Post-Game Hangover: Syracuse (10/22/11) Edition

… as I’m an outside observer with no specific WVU ties. On one level there’s not much more to say than what both Holgo and Casteel both said: Syracuse whipped em. But here are some thoughts based on studying the tape a bit this morning:

1. Negative plays. This was the key to the game for me. WVU’s offense actually had some success against the Cuse (more on that in a moment) but if they were successful on say 80% of plays the 20% of negative plays were absolutely killer — sacks, INTs, etc. As Holgorsen said after the game, the offense isn’t very “efficient” and what he means is chain moving, getting first down consistent. By contrast Syracuse had ZERO negative plays the whole night (if they did they were after the game was out of hand). I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an offense move the ball as efficiently as Syracuse did — every drive was a slow grind and they just got first down after first down.

2. Offense. Holgorsen said during the week what they’d do, which is blitz and blitz some more while “keeping a lid on it,” i.e. a deep safety or three deep. I think the lack of efficiency falls on the impatience of the coach and QB — if Holgorsen was’t calling a downfield play then Geno was trying to do too much, and then back and forth. If WVU wants to get better with the personnel they have they have to become a much better quick game and screen team. They’ve lived on Geno’s ability to find open guys and buy time in the pocket but both of those weren’t there tonight. The screens to Austin and Garrison were probably the most consistent plays, and I’m surprised that Holgorsen wasn’t patient enough to keep going back to them. Syracuse disguised blitzes but even if they weren’t blitzing they weren’t really in position to defend a lot of those quick screens and quick passes. And when Garrison would motion out of the backfield for a handoff to Alston he was essentially uncovered but they didn’t call the swing pass to Garrison until the fourth quarter. Holgorsen’s and Leach’s teams were always great receiver screen teams, and that’s something WVU must get much better at to get the ball to playmakers and to get it out of Geno’s hands quickly against these zone blitzing teams.

Instead Holgorsen was obstinate in staying in four wides a lot. The Airraid offense was built as a two-back seven-man protection (the RBs check for blitz then release). I would have thought Dana would go to that to protect Geno better when he wanted to go downfield and if they backed off hit the backs in the flats. Instead they tried to stay in four wide six-man protection and had to do a lot of guessing against Syracuse’s blitzing on whether they had it picked up and if Geno had time. A good example was the terrible INT at the end of the third quarter. They had an aggressive play called to the left — called “93,” the outside guy (Bailey) runs a post while Austin runs a wheel and the third guy, Urban, runs a five-yard pivot route. They hit the play earlier for a 40+ yarder to Millhouse. Syracuse blitzed but WVU picked it up and Urban was open underneath to the left, but Geno was pressured to his right and instead of throwing it away heaved it up. Bad combination: overly aggressive playcall with only six pass protectors, even with good protection there was pressure, and then the QB panicked and threw it up for grabs.

Lastly, obviously the OLine had major issues. They got beat on a lot of one-on-ones (that #99 for Syracuse was a big problem and he hadn’t played since week one). But they also missed assignments a lot. There were three or four instances where the tackle for WVU blocked an inside rusher leaving an outside guy free and causing the inside blocker, the guard, to block no one. I know WVU works on blitz pickup every day so I don’t know if it was a case where the coaches didn’t prepare them properly or the players just didn’t execute. I think the seven-man protection stuff would have helped but who knows.

3. Defense. I won’t go on and on about this but Syracuse obviously manhandled WVU’s front six/seven. In particular WVU really missed Nield at nose as the current nose tackle got pushed around a lot, and in Casteel’s scheme the middle linebacker, nose guard and two outside LBs have to clean up the interior gaps while the two ends push everything inside. The ends did an okay job coming upfield (but never getting pressure on Nassib) but the LBs just got blown off the ball and did a poor job dealing with the Cuse’s blockers. In particular, the frosh MLB Snow had a really tough game, trying to plug inside runs and getting hit with play action.

In terms of pass protection down in and down out it wasn’t terrible except WVU could never seem to make a play on the ball, so Syracuse kept hitting all those five-to-seven yarders over and over again. Some of this was the QB played the game of his life. Of course the wheel routes were killers. At least one looked like the problem of the OLB/outside safety guy in the flat not carrying the wheel route up the field, but it’s hard to say.

That obviously killed them, especially in the second half as WVU had made it a six point game in the 3rd quarter with momentum despite all the issues but Syracuse marched down the field again, hit a wheel route for a TD, then got a stop and then marched down and hit a wheel route again, and then Geno threw an awful interception and that was it.

Hopefully this is somewhat useful as I was as surprised as anyone to see Syracuse manhandle WVU. I think there were some bright spots in there but the game obviously got out of hand due to mistakes, turnovers, special teams touchdown, and Syracuse’s brutal efficiency. I can’t tell if Syracuse played the best game it has ever played or is turning into a legit squad — maybe a bit of both.

I will say this was a bad matchup for them as this team was as physical as any team they play and although WVU has good players they obviously have needs in the trenches. That said, this will be the blueprint for a lot of teams the rest of the year, including Rutgers next week, USF, and even Pitt to an extent (though less so from Pitt’s offense). I’m particularly interested to see how WVU responds to the heavy but conservative zone blitzing stuff. I think they’ll have to become a much better screen team for starters.