Week 2 Aftermath: My Grades

Wrote up some grades for the team and I figured you'd like to read them. I'm classically harsh on the team and hate the bend-don't-break defense but I try to be pretty fair.

TTU Red Raiders def Nevada 35-19

Grades:

Offense

QB - F - This was Graham Harrell's worst game since 2006 (discounting ints... ever). 19-46 for 297 yards (if you're counting, that's 41%). 1 TD to 2 INTS. Harrell has thrown 3 TD's this year while the team has rushed for 8. He's got 3 INTs on the year. This was a heisman candidate? His deep throws looked more like punts than passes and any out-route he overthrew while any post/fade/deep route he underthrew. I have never seen a TTU qb throw to a spot with NO receiver more than tonight. In fact, I've never seen any qb play so crappy and I wish he were benched for a series or two in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.

RB - A+ - 20 carries for 122 yards including  2 for 19 from the Elf eric morris. 3 TD's. Batch is one hell of a blocker and I think we should run a fuckton out of the 2 back set with one of the backs performing the duties of a fullback. Shannon Woods also delivered a great block that sprung morris for his TD.

WR - Crabs A Stephen Hamby (center) B+, Everyone Else F - Crabs was the star he is supposed to be. Blocking downfield he does well, but today he was wide open deep all day. Harrell hit him twice for a 50 yard gain and an 82 yard gain. He caught 7 for 158 yards and a TD. None of the other WR's did much. Detron Lewis had 3 catches as did RS Freshman (and backup to crabtree) Tramain Swindal. Morris, the usual weapon against a team that drops 7 into coverage caught 2 for 8 yards. Stephen Hamby, our center, had a catch for 3 yards on a tipped ball.

OL - D - Awful pressure on the qb all night with simply a 4 man front. They did well in run blocking, but not spectacularly. we were 1/3 on short 4th down tries, trying to go right up the middle.

Defense

DL - B+ - This game was good. They had good pressure on the qb and didn't allow too much inside. They looked winded in the 3rd but came up with some great plays in the 4th.

LB - C+ - They gave up a lot of yards in the short passing game. All game long, the swing pass was open for 5-15 yards. That said, the only TD allowed was a long pass and they stopped Nevada enough.

DB - F - I'm probably being pretty harsh, but these guys are the reason why the game was nerve racking. 264 yards passing to a run-first qb. A nightmare.

Other stuff

Coaching - D - 3rd down and 5 and we run off tackle or a trap play. Harrell sucking, but he remains in the game and doesn't stop sucking. The team just didn't seem in it. Also 12 yard cushion out of nowhere.

Special Teams - B - Bad punt, blocked field goal (that's 2 blocked kicks) but we had a punt return for a TD so that's ok.

Video Feed - C+ - We got all the background noise from the radio feed (the stats guy and the prompter and random sound clips over the commercials). It cost my $9 and it was fuzzy and had all the video board signs (like women mothers of reno or something like that). But it was video so yay!

Overall

This was a sloppy, sloppy win. I've never seen out offense look worse, so they get a D boyed by the running game. Our defense won this game for us, but I'm still not happy about giving up nearly 500 yards of offense. They get a B because they drove the team to victory. The overall score would be a D because it wasn't the dominating effort that I expect from a BCS caliber team.