SB Nation User Blog: kayakyakr

Danny Amendola's 1st career TD catch

kayakyakr — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:36:00 -0000

Danny Amendola's 1st career TD catch

way to go danny!

Texas Tech defeats Baylor 20-13

kayakyakr — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:37:45 -0000

More photos » by Duane A. Laverty - AP

23 days ago: Baylor's Jay Finley (32) is brought down by Texas Tech defender Julius Howard (13) in the second quarter of an NCAA college football game Saturday Nov. 28 in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Waco Tribune-Herald, Duane A. Laverty)

Browse more photos »

Hard fought game, but TTU comes out with a win. Appropriately for the game and the season, TTU wins the game on a defensive stand. Near the goal line. Very hard fought game and I wonder which Taylor Potts we got. Mostly it was Taylor Potts but he actually seemed to be mobile and comfortable in the pocket today.

I give Brandon Sharpe the MVP for the game, he played a great game and got the key stop on 3rd down. Lyle Leong has got the offensive MVP, catching both TD passes, one of them with a linebacker on his back.

See you guys in the Alamo Bowl.

Texas Tech vs. Baylor. 2nd half thread.

kayakyakr — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:40:25 -0000

Ugly first half. Nick didn't get off the bus. Taylor Potts is wearing the wrong jersey.

Defense is playing fairly well.

Texas Tech falls to Oklahoma State while the basketball team beats A&M Corpus Christi

kayakyakr — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:34:31 -0000

Welcome to your postgame thread. Have a wicked hit:

What a frustrating game. that's all I have to say now.

2010 Texas v. Texas Tech game moved again.

kayakyakr — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:03:50 -0000

2010 Texas v. Texas Tech game moved again.

Texas Tech will play Texas on Sept 18th, 2010. This shuffle has led to the shuffling of the Houston game to Nov 27th and the TCU game right out of 2010. We will play Weber State on Nov 20th in their stead.

Texas Tech uses late defense and rushing to defeat Kansas 42 - 21

kayakyakr — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:23:09 -0000

Baron Batch takes over the game to close it out, good rebound after Texas A&M and a good game going into our bye week.

Game gifs here: gifs

Post comments here.

Game gifs

kayakyakr — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:14:04 -0000

So when the game is on ABC, I can record it for this process. Since I want this to be a fanpost, I'll explain my process.

Basically, I convert the game files from my recording, cut them up with virtualdub, import them into Photoshop, resize and cut one of every 2, 2 of 3, or 3 of 4 frames, and save it to gif.

The most time consuming part is converting the files. Usually that's because each one (about 15-20 minutes of video) takes up around 2-5 gigs of space. I use my 1.5 TB drive to hold them, so I'm not too worried about running out of space, but I make sure to clear out the leftovers before the next weekend.

More gifs will be in the comments as I can put em together:

Open 2nd Half Thread :: Texas A&M Aggies v. Texas Tech Red Raiders

kayakyakr — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:32:59 -0000

Aggies surprising TTU, up 28-14 and they get the ball back in the 2nd half. Thoughts? Catch the 2nd half here.

Kayakyakr's Week 3 Report Card

kayakyakr — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:31:45 -0000

Texas Tech v. Texas

As I mentioned when I got home last night, I am happy with the moral victory after that game. As a quick rundown, we hung with the #2 team in the nation for 4 quarters, held their offense to its lowest home output of 340 yards since 2007 against KSU (also 340 yards), and I really saw something out of this team that I hoped for but wasn’t sure of. I really don’t want to sound like I’m just trying to spin sunshine, but I honestly have to believe that this TTU team is better than a lot of people picked them to be.

Read on after the break for my positional breakdown

Position	Grade
QB	A
RB	F
WR	A-
OL	D
DL	A
LB	A-
DB	B
ST	F

Offense

QB

Taylor Potts had a great day, considering. I think that a lot of the grades that I’m giving are based on expectations vs performance and Pott’s grade is. Next year, if he has a 3 td, 1 int day against UT, I’d probably grade that a C, but this year, I’m ecstatic with that state line. That was one of my biggest question marks going into this game, "How will Taylor Potts handle his first road start in a hostile environment?" He handled it great, especially since he was being hit pretty much every play and was bouncing right back up. I think I’ve officially joined the Taylor Potts fan club.

If I have any complaint about the QB last night, it’s that he displayed a bit of a lack of situational awareness. I’m mainly talking about that set of series to start the 4th quarter where nothing really happened. I felt that Taylor failed to recognize that UT was bringing all-out pressure at that point and that before then, we had been tearing holes in the UT defense with the dink and dunk offense. It seemed like Potts was looking to go deep, 15+ yards down the field on his pick, fumble, and over half of the other plays in that series. Take what the defense gives you and we take advantage of the stop and punt or McCoy’s pick.

All that said, I still give Taylor an A for his performance on the night. Well deserved.

