SB Nation User Blog: CardsFan922

Derby winner?

CardsFan922 — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:36:09 -0000

For those of you who are also Derby fans, are you like me?

Every year, I am kinda generally aware of Derby contenders through the spring, hearing about winner of the various prep races, etc. Then, the week before Derby, the CJ does profiles of every horse, and each horse sounds like the physical equal to Secretariat with a heart-warming story to match Seabiscuit. Just this morning, Big Brown, Colonel John and a horse that wasn't even supposed to be in it all seem like they should be 2-1 favorites.

Anyway, all of that is to say: Who does everyone like? I'm impressionable.

Mike, are you doing a preview for Derby?

Meh: The 2008 Spring Game

CardsFan922 — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:05:33 -0000

Bumped from Diaries

What a difference a year makes. Last year's spring game was packed, there was a buzz, the defense played with intensity and matched our awesome offensive -- WITHOUT WOODNEY AND WWII!!11!

This year's spring practices started during the tournament and ended in closed practices, culminating in last night's "spring scrimmage" we'll call it.

But the weather was nice and the wife was out of town, so I convinced my brother to go with me and get reacqauinted with your 2008 Louisville Football Cardinals.

Overall, the theme of the night was: meh. The offense looked okay (except for a few very bright spots in the backfield), the defense looked ok, the format, the long time in between plays, and the pre-snap penalties stifled the flow of the game and limited the action. My brother and I ended up talking about how E5, DC, Jennings and Samardo will share time at the 4/5 spots most of the time, and then leaving early to get some White Castle on the way home.

With 12 series, including 3 each by the 2nd and 3rd teams, there wasn't a lot of football to evaluate. But a few things seemed apparent:

Our running game is going to be a strength. Bolen is a known quantity of known quality, so watching him run 4 straight plays up the middle got pretty boring. But getting to see Powell and (especially) Vic Anderson was really the highlight of the night. And maybe its my Tiger Pride showing, but Vic looked better last night than Powell. Both can make guys miss (Mr. Bryant and Mr. Woodney, your jock straps are still on the 35 yard line, could you go pick them up?), and both are very fast. But Vic seemed to get a lot of YAC and did not go down easy. I really hope we run the ball ALOT this year, and do a lot of swing passes and screens to powell/vic, because they are both very exciting players and will be bright spots.
The passing game is not great, and I think a lot of that is the WRs. Scott Long -- we were all so excited about him last year, but when he took over for Mario in mid-season, he really never lived up to it and dropped what seemed like a lot of balls. Well, same thing last night. Maybe he's just a practice all-star or something, and maybe QBs just aren't giving him the ball right, but if Long is our #1 WR, we are in trouble. Spillman dropped a couple, other guys didn't get open, Cantwell missed the guys who did...overall, the passing game was not impressive.

Maybe it was the play calling, but we ran a couple terrible plays: 1) Scott Long dragging over the middle (like Mario used to do, with the same predictable result), 2) Quick comeback to Spillman (good for 3 yards), and 3) Timing fade route where QB takes a quick drop and just heaves it down the sideline without looking (a/k/a, a "Woodson"). These plays were run a few times with poor results.

Anyway, Cantwell has a cannon, and so look for him to air it out a lot. If they have him throwing quick hitches and underneath routes and dink/dunk (except to powell/vic out of the backfield)...well, I just hope they know more than me and figure out how to get Cantwell to throw the ball to an open Long 20+ yards down the field.

The tight ends were there, I guess, but I didn't seem them do anything, but they are a RS Frosh and converted senior LB, so anything they give us is a plus.

