The third quarter was a bit of a rock fight with both teams trading possessions without much success. However, things changed with one major mistake on offense.
Louisville essentially punted on the tight
end position in the portal this offseason, and they are now left with Jaleel Skinner trying to block guys that he can’t handle due to his lack of size. The offensive line does a good enough job here to open a hole for Isaac Brown, but you can see Skinner come down the line to the left and just bounce off the defender, who easily makes the tackle.
As the season goes on, it is starting to feel like the roster issues are taking away from what could be a very successful season for Jeff Brohm. It’s too early to know that for sure, but there are spots on the offense where they just don’t have options to improve on the deficiencies we’ve seen so far.
This is max protection on a play-action shot play that has no chance of working in any way at all. The most frustrating part of it is that you can’t blame one player or one position group or even the play call. It’s an all-systems-failure play by the offense. Miller Moss actually does well here to navigate the pocket to try to make a play.
Louisville can’t take shots down the field because they can’t run the ball, and you can see that Virginia has no respect for the running game on this play. The safeties are playing deep with one safety stepping up to take away the crossing route from the slot receiver. The linebackers “green dog” after the running back and tight end stay in to block with James Jackson getting downhill quickly to make Moss move his feet. But there is no concern here that they need more bodies in the box to stop the run.
Another obvious issue on this play is that the outside receivers can’t separate against man coverage. One of the three receivers on this play should have single coverage. I’d imagine it is the receiver at the top of the screen. There’s nowhere for Moss to go with the ball, and he takes the sack.
Rasheed Miller flat-out doesn’t block the man in front of him. Then he starts to walk off the field instead of helping his quarterback up off the ground. Both of these things seem to be a trend with the offense this season.
This is completely ridiculous from Miller Moss. I tried hard to figure out what he could have been thinking at that moment, but I couldn’t come up with anything. There is no player on this play who would be a viable option for this ball at any point in the play. I wouldn’t even expect this from Deuce Adams if he were to get into the game, and yet the veteran senior puts the ball in danger in a tie game against a ranked opponent.
I’m not sure if the read on this play is the in-breaking route from Chris Bell at the bottom of the screen, but this might as well be a one-man route with what the other receivers are running. You’d like to see more options for Moss to get a first down here, but I’m not sure they’ll see much success on third and long if the defense brings pressure.
The way the defense is flying to the football is so refreshing. This is a pretty well run screen pass by UVA with their linemen getting into to the open space to provide a running lane for the back to turn up the field on the catch. The slot receiver blocks down but can’t find work from the defenders in pursuit.
However, Tayone Holloway reads the play extremely well and gets downhill to make a big hit on the back as soon as he catches the ball. Holloway doesn’t follow the slot receiver, and he doesn’t fall into the trap of playing this soft and trying to “catch” the runner. He fires and gets the back to the ground before he gets going. Really good play here.
