By John Beck
Head Football Coach
We feel the same way about the good luck. It is bound to bounce our way soon!
We did a lot of things well in all 3 aspects of the game against Baxter and we have some things that we need to improve upon.
Offensively we ran the ball on the outside well and on the inside we needed to move guys a bit more. Up front the guys played really hard and did a nice job most of the time but to be the team that I know we can be we need to be able to do a great job all of the time.
Our edge blocking could improve a bit and our overall pad height up front needs to be lower.
Our skill guys did some really nice things as well. Brett, Broox and Brady ran really hard and were able to fight for some extra yards and be pretty efficient.
We complemented that with some nice play-action passes that led to some guys being open. We also did a nice job of taking what the defense gave us.
We ran some hitches really well and then were able to go over the top once they bit up on them. However, we ran some wrong routes and our blocking on the outside was not as good as it has been at times this year.
We were also not as effective this game on 2-pt conversations as we have been. These are all things we can improve but we need to as a team get better at some of these little things.
Defensively we did some really nice things throughout the game. We rallied to the ball and tackled as a team. We stopped thier screen game for the most part.
Our line played pretty well and really mixed it up with some twists and loops to force some bad throws and get to the QB quite a few times.
Broox Stockman played really well flying all over the field and making some big stops. Our secondary tackled well for the most part. We had some really big negative yardage plays as well.
We did a really nice job on 2-pt conversions as we only gave up 2 throughout the game. Those are big opportunities and executing like that is big.
We were really effective in getting them in third down and long situations. We were able to capitalize on that multiple times when we stopped them on a 4th down conversion 2 times and were able to force a turnover on a 3rd and long situation.
However, they were also able to convert on 3rd and 4th and long to extend drives more than we would like. Again all things that we can improve upon as we move into the final week of the season.
On special teams Luke Erselius continues to do a really nice job kicking. Garrett had a really nice punt with the wind but he also had 2 into the wind that did not go as far as he is normally capable of.
Overall we as a whole group of coaches and players will need to focus on some of the little things this week. It is going to be that type of a week in general. We know what we need to improve upon and we need to see how well we can execute that on Friday night.