Coach V's grades: UCLA 20 Texas 17

NAHLIN: Game Thoughts – Texas/UCLA

IT’s coach Venable releases his grades after the UCLA’s 20-17 win over Texas.

OFFENSE: The offense was competitive against a good defense. Our QB has definitely grown over the past two weeks and played well enough for us to win. We are getting good mileage out of an OLine that isn’t strong enough to knock defenders off the LOS. We lose individual battles in the pass protection when we are left on an island. Moving our gunslinger on sprints, boots, and waggles has offered better opportunities to be successful with the newbies.

The RB’s ran with effort and blocked extremely well but they seem to need slightly larger creases to burst thru the second level. They are not weapons in the receiving game and haven’t displayed the softest of hands with several drops on their dance card. WR’s had drops, didn’t block with as much gusto as usual, and had trouble getting separation on pass routes. The TE’s contributed a td off play action and our best overall blocker is our starting TE.

Here are the grades:

18—Swoopes—A-

24 of 34 for 196 yards. 8 runs for 11 yards. two td’s passing with zero o’skies (TO). Ty needs to work on his dodging ability and be committed to the scramble once he quits reading coverage. The best improvement for Ty was the accurate bullets he was darting to the receivers. He had a dandy tough GL scramble. He had one outstanding 4th down ad-lib that came up roses. Getting better every week—he appears to be having fun and that’s a good thing.

28—Brown—B

14 runs for 69 yards. 3 catches for 8 yards. Malcolm had a great block on a QB sprintout and added a tremendous lead block on a Gray run. He had several tough carries into a covered wall—we often had a hat on a hat but with no movement up front it was hard to squeeze to the next level. Strong effort is obvious but desired results still have a ways to go.

32—Gray—B-

7 runs for 49 yards. 2 catches for 6 yards. one drop on a flat pass. nifty run away from blocking scheme netted a excellent gain—our bounce outside against the grain was a real keybreaker for their front. JGray isn’t producing in the receiving aspect like he is capable—this must improve during conference games.

7—Johnson—B-

4 catches for 40 yards. one nice reception but very little yards after catches. Blocking for the others was failing. Kickoff returns went from hitting the seam on the run (last week) to basic squatting this week. Marcus isn’t providing any explosion—that was his strong suit last fall.

8—Shipley—B+

9 receptions for 65 yards. one diving catch was nice. Very good block on a swing pass to the RB. Good block on another swing pass. 3 good 3rd down catches to move the chains. The problem is averaging only 7 yards a catch—we need more yards after catch from all the WR’s.

9—Harris—B

4 catches for 60 yards. one td catch. John had one good block on a screen pass. He had another good block on JGray’s long run. He had two crucial drops including one 1st down on our last drive. He had a good td catch. He also had a quality hustle catch on a 4th down that put us on the GLine for a td.

11 Warrick had one catch for 15 yards.

82—Swaim—A-

great zone block on 3rd and 1. great block zone. good pass block on sprint. good combo block on edge. great lead block on 3rd and 1. great lead block on counter play. good combo block with tackle on edge. clipping penalty that appears to be a phantom call. Best blocker on this football team.

85—McFarland—B+

two yard td catch. good kickoff block. good zone block. didn’t get as many plays as normal—we went three WR’s most of the game.

50—Raulerson—B

Jake didn’t get a ton of movement but he consistently kept a hat on a hat and had several excellent “reach” blocks where he hooked the DT. good block zone. BPB (sack). good block counter. great block zone. BPB (no help from 66). Getting better.

74—Doyle—C+

BRB. good block counter. needs to come off combo instead of staying with double twice. good pull block on power. Missed contact on another short pull. BRB. Maintains contact but gets very little push—needs to show improvement once the conference starts.

66—Flowers—C+

BPB (sack). good block counter. squatted on screen pull without making contact. BRB. one holding penalty. Sedric needs to show more improvement in being consistent.

76—Perkins—C

good block zone. good pass block. BPB (inside). BPB. Two holding calls. good combo block with TE. It would help if our OC would call formations on obvious passing downs where we could help Kent with either a TE or a RB “chip” instead of the extra WR that won’t matter if we keep getting beat with speed rushes or holding calls—we served Kent up last night.

65—Hutchins—B-

BRB. good block zone. BRB. BPB (sack). good reach block. good block swing. good down block on power. Marcus survived better in pass blocking (than Kent) but he just isn’t big enough to get solid movement in the ground game.

DEFENSE: The defensive played hard—very hard. We reverted back to a big number of MT’s but it was nice to see us deliver more big hits to help balance the scales. I felt our technique work improved across the board but we are still falling short of “reckless abandon” for 4 to 6 seconds for a few players. We make too many mistakes that cost us “explosion” gains instead of limiting our errors to under the length of the chains like most championship defenses are able to achieve.

