Bethune-Cookman Preview

This is the home opener for the CANES. The opponent is a familiar one in Bethune-Cookman. When they last met, the CANES had to work hard for a 45-14 victory over the Wildcats last year at Sun Life Stadium. 

Looking at Bethune-Cookman, this is a team that doesn't give up. They have a pretty good QB in Jackie Wilson from Fort Lauderdale. However, the Wildcats have had slow starts to their first two games, so hopefully, that trend will continue and the CANES start out much faster than they have the first two games, both times falling behind 14-0. 

When you look at last year's game, we started slowly in the 1st half, leading just 14-7, but pulled away in the 2nd half with 42 unanswered points to win comfortably. We know tomorrow, we can't have that happen again. The Defense must come out fast and make a statement for 4 quarters and get the taste of the loss in Manhattan, KS out of their mouths. The D cannot allow 422 yards like it did last year against the Wildcats, because that's going to be really asking for trouble. They held the ball for just about 39 minutes (38:59 to be exact). We have got to win the time of possession battle and we must win the turnover battle. 

We need a big game out of Duke, but I need to see a bigger game from the Defense tomorrow. I think we'll see that. This unit has to come out and make a statement in this game. 

In the end, I think we'll get big games from Duke, the D and on Special Teams. 

Prediction: CANES 42 Bethune-Cookman 14

Report Card for game @K-State

What could you say about yesterday? We were terrible in all three phases. 

Once again we fell behind 14-0, but this time, there would be no comeback. A couple of plays really turned the mo against us. 

At 7-0 in the 1st and on 3rd and 1, Eduardo gets the 1st down, but loses the ball and Brown recovers the fumble for them. and five plays later, its 14-0 K-State. 14 point swing on that fumble. Later at 17-3, first play of our next drive, Duke drops a sure TD pass that would have cut the K-State to 7 at 17-10. Instead, its a 3 and out series, that's another 14 point swing of momentum in their favor, because instead of 17-10, its 24-3 K-State. The one that really told how timid we were yesterday was the last drive at the end of the 1st half. At 24-3 down, we have a chance to get momentum our way with 7, instead we settle for 3 and instead of 24-10 down, we're down 24-6. Coming out of the locker room, we couldn't seize the mo and we had to punt, and K-State scores on that drive, 31-6, game over. They would add 21 more after that in the 4th. 

Once again yesterday, I didn't like the fact that we didn't have a pass rush at all, it was non-existent. I also didn't like the fact that we had 4 penalties for 30 yards, while K-State had 2 penalties for 12 yards. 

Time for the report card:

Offense: D- The reason for that is that of the four penalties yesterday, 3 were on the offense. We could not get the running game going. The sobering numbers: 29 carries, 40 yards (1.4 ypc). We had just 262 total offense yesterday, after having 415 last week up in BC. They handcuffed Duke by holding him to just 19 yards in just 6 carries. Credit K-State's D for doing a great job keying on Duke. Mike James wasn't much better either. Just 27 yards on 9 carries. The O-Line allowed Morris to be sacked 5 times, and fumbles twice, losing the ball both times. The one bright spot here was Clive Walford having 61 yards on 3 receptions, and 1 TD (near the end when K-State had the game well in hand). Very poor game all-around yesterday.

Defense: F  Once again, we allowed too many big plays and the biggest concern to me was no pass rush. We allow Colin Klein to have a big game. 71 yards rushing and 3 TDs. The pass defense was a little better, allowing just 210 yards passing, however, we allowed 498 yards total offense, and of those yards, 288 of those were on the ground, which included 106 yards by John Hubert alone. This unit could not get off the field on 3rd downs. When we needed a stop, it wasn't there. They were 72% on 3rd down conversions (8-11), and all of those were with less than 5 yards to go, the 3rd downs were short yardage situations. -2 in turnover margin will not win you games, and especially against a very good team like Kansas State is. 

