudeitsaid]

You can watch the interview where Baldwin makes those comments, and he seems genuinely aggravated by comments the players read. Interesting to think of active players on here reading some of the comments of fans. They certainly aren't as toxic as some other boards out there, but seem like a slap in the face nonetheless. I have heard some coaches ban players from reading online materials about the team (though I don't know how they'd enforce that). Just interesting to consider.

Back in my prime as a high school wrestler, my coaches had a no online message board activity policy. I definitely broke the policy by creating an online alias called "Underdog" and would talk about my team (and myself) all the time. One of my favorite memories is riding on the bus home listening to the coaches in front of me trying to figure out which wrestlers were participating on the message boards. I was the only one they weren't able to figure out.

Anyway, I totally get why players would want to read and even participate in discussion in their performance. However, they are not children and it is their choice to read these things. I remember I would reading people saying I had poor technique, got gassed, and couldn't score points, only prevent them. It only fired me up more and I ended up getting second in state.

We are a place to discuss Eastern Washington football. The good things, the bad things, and the occasional healthy banter. We aren't a place to flow endless praise toward players. I think I can attest that some of the best EWU fans frequent this board and our team has our full support and their efforts will never be discounted, regardless of what is typed in the Red Zone.

You've stated a lot of the things I wondered about. Ultimately, it's the coaches jobs to keep the team in the right mindset, and not let them put too much stock in message board fodder. But I was actually surprised to hear Baldwin even reference the fan comments the players read.

All that being said, I just re-watched the Griz game, and I absolutely think our D is gelling and improving. That is extremely exciting to see, because with that, this team truly can go all the way!

 

[Vic E. Wallace]

To All,
I was sick, so I didn't attend the Game. I took my daughter and went back to my residence, checked the game out on my TV. I have said numerous times, If our Team play to their potential, we will beat the Griz, or any team that is on the Field to play against us. The Griz have a Great Team, but we are better. Our Team deserves all kind of credit, couldn't believe some of our Bloggers were picking US to lose. I guess this is part of being a Fan, and anything can be expected in this type of game. Heard from one of the Big Wigs on Sunday at the MBB Game against Saint Martins, they are trying to get something going with the GWP, on a down scale. We should have some information in November. Here I am just waiting for the information, as is many of you. Fantastic "WIN", Now lets get ready for the Road Games. Go Eagles!!!!! Vic Wallace

 

[LDopaPDX]

I pre-date Internet message boards, and frankly I'm thankful for it. They were just starting to become a thing as I left college.

 

[marceagfan5]

My take on the game....Hell Yeah! Congrats to the team, that was a fun one to watch, great atmosphere, good for the players, especially the seniors.

We beat Montana by 19, I have no issues. Great job by the team! We are in the middle of a special year this year!

 

[Rontheoldwiseeagle]

I pre-date Internet message boards, and frankly I'm thankful for it. They were just starting to become a thing as I left college.

They were just starting to use pencils when I left collage :lol:

 

[dudeitsaid]

I pre-date Internet message boards, and frankly I'm thankful for it. They were just starting to become a thing as I left college.

They were just starting to use pencils when I left collage :lol:

Good thing one of your grandkids taught you how to use this internet thingy.

 

[bertram]

Full Game replay
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s-17tYAFJE[/youtube]