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By Stuart
[h=3]Colorado Daily – Oregon[/h]September 30th
Buffs back to work after Oregon State loss
From CUBuffs.com … Much of Mike MacIntyre’s resume features time spent coaching defensive backs, and in his short time as Colorado’s head coach he’s been a frequent drop-in for secondary position meetings and for DB drills on the field.
MacIntyre knows quality secondary play and recognizes fundamentally sound DB work. And with a few exceptions, what he saw from CU’s secondary in Saturday’s 44-17 slap-around by Oregon State did not qualify as a quality or fundamentally sound day at the office.
The secondary wasn’t the primary culprit in CU’s first Pac-12 Conference loss under MacIntyre, but it’s as good a place as any to begin the repair job, as well as MacIntyre’s assessment of what went amok.
Granted, the Buffaloes in the back end weren’t facing a random slinger in Sean Mannion or a slacker in receiver Brandin Cooks. Mannion set school records with his fifth consecutive 350-plus yard passing game (he finished with 414) and by throwing six touchdown passes. Two of them went to Cooks, who had nine receptions for 168 yards.
MacIntyre knew Mannion and Cooks were capable of those kinds of numbers, but he also believed his secondary had improved enough to make delivering stats like that a bit more difficult. Mannion was intercepted once – corner Greg Henderson got his second pick of the first three games – but MacIntyre trotted off the field at halftime convinced that the Buffs should have had two more picks.
One should have been by safety Jered Bell on the Beavers’ first series. Bell let a Mannion pass zip through his hands on third down, and on the next play Trevor Romaine gave OSU a 3-0 lead with a 36-yard field goal.
Henderson got his interception on the next OSU series, leading to a Will Oliver field goal that tied the score (3-3). CU’s next should-have-been-a-pick occurred two possessions later when a high-arcing Mannion pass was pulled down by Cooks between Buffs corner Kenneth Crawley and safety Parker Orms for a 52-yard gain.
Cooks, said Henderson, “goes for the ball. That’s everything – going for the ball . . . we have to catch the ball. If we catch the ball that stops drives and takes points off the board.”
Four plays later, Mannion hit tight end Caleb Smith with the first of his six TD passes. The Buffs fell behind 10-3 and spent the rest of the afternoon in Reser Stadium trying to recover but never did.
And MacIntyre said, “We’ve got to work on making that play. We’ve got to do a better job as coaches and make them ‘high-point’ the ball.”
There are plenty of additional areas that require his coaches’ attention before No. 2 Oregon comes calling on Saturday (4 p.m., Folsom Field, Pac-12 Network). While Mannion was re-writing OSU’s record book, CU’s quarterback play was regressing in comparison with the first two games, when Connor Wood had averaged 370.5 passing yards.
On Saturday, Wood passed for 146, completing 14 of 34 with two interceptions and two touchdowns. MacIntyre deferred any critique of Wood’s performance until he and his staff breakdown tape. “We’ll look at the film and find out” why Wood was largely ineffective, he said.
Wood and receiver Paul Richardson connected only once for two yards in the first half, and Richardson’s afternoon concluded with five catches (one TD) for 70 yards – far below his nation-leading 208.5 yard average. “We got it to him in the second half,” MacIntyre said. “We’ve just got to keep working on it.”
Mannion was sacked twice, and the guy who got one of them and caused a fumble said the Buffs’ pass rush must improve: “He was able to sit back there and throw the ball downfield and look for his guys all day,” end Chidera Uzo-Diribe said. “We didn’t get enough pressure.”
Another area to work on: special teams’ ball protection. On consecutive kickoffs, returner Marques Mosley lost a fumble and Brady Daigh, a middle linebacker, failed to control a squib kick that OSU recovered.
MacIntyre said both turnovers “weren’t coaching mistakes; those were kids not doing what they’re supposed to do . . . they’re things we’re working on all the time. We’ll just have to keep working at it. With turnovers you just never give yourself a chance, especially on back-to-back kickoff returns. That’s a huge momentum thing.”
For all of their miscues after finally getting back on the field for the first time since Sept. 7, MacIntyre did say the Buffs never rolled over: “We were down 17-3 at the half and hadn’t moved the ball at all. I thought if we came out in the second half and stopped them and scored . . . but they made a good drive, we fumbled (the kickoff) and basically it was out of hand. But the one thing I will say, our kids kept battling, fighting and pushing.”
“It’s not a setback,” added Henderson. “We still have to learn from each and every game, each and every play that we’re in there. You have to keep moving forward. We’ve got Oregon coming up.”
And the Buffs have an idea, a very bad one, of what that means. Since entering the Pac-12 three seasons ago, they’ve lost two games to the Ducks by a combined score of 115-16.