The offensive line looked good, gave Hunter time and opened up some holes. I don't know if the OL will be a plus, although having Wood and Bussey as the anchors will help. But it won't be like 2002 (which we hear every summer when replacing OL)
The defensive line is going to be solid. Heyman and Grady are the best we've got. There are enough bodies that we should have options and be protected against injuries. Got my first look at Tyler Jessen, the JUCO....my first thought was "why is that fullback playing DL?" Not a good first impression.
The LBs we saw last night will not be the LBs we see against UK. I hope. Bryant was abused by Vic (see above), but made some tackles. Dexter Heyman, there's a spot waiting for you to start as a Frosh.
The secondary -- a tale of two corners. It was the best of coverage, it was the worst of coverage. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of leaving your man wide freaking open. It will be a season of frustration, it will be a season of promise. Johnny Patrick played really well last night. He had some great pass break-ups, playing the ball and getting physical without getting a flag. I don't want to get all ZOMGJOHNNY PATRICK on you, but he played well. On the other hand, there's Woodney. For a "fast" guy, he's not very quick, and he does not seem to be very good at tackling. He is still okay covering a guy, but that was not his weakness last year (as long as don't play the cover-2 don't let steve johnson run free!!!!!). He got some flags (offsetting once!) but we'll hear his name incorrectly pronounced a lot this year, because his guy is going to get the ball thrown to him.

Travis Norton -- the one play in the Miami game in 2006 was a sign of things to come. I hope he gets better. Chaz Thompson was out there.

7) The Safties had no impact that I saw. They were generally near the ball on Cantwell's heaves, and I didn't see anyone just streaking wide open down the middle of the field (except Amobi Okeye at halftime when he was late for the jersey presentation session).

Frankly, with all the penalties and with the format, we just didn't get to see a lot of football. So all of these observations are based on the 3-4 times during the whole night that may be isolated incidents that have no bearing at all on where the players really are at this stage of their development.

But hope springs eternal. The RBs are young/exciting, the QB has a cannon for an arm, the back-ups throw nice balls, we have a bunch of WRs who seem to have physical tools, the DL is good, one of the young DBs is showing promise, about 7 guys didn't play on defense who will see time in the fall, and Midnight Madness should occur before we are officially eliminated from bowl eligibility.

But with an easy, 8-home game schedule, and a healthy team with low expectations....lets just say it won't be as bad as last year. And that's worth something.

Worst Commercials Bracket

CardsFan922 — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:35:44 -0000

Now that the season is over, we can really focus on something that has been discussed a little bit throughout the tourney: the worst commercials bracket.

My nominations:

The UNC of commercials during the tourney HAS to be the Jetta commercial with the guy pressing the car alarm button as the couple approaches his car. Other than the sound of an alarm clock, is there any sound worse than a car alarm? Why, during a tense game or even relaxing watching an 2 seed destroy a 15 would I want to spend the commercial dealing with that awful noise? And the commercial doesn't make sense either. Is it supposed to be funny?

My other #1 seeds:
Memphis -- the Axe Body Spray commercial where the guy peels his skin off. Sure, it was a small ad buy, and only appeared on TV a "mid-major" number of times. But how gross is that? The guy is banging his head against the wall and peeling skin off. Ugh.

UCLA -- Bud Light's "Dude" commercials. I liked UCLA two years ago when they went to the final four, I liked them last year. This year, its just too much UCLA, and they aren't as good as they could be and they seem. The first Bud Light dude commercial was pretty funny, and the other ones weren't bad. But the last ones have just been too much, and they aren't as good as they should be or could be.

Kansas -- The Coke Zero commercials with the clips of the old NCAA games. I mean, they aren't offensive or whatever, but like Kansas, there's just something about them I don't like. Maybe it was that it ran twice per timeout -- just sick of seeing it.

That's all I can think of. Anyone want to nominate their #2 seeds?

Also, anyone want to nominate 4 #16 seeds, commercials that they really liked during the tourney?

Then maybe we'll vote, or no one will respond and I'll delete this in shame.

Refs: No Burr in NCAA

CardsFan922 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:43:16 -0000

http://gregg-doyel.blogs.sportsline.com/mcc/blogs/entry/5881996/7325922

I generally am not a fan of Doyel, but he has this tidbit that I had not seen anywhere else: Jim Burr is not working the NCAA tourney because of some background check procedural issue.