RB

All I can really say about the RB’s is that they were pretty much completely ineffective on the night. There was 1 18 yard run by Baron and a 12 yard run by Stephens, and outside of that, they never got going. It may have been the oline’s fault, but they’re also getting a poor score on the evening. Even in the passing game, the backs did nothing. And Batch, on the two catches where he looked like he had some room or at least a one-man-to-beat situation, he fumbled, losing one. I’m most disappointed that we didn’t see any of Harrison Jeffers. I’m not sure if he was held out for effort/disciplinary reasons or just because Stephens and Batch are much better in pass protection than him, but I was not happy to see him on the sideline.

I think we had the most room for running from the 2 back set. I really like the concept of handing off to one back while the other one leads. We ran from that set twice that I can remember, each going for short yardage, but I thought I saw the potential for bigger gains from there. I don’t like the 2 TE set anymore because, in order to run from that set, we have to also have a threat to throw. We just don’t have the personnel for that to be an effective formation and we won’t until we get a TE that can block and catch.

I think this is going to be the #1 thing for our coaches to figure out, how do we break open holes in our running game. Yes, it’s called the air raid and we live and die by the pass, but I don’t believe that our offense will play to its best potential until we can consistently gash defenses when they only have 6 men in the box. I give the unit an F and it makes me very sad to do so

WR

We have a very young crew of receivers. I’m pretty sure Lewis was still hampered by his hamstring and he didn’t see many reps, yet I don’t think our receiving corps missed a beat. I loved the constant rotation of receivers and that combined with our no-huddle we ran all night, caused headaches for UT all night long. I think Eddy B had a great makeup game for his drops and had the block of the night on a Zouzalik out route. Leong just knows how to score TD’s and Torres had his high in receptions for the year. I also don’t see what the vitriol for Jacoby Franks is. He had a drop (one of only 2-3 I can remember) early and he had the PI call late (that I think was just as phantom as Crabtree’s PI last year), but aside from that, he turned in his career performance in catches and yards.

I must reiterate that we have an incredibly young group of receivers. I’m giving them a score of A- on the night. The minus is because they did allow themselves to be bumped off of their routes, held up, or gave up on their routes once they felt they had been interfered with.

OL

I think we saw 3 different types of offensive lines last night. The first, was the line that was being blown up and unable to create holes in the defense against a 4 man front. This was also the line that was unable to get out and deliver blocks in front of the backs on screens. We only saw them about 12 plays, but they didn’t do much for us.

The second OL we saw was the OL that was able to withstand 5, 6, and even 7 man rushes to give Taylor just enough time to get the ball into the hands of his receivers 5-15 yards down the field. I like this line.

The third line that we saw was the line that committed false starts and missed blocking assignments and got blown by on speed rushes. This line only reared its ugly head when we were backed up deep near the north endzone or when we were approaching that same endzone going the other direction. While the first offensive line certainly contributes, this is the line that earned a D for their performance.

I’m still impressed with the youth and depth of our line. Oakafor and Edwards are both sophomores and are both solid, despite their false start mistakes. I think Olson’s future is at center (an odd change from LT to center), so the questions next year will be at LT and RT and I’m confident we’ll have that figured out.

Defense

DL

We started this season with 4 DE’s. We took 1 of those to Austin with us. Your 4 DE’s for last night’s game (as determined by the DE warmup group): Daniel Howard – DE – 6’3" 240#; Jonathan Brydon – LB – 6’3" 220#; David Neill – DT – 6’5" 280#; Britton Barbee – DT – 6’2" 296#. Now, in the game, I think we saw the most of Bront Bird playing 3-technique or stand-up end, and Richard Jones, a DT, also lining up at end. I must say that this line unit did an exceptional job considering. Early in the game we stopped up their running game very well and got fair pressure on the QB once we started running stunts and twists in the line. Only one sack but 8 tackles for loss including 3 by Bront Bird.

I have to hand it to the coaching staff. They did the best with what they had and it worked until the 2nd half when UT finally figured out that we were backing our ends to make up for our lack of depth there and leaving the middle of the field without a 2nd level of defender. For what we had and what we were missing, this unit is deserving of that A grade.

LB

The linebackers did a solid job all night. I can only recall them getting outright beat 2-3 times, once on the long Chiles run and twice by Buckner, the Longhorns pseudo-TE. Good game by the backers and very little that I can say about their performance

For a solid night, they get an A but they get a minus tacked on for the missed plays and lack of stops in the 3rd and 4th quarters and a plus for Bront Bird’s ability to play end respectably. So again, A.

DB

On the one hand, our DBs didn’t get beat deep all night. On the other hand, we gave up a lot of underneath catches and 3rd down conversions because of how soft we were playing. I know that was a coaching decision, but I think that it was the wrong one. Our defensive line wasn’t going to be able to come up with the big play and so I don’t see why we shouldn’t try to put our backs in positions to force pass breakups and ints of their own. We pulled down 2 picks off of tipped balls, but because of the yards given up underneath, the unit earns a B.

