My take from the game.

[Bulls1181]

Not good: Special Teams, no pressure from passrush unless we blitzed, no push from the DTs, Q not consistent with the easy fundamental throws. 

 

Solid: Q on the run,  WR Speed, Tice, Good push from O line, Tight ends were open all night, Harris and Thomas were solid on D, Kean is a solid #2.

 

[MMW]

6 hours ago, Brad said:

Because we looked sloppy.  QF's passing set everyone off.  It was not that of a QB that could win a conference.

We could have been up by a lot more if he connected on some of those passes.  Guys were wide open all night.  The int should have been a touchdown but Flowers under threw it.

If you all felt like we never broke things open (even thought we won by 37) is because we really left a lot of points on the field.  This should have been Cinci all over again. 

I am a big Flowers supporter but he did not have a good night IMO.  Hopefully he shakes the rust off by NIU.

6 hours ago, PCBull14 said:

Flowers threw a lot of good balls as well that weren't caught. He will be fine and the offense will only get better. 

I watched it again this morning and I missed what you are talking about.  

I agree that we will be fine but we were rusty.

I am not sure why I am complaining about a game where we methodically put up 57 but whatever.  When we are clicking we really are hard to stop.  

[bullwark]

I concur with Bulls1181's assessment.   I'm very concerned with special teams and the Bull's pass coverage defense.  Those two areas will be exploited by good teams, lots to improve upon looking beyond this game.  Bulls were clearly more athletic than Towson.   

[Bulls On Parade]

I'm not as worried about pass coverage we have good talent and it's first real game...Hopefully they can show improvement next week.

Overall pretty good first game I thought.

 

 

[dausfbulls11]

I noticed alot of backups playing in first quarter when it was 14-3...

[raptorcj]

3 hours ago, Bulls1181 said:

Not good: Special Teams, no pressure from passrush unless we blitzed, no push from the DTs, Q not consistent with the easy fundamental throws. 

 

Solid: Q on the run,  WR Speed, Tice, Good push from O line, Tight ends were open all night, Harris and Thomas were solid on D, Kean is a solid #2.

Having slept on it, I don't really feel any differently. The D line did a serviceable job, but the LBs need to sniff out a push to one side or other and stuff it better. Secondary needs to watch the film, our opponents will.

On O, I was really happy with the O line performance overall, they dropped my concerns a couple notches. RB/WR/TEs were good. Q good running, sigh on passing. BK good passing but a little telegraphed and not an elusive QB--great backup though.

ST please watch film and improve...a lot. CWT please go get a kicker that can reach the end zone.

[Bullrush33]

16 minutes ago, raptorcj said:

Having slept on it, I don't really feel any differently. The D line did a serviceable job, but the LBs need to sniff out a push to one side or other and stuff it better. Secondary needs to watch the film, our opponents will.

On O, I was really happy with the O line performance overall, they dropped my concerns a couple notches. RB/WR/TEs were good. Q good running, sigh on passing. BK good passing but a little telegraphed and not an elusive QB--great backup though.

ST please watch film and improve...a lot. CWT please go get a kicker that can reach the end zone.

If you watch the last three kickoffs they all reached  within the 5 yard line. I will have to watch if Taggart changed the kicker. The punter also got better towards the end. 

[Guest]

It's strange that people are complaining about the kickoffs that are designed to be short of the goal line -- on purpose.  He's kicking them high in the air so the coverage team can get there to stop the return before the 25 (This is something a lot of college teams are doing by the way)... At least twice the coverage guys got out of their lanes, and the KR exploited the holes... the rest of the time the coverage team did fairly well.

The punter, however... hard to believe we can't kick it longer than 42 yards.

 

[Flowers4Heisman]

This was like USF now playing USF when we first started out. Feisty bunch (Towson).

The way that I look at it, we are much better than last year's opener.

Have faith in QF. We've all seen what he can do.

As for Kean, he's got a good arm and the attitude to go with it. Mobility, not QF-mobile.

I like the defense. Still a lot of work to solidify things. But the speed and the emotions are there.

Lots of work to do to improve to point where we can put the hurt on FSU. There's time.

[usfgrad84]

7 hours ago, Ricky the Bull said:

I think part of it was the frustration I had with the defensive front not being able to stop them on short yardage plays.  Special teams also needs some work, especially discipline on kick coverage since we can't seem to kick a ball deep.  Towson was consistently starting at or beyond their own 30.  Overall, we were fine but made those areas stand out.

I wasn't so upset about not being able to stop them on 4th and short. The only one that bothered me was the 4th down pass. 

Flowers missing the mid range passes was the only I was concerned with.

I didn't like that we had to call a timeout after the turnover, before we even ran a play in the series and we seemed completely unprepared for the fake punt. 

In a first game, execution or coverage breakdowns will happen, but the coaches are the professionals. They should be ready to go on a change of possession or have a unit prepared for a fake. 

Those are just being nitpicky. I think if we really went all out all game we could have put up 100. On defense, I don't recall more than a handful of Blitzes in the 2nd half.  

I am not too worried about the D. We scored so fast.  Our defense was on the field a really long time.