Missouri State

[peteonastick]

Well - here we go again! O line play needs to improve or we are in for another long game.  DP said these are the best wide outs we have seen all year - should be a challenge for the secondary who have not played all that great either. 

[dwj]

I thought the UIW receivers were good if the MS receivers are better this could get ugly.  Their QB can also run so our defense will be tested.  They have failed most tests this year.  I think that the coaches are more the reason for the failure than the players. No idea on how to adjust to the game.

[Penguin Nation]

HYPE VID: https://fb.watch/8wDbvHfDM3/

[The YO Show]

Hype video is hype, but it would be a miracle if we win.

[Penquin68]

The last game and 2nd half in the game before doesn't leave us much hope today.  Other teams have our number on both offense and defense. Both our lines are overmatched mostly and the other players have not done that much to get us going on either side of the ball. Coaching decisions are questionable as well. Developing high school recruits will be a long difficult process to get us up to the rest of the league. And Waid leaving doesn't help.  I thought he could be a big help as a 2nd back to give us some power in the backfield which we totally lack now. And his pass catching out of the backfield would have been a big plus like the one play last week. I understand his frustration as Crenshaw has not done that great and he probably feels like he could do better. Hope DP has a good plan for us that will bring us back. In reality this coming recruiting class is his 1st with a normal recruitiing cycle. Hope it all works out for us.  Today may be difficult.

[Penquin68]

So far so good. They look way stronger than us, but we have broken our standard play calling on O and Crenshaw is making better throws. They can score at will in my opinion so our O will need to keep the ball away and score for us to win. Our D got turnovers, but can't hope for more of that. At least their recervers are somewhat covered today.

[ytownchief22]

Nice win

[penguinpower]

Looks like they've been working with the QB.  His feet were much better today for the most part.  You could also see the effort of the line play, even though we were probably out matched in terms of experience and size.  They needed that.

[Wick250]

Crenshaw's td toss into the corner of the endzone right before halftime was excellent. So was the similar pass on the two-point conversion.  Even more impressive to me was how Crenshaw threw the ball away several times when nobody was open. He made a big step in the right direction today.

Strange game, and periodically soggy in the stands.  20-13 primarily defensive struggle until less than five minutes remaining.  Then SIX touchdowns in less than five minutes.  Bizarre.

[guinpen]

Did msu have any flags thrown on them?

[goodnews]

Good to hear a Penguin win!

[guinpen]

Great to win but I wish we had gone for that FG on 4th and 5 or so.

[Penquin68]

Great win for us. We will have trouble getting more unless we make big improvements. I liked the play calling and some deeper passes to keep their defense somewhat honest. I also liked some the blocking with 9. Against us teams put people in motion and overload a side of the field and have the motion man block on the edge at the snap. We don't do that, but today on the last Crenshaw td,  9 was in motion and blocked the edge which got Crenshaw out before MSU could react. Same thing other teams have been doing to us. Maybe we can learn from them finally. And using 8 as a decoy sure worked today. Would like more passing in non passing downs to keep the defense honest. Also liked our man coverage today, especially 21. Recievers are not wide open. Our zone is another story. We just stand there and leave the reciever find an opening and they are mostly wide open. How many times are our linebackers 12 yards down field, spread apart 10 yards, and the tight end stands between them, they don't move, and it is a wide open reception. Need to cover the reciever in your zone, not just stand there.

There is hope

 

[penguinpower]

As I have stated before, have patience.  I would like to host some considerations for the critics (like me).

1.  We've seen this movie before.  The coach doesn't yet have the talant depth he needs to beat everyone in the conference.  It is going to take time both in the development of the kids that are still here and the kids that he will recruit.

2.  The coaches are fighting the inconsistency of a very inexperienced "young" team.  We also know that when you have a young QB and inexperienced line......what happens in games.  Remember Heacock teams in 2003-2004?  How about Wolford's teams in the first few years after he did the ma$$ purge of Heacock recruits?  We had games where we showed out and we had games where we clearly underperformed.  How different is that right now?

3. What would a Pelini team have done at this point in the season after that loss to UNI?  What would a Pelini team have done when Missouri State tied it up in the 4th quarter? 

4. Doug Phillips knows what games are super important to win. Yesterday was one of them.  I heard (could be incorrect on the precise number) that there were 184 recruits at that game.  That's not a typo.  What I heard was 184.  184!  That's why that game was exceptionally important. 

5.  There was clear improvement in terms of performance over other games.  While Missouri State had a lot of self inflicted issues, some of them were unlucky, but some of them were forced.  The 2 interceptions were forced.  The big runs were forced.  Missouri State struggled with the option.  This QB reminds me of a young Demond Tidwell in a lot of ways. 

6.  It looks to me like he's trying to build this thing into a hybrid of the 1990's YSU teams and the current version of Cincinnati. It's based off of the OL and DL. Phillips references the "current" or "today's" game as requiring explosive plays.  He said it's too difficult to have 15 play drives in a game. And this isn't the first time he's said it.  I think he knows he needs a team that has the ability to grind it out on the ground but also have explosive plays.  The play calling tells us more about where he's at when it comes to grinding it out on 15 play drives.  When you are 80% run it tells us we are going to be a run first team and we will force 15 play drives if we don't executie explosive plays.  Well, we had explosive plays last night.  They did a great job on the game plan.

There's a lot more to this that that.  But I've written enough for now.

[YSUGO]

Heres a view from Missouri St paper

https://www.news-leader.com/story/sports/college/msu/2021/10/09/missouri-state-university-football-vs-youngstown-state-oct-9-2021-score-results-ncaa/6005005001/