Special Teams

I’m going to break this up by play type. Kick returns get an A, and I think this is the aspect of the game that Stephens made his greatest impact (not to downplay his in-pocket blocking). They kicked to Stephens every time and every time he took the ball up to the 35-40 except one. Unfortunately, half of those were called back on holding, but we’re close, and Stephens was close to breaking a few of those.

Kickoffs get a C for the night. We gave up about 30 yards per return which is not great, but acceptable. We also had that onside kick attempt that was in and out of the hands of, I think, Ed Britton. If it had worked, that would have evened the difference in the game, so I don’t mind the gamble in the least. I think the biggest keys for our kickoff team will be for Carona to continue to kick the ball deep in the endzone like we know he can (he had one touchback, one kick about 5 yards deep, and the rest of his kicks came down inside the 5), and for the coverage team to continue to get down the field even if Carona is booming kicks out of the endzone.

Punting gets an F for the night. This was the difference in the night, with Carona laying down a poor kick in the middle of the field that was returned for the only TD of the first half. The rest of the night, Erxleben punted for us, kicking a long of 46 but only an average of 38. On the other hand, he also kicked away from Shipley who only got 1 more return for -2 yards.

Punt returns get an incomplete for the night seeing as we never touched one of his punts. It seems like Eric Russell has just as much trouble figuring out that rugby punt as Clay McGuire did. UT has one hell of a punter, though.

Overall, this unit was the difference in the night. UT had that punt return for a touchdown and that was basically the difference in the game. On the plus side, Matt Williams kicked his career long of 41 yards. Way to go Matt. F for the rest of them, though.

Refs

I’m only going to say one thing about the refs:

Kayakyakr's Week 2 Report Card

kayakyakr — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:08:17 -0000

Muuuuuch better game this week. I mean, all aspects of the game were improved. Read after the jump for my grades. (writing this on the road this week, so, nothing too fancy)

Offense
QB: I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Potts wasn't the most improved player on the field this week. I'll get to who was a bit later. Still, great improvement from the first week. 7 TDs, 450 yards, no ints. He started the game hot, got on a cold streak, throwing behind his receivers, but got everything fixed at halftime and came out firing. My only gripe is that he was 63% overall, though his WR's didn't help. I grade Potts as an A. Sticks was good in his series as well.
RB: So this was a better, more complete game by the RB's. Batch was a blocking machine, though he only averaged 3 yards per carry. Jeffers had the longest carry of the night at 16 yards and a good 4.6 yard average. 4 carries just isn't enough to let this guy get going, though. Stephens had 3 carries with a 5.7 yard average. The entire unit only produced 52 yards on the ground, but another 4 catches, 82 yards and a touchdown. B- for the entire unit, with an A for Stephens. He had a great game and Torres' personal foul stole a return TD for him. Electric.
WR: Mixed opinions on the performance of the WR's tonight. Detron pulled up lame with some sort of hamstring thing and if he's out for any length of time (read: next week), we're in a bit of trouble. Still, he dropped a big pass, sadly. Britton, he was dropful today, and we really need more out of him, especially when he's able to get as open as he does. On the other hand, Swindall and Leong had great games, over 100 yards each. Zouzalik is the real deal as well. Torres had a productive day but I seem to remember him dropping a few too. Unit score B-, though I'll give Swindall and Leong A's as well.
OL: This was the most improved unit of the night. We were more effective on the ground (even if we barely had many more yards), and 0 sacks and I only remember 2 hurries. They weren't perfect and I think they will need to be next week for us to beat UT, but that was a solid B+ night.

Defense
DL: 7 sacks. 7 Sacks! What a day for the defensive line. They got a bit lose in the 2nd, getting gashed for a few 5+ yard runs, but it was a solid A effort. The big news for us is how hurt is Ra'Jon Henley. It seems like they were going to be trying to get him back on the field and then decided against that and booted him. Hopefully that's a good sign.
LB: Fair B night for this team. I mean, as a unit they were involved in a lot of tackles, got our interception, and their fair share of sacks. Problem is, we still got beat up pretty bad in the short passing game.
DB: I really don't know how I can grade them yet. Neither team we played tried the deep ball regularly. Their longest pass was a 27 yarder on a broken play. We either make a stop right away after a short pass or give em an easy first down. Is a B- a fair grade for this unit? Franklin Mitchem was all over the place and was laying the wood very well.

Special Teams
As someone remarked in the game thread, we're just going to have to put up with something going wrong with our special teams. Today was penalties (calling back a 92 yard kickoff return) and a missed XP and Field Goal. Carona was great on kickoffs and our return team is great (I say Stephens and Zouzalik are the most dangerous pair and Zou and Stephens for punt returns). Stephens is just too dangerous to not have him on the field.

I promise, I'll work on my format for this next week (though you'd have to wait until Sunday) if you guys want a bit better a readable report card, eh?