(1) Brock Vandergriff. It was obvious BV loves to run the ball as our first(?) play from scrimmage was a designed QB run. Hamdan used it early and often to settle him in, but then later when BV broke through the pocket and saw 5-10 yards of grass, he broke laterally to preserve passing options . . . .
I think this was all designed, and we’ll see it throughout the season. Let Brock run it two, three times, then use his legs as an extended “play action.” Just when safeties are squeezing up to pop him on a scramble, scramble a tad, then loft it over them to receivers they’ve abandoned responding to the perceived scramble.
If a mobile QB is hell on a defense, just how much worse is a QB who can still gather himself, and throw it into gaps and seams his scramble helped create?
(2) Dumas-Johnson. It didn’t take him very long to “Pop.” He and Djack showed great timing to go with talent and size, and “forced” those first half picks.
(3) THE DEFENSE. I haven’t looked it up yet, but I think our only prior shut out under Stoops was against an FCS team (or two).
Frustratingly, even in the strongest of defensive seasons, we have typically surrendered 10-24 points to outmanned G5 opponents.
Not last night. And I think the Cats could have held the shutout had it gone full regulation time.
(4) Jet Sweeps. I saw more than I’d seen in a single game, last night. Some of these “sweeps” were really short passes (Barrion’s TD) and some were handoffs. The difference is, if you hand it off, it preserves the possibility of a forward pass by the Jet-Sweeper, or by the QB if the ball gets laterelled back to him (Pat Towles to Timmons, in ‘14 at home was after a hand off to the sweeper and two laterals later, Towles threw it to a wide open Ryan Timmons).
(5) Deone Walker. I’m not sure he showed up on the stats, because he was absorbing double-teams and chipping backs all night long. The Weaver sack on the stadium replay looked ridiculously easy, with literally no hat even trying to block Weaver. W/O watching the detailed replay, I suspect two or three Southern Miss players were paying attention to Deone’s side, allowing Weaver’s clean shot.
And we used Deone well: he lined up as Nose, as tackle and even as a stand up Jack, forcing them to adjust how they doubled and tripled him. And frankly, Southern Miss did a good job of stopping him, whilst allowing the rest of our defense to eat.
(6) Macklin. A damn fine addition to a damn fine combo of Key and Brown.
(7) Tailback by Committee: So far, so good, but the members are so similar in size and style, it’s hard to tell who is in. When our Thumper returns in two/three weeks, we might find ourselves with the deepest tailback room in program history.
(8) Raynor (the Field Goal kicker). He is not the most powerful in program history, but will no doubt set the record for accuracy. Hell, narrow the uprights by half, and he’s nailing 80 percent. And his fairly lengthy kick last night (what, 40ish yards?) solidly hit the net. He was money from 50 last year. Has he strengthened enough to go 52-54???
(9) Rybka. Coach White spoke to the QB Club Friday evening and mentioned his steady improvement. He was very active, and got that very tough “submarine” sack.
(10) The New Lighting System. Pretty cool ish . . . .
Maybe it helped the crowd hold out for 2 plus hours for kickoff.
(11) The Kentucky Crowd. We did ourselves proud. An hour into the delay, a neighbor said “this will show who the real fans are.” I seriously believe we were at 95 percent (plus) of the original crowd when we kicked off. And the students who slowly file into the upper deck typically throughout the first Q were slowly filling the upper deck up for like an hour into the delay . . . they damn-near filled it up!!
(12) The Student Body: we now have an SEC student body. Those kids were having a blast with the music the second hour of the delay.
