Extremely insightful

[ARMORMAN]

I caught this on Facebook. It's on Crawdad's Countdown to Kickoff, written by Johnny Brooks:

Flashbacks to an Earlier Game in the Season Where Army Played Two Different Halves

If ever there was "deja vu, all over again," it was in the Army loss to Syracuse. The Army came out rearing to show Syracuse the game of football. 2 good drives in H1 allowed Army to lead 10-3 at the break. It went downhill from there. H2 looked a lot like the ULM game, in performance and in outcome.
It is rather cliche to make the statement that the game was lost at halftime by coaching adjustments, or lack of adjustments. This game was. Syracuse made the right adjustments at halftime and came out in H2 to play. Syracuse was a different offense and defense in H2. In H2 The Army struggled offensively and the defense couldn't defend the pass. We were outscored in H2 26-6. Tough to win that way.
On the day Army struggled offensively and had only 270 yds of total offense. Syracuse amassed 403 yds. Army rushed for only 125 yds on the ground. Demonstrating just how bad things changed at halftime, in Q3 Army only gained 15 yds on the ground. In Q4, trying to catch up Army went to more of a pass game and totaled minus 5 (-5) yards on the ground. The QB was sacked 4 times (3 in H2) contributing to the negative yardage total. He was also intercepted on 2 occasions in Q4. Best illustrative of our offensive problems is total rushing yardage. Of the 125 yards total rushing in the game 115 was gained in H1, and that is a paltry number for an Army offense. 10 yards of positive rushing in H2 is not Army football. Army passed for only 18 yards in H1. We didn't need more.
The Army passing attack was no better. On the day Army totaled 145 passing, 80 of that on 1 play, a TD pass from Daily to WR Short. Army gained 80 of its passing yds on 10 sec of a 60-minute game. In the other 33:10 of TOP, we managed 65 yards of passing or 190 yds of total offense. This Army effort was just a bad display of offensive football, all except 2 H1 drives. The offense did manage to take the opening KO and conduct a 17 play, 75 yd, 9:25 drive, resulting in a TD. In another drive in Q2, we drove 64 yds in 19 plays for 9:20 before Syracuse forced a FG. In those 2 drives the Army offense had 36 offensive plays and 18:45 of the 33:10 TOP. The remaining 9 Army possessions terminated in 2:20 or less with a punt or an interception. This was not a sterling offensive display. Things were so bad with offensive continuity that we were only in the RedZone on 2 occasions, resulting in 10 points.
Offensively at halftime Syracuse appeared to decide to find their 6'5 or 6'6" WRs and throw the ball somewhere in their vicinity. Our DBs offered too much cushion and not enough defense. On the day, as a result Syracuse QB Shrader completed 21 of 26 passes for 245 yds. We did a reasonably good job of containing Shrader and keeping him in the pocket. The Army defense needed more than 2 sacks.
There were many anomalies that must be fixed. First, Army had 33 negative yards. Ball control offenses will be challenged to win with that amount of negative yards. A large amount of that negative yards occurred on the 4 occasions QB Daily was sacked. As a result Army averaged only 2.7 yd/run. There was only 1 Army run of over 10 yards. 2 interceptions did not help. On the year we are averaging being intercepted every 16 throws.
Earlier in the season there was a query as to what was Army going to do with all the big former FBs. We now know. RB Buchanan will continue as short yardage runner. Former FB Riley is now #2 at TE on the depth chart. Some may recall he played some TE his Plebe year. Earlier Yg AJ Williams was moved from RB to TE. At least 1 former FB, Yg Roddy, is no longer on the roster. Army as Fullback university is past history.
Some may not agree. The injury to the lower leg of Army WR Marshall looked deliberate. I hope someone at Syracuse or the NCAA looks closely at the video and determines if punishment is needed. The player who administered the injury was a Syracuse captain. Wouldn't it be nice if the Syracuse coaching staff offered an investigation. As of 5 PM today DL Andre Miller, who was immobilized and taken to the hospital has been released and is now back at West Point. Reports on social media are that he has feeling in his extremities. More to follow, I am sure. S Larkin, subbing for injured starter DiDomenico came out of the game for an injury. DL Hill also came out at one time and was aided. Hopefully, both are not long-term injuries.
