TCU Recap

Well, I've calmed down sufficiently to write something. But now I'm mired in the depression that always follows a loss, so we'll see how far I get. Who am I kidding? I've always got a reserve of deep-seated frustration to tap for these kind of posts.

Defense
Strong outing. Lost in all the post-game commentary is that TCU actually has a decent offense. Yes, TCU's passing game was hindered by the bad weather, lots of balls that probably should have been caught by TCU receivers (TCU more than made up for this with the lucky TD reception off the tipped ball and the once-in-a-lifetime catch made by Hicks on the second TD reception.) But the secondary looked good for the most part, I wish someone would have stepped up and and jumped a slant at some point, but for the most part they seemed content to play a little more conservatively, probably not a bad decision with the poor conditions. There's been lots of grumbling over the inability of the defense to adjust to the QB keeper, but looked to me like Clemson was focused on coverage and also wanted to keep the ball out of the running back's hands. The result was Dalton being left free on a few occasions to chew up some yardage, but TCU has a lot of weapons and if you're going to give them one, letting the slow QB carry the ball now and then isn't a bad idea.

Tackling watch: Not bad. I thought the defense looked a little tired at the end of the third quarter/beginning of the fourth quarter and it showed up in some lax tackling, the second level was getting dragged along for several extra yards at a time. Hard to blame them, though, since they were out on the field fo so long with our offense unable to muster a first down.

Offense
I'm gonna differ from most of the blogosphere here, and also ClemBen--I thought the playcalling was baffling at best. The scripted first drive was fine, but after that we were putting ourselves into too many third and longs. This resulted from: 1) too many pass plays and 2) too much running east to west and not north to south. Given the skill player strengths and experience in the offense, we should be calling at least a 55/45 run/pass ratio, particularly if we have the lead or its tied. After conditions worsened I wouldn't mind running this up to 65/35. Instead we were probably running the opposite (35/65 run to pass) to start the second half. Bizarre.

The good news is TCU has a good defense. Boston College has a good defense. The question becomes, what level of defensive crappiness is necessary for us to score regularly? If the answer is Middle Tennessee State, well, we should be able to score against Maryland, Virginia, and Coastal Carolina. If the answer is somewhere in between, we'll have a fighting chance against Miami, FSU, and NC State, as well. I should say the USuCk scares me at this point, but hey, Chicken Curse. I remain as confident as I am every year that we will stomp them into the ground. Mercilessly.

I already covered the red zone offense in the post below. As long as our offense struggles to move the ball anywhere on the field, I can't honestly think of why we should be expecting the offense to score once they get inside the magical twenty yard line. Its a fundamental problem with execution and inconsistent playcalling, not some failure to be "mentally tough enough" or some other garbage to score inside some arbitrarily-defined region of the field.

Special Teams
Good outing. I think we came back to earth a little after the last few great weeks, but we still got some solid returns and looked phenomenal in coverage. Can't ask for much more. Zimmerman's bad boot cost us at the end, but TCU's offense was able to move the ball enough at the end to put our backs against the end zone. And while Zimmerman had a great game up to that point, I think everyone in the stadium knew we were playing with house money on that last punt.

Major Coaching Decisions
Would have kicked the field goal. With the current state of our offense, we had a better chance at getting close enough to score two field goals then to suddenly gain the ability to catch a lob in the endzone. I'm not sure what makes Napier/Swinney think we had a chance to score a touchdown all of a sudden. I hope, hope, hope that Napier isn't on the sideline thinking, "Well, we've had so many chances up 'til now...somebody's gotta step up and make a big play sometime. Might as well be on 4th and 13 at the 16 yard line". Unfortunately, I haven't seen much of anything to indicate otherwise. Kick the field goal, take your three timeouts and entrust them to your better units, special teams and defense.

Can't wait to vicariously take out some frustration on Maryland this weekend.