Special Teams: D  Jake had two field goals. However, the return game was non-existent. The fact that K-State didn't punt until the near the end of the game was very disheartening. The bright spot is that Duke had 141 yards in Kick returns on 5 touches. When you give a team like K-State short fields to work with, they take advantage, especially when you have a running game like they do. They started drives from an average of their own 41, while we started our drives from an average of our own 28. That's not going to get it done. 

Its time to forget this game, but learn from it and fix the mistakes we made for next game on Saturday vs Bethune-Cookman in the home opener. GO CANES!

Kansas State Preview

Tomorrow afternoon at High Noon in Manhattan, KS at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, we will play the Kansas State Wildcats. The game can be seen on FX. In Spanish, it'll be a first for FOX Sports Deportes, as it'll be the first time since 1996 that a major college football game has aired on that channel. 

As for the game, Let's look at the matchups

CANES O-Line vs K-State D-Line

LT Bunche (RS Soph 6'7" 325) vs RDE Adam Davis (Sr. 6' 247)

LG Felicano (RS Soph 6'5" 314) vs RDT Vai Latui (Sr. 6'2" 299)

C McDermott (RS Soph 6'4" 295) vs """"""""""""""""

RG Linder (Jr. 6'6" 308) vs LDT John Sua (Sr. 6' 294)

RT Flowers (Fr. 6'6" 314) vs. LDE Meshak Williams (Sr. 6'3" 245)

K-State has a lot of experience on the D-Line and our O-Line is going have to step up and run block better, especially against Sua and Latui on the inside. Felicano and McDermott are going to need big games tomorrow. We had 139 yards rushing last year at Sun Life against these guys on 27 carries. If we have another big game from Duke tomorrow, we win. 

K-State O-Line vs CANES D-Line

LT Corneilus Lucas (Jr. 6'9" 324) vs RDE Green (RS Jr. 6'3" 260)

LG Nick Puetz (Sr. 6'4" 304) vs. RDT Pierre (Soph. 6'4" 300)

C B.J. Finney (Soph. 6'4" 303) vs """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

RG Keenan Taylor (Soph. 6'1" 290) vs. LDT Smith (Sr. 6'2" 315)

RT Cody Whitehair (RS Frosh 6'3" 300) vs LDE Chick (Soph. 6'4" 262)

We allowed 265 yards rushing last year (166 from John Hubert and another 93 out of Colin Klein). That cannot happen tomorrow or we will not win. We need to pressure Klein and make him have to beat us throwing the ball. 

A couple of matchups I'm going to be watching tomorrow.

I really want to see Duke vs K-State's LB's (Arthur Brown, Tre Walker, and Justin Tuggle). Its time Mike James and Eduardo Clements step up because you know they will key on Duke after the big game vs BC last week. 

I want to see more of the TEs in this game for us make more plays. Its time Dye, Cleveland, and Walford all step up and make plays vs the K-State LBs. 

CANES WRs vs K-State Secondary

WR Allen Hurns (Jr. 6'3" 192) vs. RCB Nigel Malone (Sr. 5'10" 180)

WR Phillp Dorsett (Soph. 5'10" 185) vs. LCB Allen Chapman (Sr. 5'11" 176)

WR Malcolm Lewis (Frosh 6' 192) vs. CB Randall Evans (Fr. 6' 190)

K-State WRs vs CANES Secondary

WR Tremaine Thompson (Jr. 5'8" 167) vs. LCB Finnie (Soph. 5'10" 183)

WR Chris Harper (Sr. 6'1" 234) vs. RCB McGee (Sr. 6' 194)

WR Tyler Lockett (Soph. 5'11 175) vs CB Howard (Fr. 5'11" 175) or Gunter (Jr. 6'2" 198)

The secondary needs to step up in this game while K-State's WRs are nothing to write home about, they will make plays if we fall asleep, so the Safeties have to have a big game tomorrow in the help coverage, namely VT and Kacy Rodgers II need big games tomorrow. 

We have to do a better job stopping the TEs and a matchup I'm going to be looking for is Travis Tannehill vs our LBs (Johnson, Perryman, and Cookie). Time to Cookie to step up and produce tomorrow. 