Last week it was reported that The Army team had twin brothers listed on the depth chart for the first time in memory. The 2, the Fortner brothers, Liam and Kyle, took it a step further this week as they both started. They are both Yearlings. Liam started at WR and Kalib at ILB. Kudos to the Fortner family of "East by Golly" Tennessee for providing such fine young men. I would be remiss in not adding a "Go Vols."
My apologies go to the Syracuse QB, Garrett Shrader (not Schrader), for misspelling his last name last week.
OFFENSE: Not much to be said here that hasn't already been said. This was not Army's best day. The offense means so much to this team being a success when it doesn't work, things are not good.
It is hard to state the offense was led by anyone. It can be said that the 6 receptions by Yg WR Short were a positive, as was his 1 TD catch of 80 yards. It was good to see a pass to the TE and to a FB. The leading Army runner was QB Daily with 47 net yards rushing, but coupled with a negative 26, for only a 2.4 yd/carry averaged, caused largely by being sacked 4 times. He also was intercepted on 2 occasions. This offense needs consistency at QB.
For the life of me I do not understand. How does RB Reed gain 108 yards against UTSA and only gets 2 carries for 6 yards the next week?
Pass-wise Army is going to have to do much better than 9 for 21, with 2 interceptions and 4 sacks to compete.
DEFENSE: It is most unusual for anyone other than a LB to be a team leader in tackles. DL Hill led Army with 7 tackles. As they say, the kid is a "baller." His play continues to be excellent. He was assisted by Yg S Larkin and fellow DL Frey, each with 5. LBs Ciarlo and Fortner each had a sack.
CB C. Jones had an interception that might have been returned for a TD, had an Army player been blocking rather than celebrating. In Q1 CB C. Jones also had another interception that may have been a TD, had he caught the ball.
SPECIAL TEAMS: For the 2nd week in a row KO specialist Talley was perfect on KOs not being allowed to be returned by kicking deep for a touchback. Almost all of his KOs are completely through the endzone. On this day he was 3 for 3. Punter Allan averaged 40 yd/punt. 5 punts is too much for an Army team.
FG artist Maretzki was 1 for 1 from 38 yds. On the year he is now 6 of 7, with a long of 45 yards. He is also 10 good on 10 Xpat attempts for the year.
STATISTICS OF CONSEQUENCE: (Out of 133 NCAA Div 1A/FBS teams)
3rd down conversion #89
1st down offense #94
RedZone offense #81
Pass completion #126
Yards per pass completion #2
Fumbles lost #108
Turnovers lost #103
Fewest Penalties #1
TOP #3
KEYS TO IMPROVEMENT:
Find consistency on offense.
Limit miscues (fumbles, interceptions, negative yards, penalties).
Improve 1st down proficiency.
Improve 3rd down proficiency.
Play 2 halves of football and make proper adjustments at halftime.
Create turnovers.
Try some innovation in pass rush. View the last 5 minutes of the UCLA-Utah game to see how it is done. Utah believes in "who dares wins" and they won. Risk isn't all bad.

[PrideandDream]

Agree lots of good insight here.

Bottom line is we didn't run the ball effectively after half. Lots of negative plays kill any offense not just this one but certainly worse for us.

If I'm a D Coordinator I just punish Bryson Daily and don't let him get yards. then shut down reed and this whole thing is ineffective. Even against UTSA where we all felt better we had to go for it on 4th down 6 times. This thing has to get better and fast otherwise it's gonna be game over I'm afraid. We'll see....

PD

[WrekDivr]

Agree that the analysis is insightful. Nice, but not fun, read.

The key point made is that Army wins happen when we can run the ball and grind out long drives. That has been the case this year and is certainly the difference in the first half cs. The second half.

[Armyfaninpa]

Interesting point on the INT return just before halftime. Jones looked to have the blockers in front of him, but #17 caught him from behind. Probably didn't affect the outcome, but would have been a huge momentum boost going into the locker room.