A little googling led me to this site, which has some detailed analysis of refs:

http://statsheet.com/mcb/referees

I have to think Jim Burr not being a ref in the NCAA tourney is good for us, but I think a talented math / statistics analysis guy (Phauz, statprof, quinn) could really figure out from the statsheet.com site which refs are great for us and which are terrible.

Go to it!

Can't wait for Thursday!

Butler's scouting report on UT

CardsFan922 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:23:23 -0000

Got this from someone on ITV:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/bill_trocchi/03/24/butler/index.html

Interesting read.

Stopping Tyler Smith will be key, as will not turning the ball over.

The funny thing is that a dangerous press from an athletic team doesn't scare me for turnovers, it is games where we are winning and where we are way more athletic than the other team when we seem to turn the ball over the most.

Because that's when guys start trying to make superstar passes and get in a hurry and just try to win on athleticism. When we are focused and when we have DP as the pivot on the press-break, then we're good.

But I will be terrified if JDP is the one bringing the ball up on the press.

Interesting blog, re: "lucky" teams

CardsFan922 — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:06:55 -0000

SI's Luke Winn analyzes KenPom's luck stat and compares to tourney results.

Especially interesting because we show up on the list for 2008, although Winn rightly gives us a pass.

Check it out:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/ncaa_tourney/2008/2008/03/meaning-of-bad-luck.html

Also, check out two of the top 10 "lucky" teams: http://kenpom.com/rate.php?s=Luck

I think he needs a better phrase than "luck" to describe this metric. While it is the difference between "expected value" and "actual results", and in gambling that difference is called luck, in basketball you have some measure of control of things.

We saw Georgetown pull out all these close games this year, and some of it seemed to be "lucky" calls, but they were leading WVU before the block, they were tied with Nova despite shooting like 15% because they held Nova's shooting down, and Wallace hit all three free throws against Marquette to send it to OT and then Georgetown scored more points. Against us...well, they hit their wide open 3s, we missed ours. No luck there.

Now, UT's rank up there is interesting. I think it confirms "they aren't as good as their record", and they are pulling out close wins against inferior teams. They also rely heavily on turnovers (see: KenPom article on that at http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=173). I still think they are the first 1 seed to lose because, while unlucky teams don't turn it around, eventually Tennessee's luck will run out.

Random thought, re: Illinois 2005 game / 2008 tourney

CardsFan922 — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:56:09 -0000

Has anyone watched the Illinois final four game from 2005 recently?

I was there and have not watched a replay, and I've tried to block it out of my memory, but there are three things I do remember:

MOVING SCREENS OMGCALLTHEFOUL!!!
Roger Powell, Jr's video-game follow up dunk on his own missed 3
Illinois kept running a play against our zone to get a guy open in the corner for a 3. My memory is that this play destroyed us, and involved getting 2 guys close together in the corner, one to set a pick on the forward who was supposed to guard 3 point line, the other guy to catch and shoot. I might be hazy, but didn't they run this like 100 times, and used a moving screen every time, and it destroyed us?

I only ask because it seems like we'll see that play again against a team with a good coach in the tourney and I'll probably throw up (I'm looking at you, Ben Howland).

I'm also terrified of Kansas, but only if we play them somewhere within driving distance from Lawrence because they are only average on the road and have lost their close games.

Maybe thinking too far ahead?

Big East seeding outlook (1-4)

CardsFan922 — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:52:42 -0000

Basically if we win out, we win the Big East regular season outright. That's pretty awesome.

I think winning at Georgetown on Senior Day with the Big East title in the balance will be a HUGE task.

So let's look at some possible scenarios....after the jump!

It looks like we are going to have to win out to win the Big East.

Notre Dame has the easiest route -- us, then Depaul, St. Johns and USF. They should end up 14-4.