Here's a stat that stood out to me on last year's game at Sun Life: 3rd down conversions. K-State in those spots were 9-15 (60%), while we were just 4-10 (40%). We have got to a better job stopping K-State on 3rd Downs, we have to make them convert on long yardage situations and get our D off the field. Klein kept a lot of their drives in those situations. These guys don't turn the ball over, so protecting the football is going to be more critical and we cannot give them short fields to work with because that'll be asking for trouble. Here's another stat that stood out, when K-State leads at half, they are 150-5 (97%, 6-0 in 2011). So fur us, a fast start is critical, because if we fall behind early, that crowd will be involved and we need to keep the crowd out of the game. 

I think we will step up and make some key plays. This game will be close throughout. I think it'll come down to a couple of key plays, I think we'll make enough key plays to get out of Manhattan with a big time victory on the road. 

CANES 27 K-State 17 

Videos from the Boston College Game

Photos from the game @Boston College

Report Card and Game Balls for BC Game

Being at the game up here in Boston yesterday, a couple of notes. 

The tailgating here is virtually non-existent. 
The atmosphere in Alumni Stadium was so-so at best. They had their moments especially when they were up 14-0 early. They were into the game. 

However, when we started to clamp down and Stephen got going, you could see the momentum begin to turn our way, and especially more so after the Pick 6 by Denzel to tie the game at 14 at the end of the 1st quarter. I could tell we didn't quit, we kept battling out there and the D stepped up when it had to. We ended up with a +2 in the turnover margin, which is pretty good. I like that we were 11-21 on 3rd downs. 

But, I didn't like the fact that we didn't have a pass rush at all, it was non-existent. I also didn't like the fact that we had 9 penalties for 76 yards. I also didn't like the fact that Morris was telegraphing his throws, however, that's fixable. Something Sileo mentioned last night on the postgame was the fact that we allowed I think 5-6 big plays over 20 yards, that needs to change for next game vs K-State. 

Time for the report card:

Offense: B+ The reason for that is that of the nine penalties yesterday, 3 were on the offense, which included 2 false starts. But, the 208 yards rushing and 415 in total Offense, which included 135 out of Duke, raises this grade here. 

Defense: B- Once again, we had little to no answer for the FB screen wide and the TE. We allowed too many big plays and the biggest concern to me was no pass rush. That has to be fixed for next game. Allowing 441 yards passing and 512 yards total offense, that's a concern, but the Denzel pick 6 made up for that and being +2 in turnover margin raises this grade here. 

Special Teams: A- Botts came up big when we needed him to, from a field position perspective. Two punts inside the 20 and two fair catches were big for us there. 110 yards in KO returns, but only 9 on Punt returns.  Jake with two big FGs, the first to give us the for good middle 3rd, and the other to basically seal the victory in the 4th. 

Time for Game Balls. For this game, I'm giving out three game balls. 

1. Duke - 7 carries, 135 yards, 2 TDs. 214 yards all-purpose. 
2. Perryman - 7 tackles (1 TFL), a pick 6
3. Botts - Two punts inside the 20. Came up big when it was needed in the 4th, pinning BC at the 8. Also a heads-up play to take the safety to run clock out in the end. 

Its time to head back to NJ from here in Boston and hopefully we'll correct the errors for next game on Saturday vs K-State on the road. GO CANES!

Gameday in Chestnut Hill

My fellow CANES, today is the day we've longed waited for. Its Gameday. There are going to be a couple of things to watch today. 

1. How Morris does as the full-time starter without having Jacory to look over his shoulder. 
2. How the LBs do against the BC offense. Also, finishing tackles (fundamentals). 
3. How our secondary does against the BC passing game. 
4. A consistent pass rush vs Rettig. If you saw BC's spring game, BC was just awful. 
5. How well our O-Line plays opening holes for the backs and giving Morris time to throw and stretch the field vs a very suspect BC secondary.

Here's what I look for today:

1. For Morris to have a 300 yard passing game.
2. For the Defense to get a Pick 6
3. A 100 yard rushing game from James. 
4. A big CANES win

I will post some photos from the game tonight and here's to a big CANES win today here in Chestnut Hill. GO CANES!