Monday, October 15, 2007

Villanova game postmortems

The UMass Daily Collegian has two articles here and here .

The College Sporting News does the national scene here .

Jeff Thomas of the Springfield Republican points out some unsettling aspects of the win.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE GAME:

As you have probably figured out by now, I don't usually do very much "fan analysis" such as assigning grades to various units of the UMass football team after games like many fan bloggers do. For one thing, despite what all that high priced NFL commentary says, it is very difficult to determine a team's game plan. Without access to game films or practice, it's pretty much impossible to comment on the success or lack of success of what the coaches and players were trying to do.

However, I can state my perceptions on what goes on during a game, and during the Villanova game, I thought our clock management was poor.

We seemed to struggle to get plays called from the sidelines. That ended up icing our own kicker at the end of the game. The five yard delay of game penalty moved the field goal try from a makable distance to a long shot in a breezy McGuirk.

Our QB Liam Coen also struggled with clock management. He was getting calls late anyway and then wasted time trying to direct traffic instead of getting under center and calling the play. Time after time, we hiked the ball with little or no time left. I think it disrupted the offensive rhythm.

UPDATE:

Matty Vautour rings in with three articles. A game re-cap here . UMass offensive tackle Sean Calicchio may have made the most critical play of the game .

And he covers Liam Coen's slow start .