UConn has the second easiest -- @Rutgers, WVU, @Providence, Cinci. Should be 14-4 (although their win streak was filled with close games, if they keep that up they could drop WVU or Prov games). But likely end up 14-4.

Gtown has the second hardest route -- St. John's, at Marquette, us at home (senior day). I think they lose at Marquette, meaning they need to beat us to get to 14-4.

We have the hardest -- ND, streaking Nova fighting for tourney lives, @Gtown on senior day. Yikes. I still think we win 2 at home and then go to Gtown with a chance to win the league outright. What a game that will be. Let's say 14-4 though.

If we all end up 14-4, chaos. Gtown wins by being 3-1 against that group, right? ND is 4th by being 1-3 against that group. We are 2-2 and UConn is 2-2, so I guess we get the 3 seed because they beat us?

So we need UConn to lose again, need to beat ND and Nova, and then we go to Gtown assured 1st or 2nd, depending on that game.

But if we win out -- we are the solo Big East champs. No math needed there.

Crawford's take on the offense

CardsFan922 — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 13:24:15 -0000

http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/crawford/blog.html

Great blog post by Crawford about the offensive problems.

I generally agree with what he's talking about. I guess there are no magic plays, but if week after week we see the same deep cover-2 zone, maybe come up with SOMETHING to counter that. Don't just accept that we're going to have to throw short -- that's what they want you to do. It's not like we're playing the '85 or even the '06 Bears.

Why waste Brohm's talent on dink/dunk? How awful is it going to be watching cantwell throw 100 MPH passes on 4 yard curls to Peter Notcha?

The thing Crawford said that sticks out the most is that it is an offense that relies on the talents of the players -- not getting guys open.

Petrino's offense was about getting people open. They never just ran routes -- everyone on the play went somewhere for a reason it seemed. And people got open -- so it didn't matter who the players were, as long as they did what they were supposed to do, the play succeeded.

But Petrino also put people in a position to succeed. He didn't ask Lefors to throw the ball downfield, and (other than the UK game in 2005) he didn't ask Brohm to run the dink/dunk/finesse offense that lefors ran.

And in terms of game planning -- last year's WVU was a clinic in finding a weakness and exploiting it. Play-action passes to the seams -- I think we started EVERY offensive possession with that. Remember Herbie's call: "The linebackers are biting SO HARD on play-action."

But have we changed our offensive game plan once this year? It's the same set of plays over and over.

All of which is to say, things are Different now -- not exactly breaking news.

But Crawford has done the best job I've seen of describing why.

Theory on Mike Cassity / Defensive Changes

CardsFan922 — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:41:30 -0000

Why would KRAG keep on as Defensive coordinator a coach who was "demoted" by the previous coach and who was known for an aggressive, attacking, blitzing defense, only to switch to a cover-2 with the medium or long-term goal of switching to a 3-3-5?

That question has been bothering me for a few weeks, but I have a new theory...AFTER THE JUMP.

I remember reading that Cassity is a dynamite recruiter, and not just for defensive players. So KRAG gets hired in January with only weeks to go until Signing Day. Cassity has a number of guys on the hook (Woodny, etc) who will go with him wherever he goes or at least not go wherever Cassity leaves from. Krag can't fire him or he'll lose those guys.

So he keeps him on until his recruits all sign and then he changes up the schemes to the complete opposite of Cassity's approach. The defense struggles, and Cassity is gone this off-season.

I'm not saying KRAG wanted the defense to struggle, I'm just saying he couldn't fire cassity but he didn't keep Cassity with the intent to run the cassity-aggressive defense. He kept him for the recruits only, and planned on installing his own defensive scheme no matter what.

Which is why I think its an almost 100% certainty that cassity leaves after this year, we lose out on a few of "his" recruits (although our prospect list isn't exactly filled with 4- and 5-stars anyway) and we spend all next year complaining about the 3-3-5 and cover-2.

Basically, KRAG sucks.

And UL football is so depressing.