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Originally posted by CU At the Game
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[h=3]Colorado Daily – Oregon[/h]September 30th
Buffs back to work after Oregon State loss
From CUBuffs.com … Much of Mike MacIntyre’s resume features time spent coaching defensive backs, and in his short time as Colorado’s head coach he’s been a frequent drop-in for secondary position meetings and for DB drills on the field.
MacIntyre knows quality secondary play and recognizes fundamentally sound DB work. And with a few exceptions, what he saw from CU’s secondary in Saturday’s 44-17 slap-around by Oregon State did not qualify as a quality or fundamentally sound day at the office.
The secondary wasn’t the primary culprit in CU’s first Pac-12 Conference loss under MacIntyre, but it’s as good a place as any to begin the repair job, as well as MacIntyre’s assessment of what went amok.
Granted, the Buffaloes in the back end weren’t facing a random slinger in Sean Mannion or a slacker in receiver Brandin Cooks. Mannion set school records with his fifth consecutive 350-plus yard passing game (he finished with 414) and by throwing six touchdown passes. Two of them went to Cooks, who had nine receptions for 168 yards.
MacIntyre knew Mannion and Cooks were capable of those kinds of numbers, but he also believed his secondary had improved enough to make delivering stats like that a bit more difficult. Mannion was intercepted once – corner Greg Henderson got his second pick of the first three games – but MacIntyre trotted off the field at halftime convinced that the Buffs should have had two more picks.
One should have been by safety Jered Bell on the Beavers’ first series. Bell let a Mannion pass zip through his hands on third down, and on the next play Trevor Romaine gave OSU a 3-0 lead with a 36-yard field goal.
Henderson got his interception on the next OSU series, leading to a Will Oliver field goal that tied the score (3-3). CU’s next should-have-been-a-pick occurred two possessions later when a high-arcing Mannion pass was pulled down by Cooks between Buffs corner Kenneth Crawley and safety Parker Orms for a 52-yard gain.
Cooks, said Henderson, “goes for the ball. That’s everything – going for the ball . . . we have to catch the ball. If we catch the ball that stops drives and takes points off the board.”
Four plays later, Mannion hit tight end Caleb Smith with the first of his six TD passes. The Buffs fell behind 10-3 and spent the rest of the afternoon in Reser Stadium trying to recover but never did.
And MacIntyre said, “We’ve got to work on making that play. We’ve got to do a better job as coaches and make them ‘high-point’ the ball.”
There are plenty of additional areas that require his coaches’ attention before No. 2 Oregon comes calling on Saturday (4 p.m., Folsom Field, Pac-12 Network). While Mannion was re-writing OSU’s record book, CU’s quarterback play was regressing in comparison with the first two games, when Connor Wood had averaged 370.5 passing yards.
On Saturday, Wood passed for 146, completing 14 of 34 with two interceptions and two touchdowns. MacIntyre deferred any critique of Wood’s performance until he and his staff breakdown tape. “We’ll look at the film and find out” why Wood was largely ineffective, he said.
Wood and receiver Paul Richardson connected only once for two yards in the first half, and Richardson’s afternoon concluded with five catches (one TD) for 70 yards – far below his nation-leading 208.5 yard average. “We got it to him in the second half,” MacIntyre said. “We’ve just got to keep working on it.”
Mannion was sacked twice, and the guy who got one of them and caused a fumble said the Buffs’ pass rush must improve: “He was able to sit back there and throw the ball downfield and look for his guys all day,” end Chidera Uzo-Diribe said. “We didn’t get enough pressure.”
Another area to work on: special teams’ ball protection. On consecutive kickoffs, returner Marques Mosley lost a fumble and Brady Daigh, a middle linebacker, failed to control a squib kick that OSU recovered.
MacIntyre said both turnovers “weren’t coaching mistakes; those were kids not doing what they’re supposed to do . . . they’re things we’re working on all the time. We’ll just have to keep working at it. With turnovers you just never give yourself a chance, especially on back-to-back kickoff returns. That’s a huge momentum thing.”
For all of their miscues after finally getting back on the field for the first time since Sept. 7, MacIntyre did say the Buffs never rolled over: “We were down 17-3 at the half and hadn’t moved the ball at all. I thought if we came out in the second half and stopped them and scored . . . but they made a good drive, we fumbled (the kickoff) and basically it was out of hand. But the one thing I will say, our kids kept battling, fighting and pushing.”
“It’s not a setback,” added Henderson. “We still have to learn from each and every game, each and every play that we’re in there. You have to keep moving forward. We’ve got Oregon coming up.”
And the Buffs have an idea, a very bad one, of what that means. Since entering the Pac-12 three seasons ago, they’ve lost two games to the Ducks by a combined score of 115-16.
–
Originally posted by CU At the Game
Click here to vie