It’s my opinion that their OC/QB did a terrific job of attacking our fronts (4-2 nickel—3-3 nickel—4-1 dime) with solid audibles that took advantage of our alignments (1 and 42 are just not every down OLB’s). We wound up blitzing a backer and/or a edge blitzer a very high percentage in the 3-3/4-1 calls—worked fine until they used motion to remove the remaining backer which left us barefoot at times. I’m sure we had sound motives against staying in our 4-2 but it appears we are a much better defense in our base nickel without all the blitzing.

I graded 3 and 33 extremely close and feel both played extremely well as long as they were fresh (exception 3’s MT on fist 2nd half play). They both did some awfully good things along the way (in space, scraping, and filling inside out) along with the poor efforts everybody sees and remembers most of all. I was ready to put 33 on the pine after last week but if you watch the entire video closely you might get a different perspective on his performance. Hicks just missed an unblocked tackle that gave them the shot in the arm momentum—the pass interfere was just tough luck because backers are all coached to re-route receivers when opportunity arises.

One final thought before the grades. I know we don’t have “proven” backers to sub in for 3 and 33 but if we could get them a few plays rest on long sustained drives I think it might make a huge difference. It’s the 8 to 15 play drives that always hammer 33 into a dazed and confused condition and 3 hasn’t played more than a couple of games a year since he arrived.

1—Davis—B-

6 tackles. 2–GOFT. pursuit tackle. lost contain twice on bounce outsides (zone). trouble with sweeps. good athlete but is much better on the LOS (DE) than as a space OLB.

88—Reed—B-

6 tackles. QBH. lost contain on QB. MT on QB. outstanding pressure on QBon 3rd and 1. terrific pursuit tackle. steady with assignments—two good efforts against screens but still looking for a difference making play that dotted his play last year.

42—Bluiett—B-

8 tackles. one tfl. one QBH. good pursuit tackle. MT on screen. needs to come under control when blitzing (from OLB) once he comes free in the backfield so he doesn’t over-run the sack. good awareness once again but like Shiro he is a much better DE than OLB and exposing those two too much in space is counterproductive.

91—Cottrell—B

one tackle. one tfl. one batted pass on screen. played well in limited duty but just has three better DE’s in the rotation ahead of him. his time is coming.

90—Mr. Brown—A-

9 tackles. 3 tfl. one sack. one QBH. drive killing sack. MT in backfield. big play tackle on 3rd down. good tfl on sweep. GOFT on QB. great pursuit tackle on pass complete. good tackle zone. good pursuit tackle. big play tackle to stop drive. FUN to watch.

99—Jackson—B+

3 tackles. great pursuit tackle. great tackle on 3rd and 1. hurt ankle and never returned.

98—Ridgeway—B+

8 tackles. one tfl. one sack. one QBH. drive killing sack. big play 1st and 10. good tfl on sweep. GOFT on QB. good pursuit tackle. big play in pursuit. Hassan stepped up when the call came and gave his best effort to date.

93—Boyette—B

3 tackles. one tfl. one FR. good tfl on sweep. good tackle pursuit. good hit/slide tackle. good hustle fumble recovery. Best game for Paul.

33—Edmond—B

13 tackles, one tfl. one terrific FF. GOFT. MT. MT QB. poor scrape
to alley. GOFT. good tackle on blitz. GOFT screen. great tackle screen. GOFT. good across the bow fumble causing tackle. poor effort on two plays (tired).
Steve played well enough to win this week.

3—Hicks—B

12 tackles. 2 tfl. one PBU. one QBH. GOFT screen. GOFT. great scrape on sweep tackle. GOFT on QB. MT on long run after halftime. pass interference on 3rd and long. poor scrape on sweep. GOFT. great scrape tackle. big hit tackle. good PBU on curl. big hit scrape tackle. Three really bad plays nullified a really solid game.

19—Jenkins—B

2 tackles. one good punt tackle. didn’t play many scrimmage plays this week. lost contain on zone bounce outside. caught inside on another zone.

7 Cobbs had one GOFT.

6—Diggs—B-

3 tackles. one GOFT. MT. beat on coverage and couldn’t make tackle. never figured in many plays.

2—Thompson—B

5 tackles. GOFT. face mask penalty on sideline. big hit tackle on screen. good pass defense in end zone.

21—Thomas—B+

10 tackles. one tfl. one sack. GOFT on QB. GOFT on screen. good edge stunt tackle. good sack on blitz. GOFT. GOFT. Extremely well played game until the last double move gave up the td.

26—Colbert—B-

4 tackles. one PBU. GOFT on swing. dropped a sure interception. MT in short yardage against a linebacker running the ball—hint, don’t hit those guys up high.

44—Haines—C+

2 tackles. GOFT on screen pass. lost contain on sweep. blocked bad by WR. MT.

31—Hall—B+

5 tackles. one tfl. one sack. big hit GOFT. good fill tackle from safety. great edge stunt blitz sack. GOFT on screen. MT on screen. MT on long run after halftime. good tackle filling off tackle. outstanding passion. definitely trying to be a difference maker.