King Ottos Konclusion

Finally a W. This could turn into a huge win for SU. First it gives some legitimacy to Marrone as a HC with recruits. Second it keeps the fans involved in the team as 0-3 may have made a few people lose interest. And third this gives the team some confidence. Which could lead to SU going on a run. That USF homecoming game could very well signify that SU is back. But first we need to take care of Maine first.

Marrone
He has the team playing well and believing. That is something a couch either has or doesnt have. Playing against NW you want to either slow the game down or try and outscore them. Based on last weeks performance by both teams, I thought we may see the slow it down approach. To his credit he went for the outscore them approach, and it worked well. That being said there were still plenty of rookie mistakes by Marrone. There were plenty of organizational issue with personnel, getting plays in, and clock management. IMO 2nd half TOs are gold, and we have zipped through them in all three games. Which is both frustrating and surprising since he seems like the type that would be good at those things. I also dont like relying on Ks in CFB. In the NFL you do what Marrone did. But in CFB way too often Ks are missed or blocked. Having a walk on true frosh have control of the game is a little scary.

Spence
Thought he did a great job. The only quibble was the 3rd and 2 run play. You need to go for a W there.

Shafer
I love defense and Shafer likes to bring pressure. Nothing better than 3rd and longs in the Dome. The D set the tone early with the sack/fumble and then the forced punt. And of course at the end the D set up the winning score with the Suter INT. NW is a hard team to defend. The usually go 4 WRs and no huddle so they put you on your heels. And despite being in a shotgun we were able to get 5 sacks, which is how many we had in a season the last few years under GRob. NW created macthups issues and Kafka took advantage, completing just about every pass he threw. At first we started in a 4-3-4, which I thought would cause major issues. At first we took it to NW. But once NW settled down, the destroyed that D personnel. But in the second half Shafer went to a 3-2-6 with the Okie personnel and Mckinnon (but then Suter) in over Carter. That slowed NW down limiting them to 13 second half points, and one TD came after NW took over at the SU 28.

Paulus
He played really well at times and at others looked like Nunes. He manages the game well and made plays. He had a nice fake on the long MW TD and ran for a nice TD. His arm strength is still a question. And he misses some easy reads out there. There was a play near the end of the 3rd where he missed MW on a perfect play call. It was our first play of the dive maybe around our 35. MW was on a deep post, had his man beat, and had no S help. Paulus threw a crossing route to Davis instead underneath. Two plays later he fumbled, leading to a NW TD. The pressure is on the OL but he needs to hold onto the ball. That series of events was a huge wasted opportunity. Which brings us to the end of the half. Great call by Spence but Paulus' pass was waaay under thrown. If you miss you need to miss deep. That cost us at least a FG there.

RBs
He just does not go down. We still need to get him going. If we do the 1-2 punch of DC3 and MW will be hard to stop. We got Mike Jones involved nicely.

WR/TE
MW had a huge game. They had no answer for him. Davis was more involved and may be settling into the #2 role. Lobdell was out there quite a bit. Lemon wasnt used as much. Hopefully he bounces back and adds another weapon.

OL
McKenzie has a bad game. He has been disappointing so far this year. The bad snaps and the missed fumble recovery hurt the team. Baumbach still struggles in pass protection. He seems to wiff every now and then. I wonder if he is not sitting back properly and reaching instead. Tiller made an appearance on a goaline play that was stuffed.

DL
Art made some nice plays out there but seemed gassed all game. Sharpe continues to impress, hopefully he is healthy.

LBs
For most of the game we only played 2 LBs, so not much can be said of Carter. But the other two played very well. Both Smith and Hogue had great games. The Smith sack/fumble started SU off on a roll. Hogue had his coming out game.

DBs
No one really got beat, as NW mostly threw underneath. Besides our normal 4 DBs, both Thomas boys and McKinnon played quite a bit. Shamarko is just a nasty player. He can hit and has an attitude. He and Sharpe were steals. Gotta think he cracks the starting lineup next year. Suter was flying around on blitzes and made the INT to set up the game winner.

STs
Lichy had a low kick that was blocked but he came back and hit his next one. And then he nailed the game winner. Long played well except for the one KO that went out of bounds. Coverage teams were good and the last punt was huge. Long punted from the end zone and NW took over at their 40. Jones was bottled up early on KRs but had soem nice ones later on. The PRs were scary. Both Jones and Davis dropped returns. I also think they were too close to each other, causing confusion. The missed extra point by NW was huge.