NCAA FB Week 3: 26-23 YTD:+2.93u +

Quote Originally Posted by steponaduck:

Air Force offense is really concerning to me. Averaging a little over 200 yards per game and the rushing yards are very weak. Longest run of the season so far has been 12 yards. No explosiveness, no game changing RB/FB, quarterback is not athletic on the edge and no one has break away speed. The OL doesn't get push. just awful...not sure how they move the football against baylor. Bears looked good in week 1 and after spotting utah 23-0 battled back to get the cover on the road. Utah scored right away and then recovered a fumble on the 3 yard line setting up their 2nd scoring "drive" bam. 14-0 with 8:00 left in the first quarter. Utah Offense didnt score again the rest of the game.  Baylor has some history with Air Force as they played in the bowl game two years ago (AF Ran it up on Baylor with a MUCH different team) so at least somewhat familiar with the option keys on Defense and perhaps a little extra motivation here for BU.  Lets check in on the offensive performance once again with AF, through two games against Merrimack and San Jose State. 25 total first downs. 10/33 on third down (would expect a service academy to be over 53% as they typically live in third and short. 309 total rushing yards in 2 game averaging 3.1 YPC (averaging 3 yards per play overall) they have been fairly heavily penalized by AF standards as they are used to playing exceeding clean football but this year. Again, air force has three rushes this year for greater than 10 yards.  Against Merrimack two of the three scoring drives were short fields 38 yards -14 plays, and 14 yards-6 plays set up by fumbles. Their scoring drive against Jose was a 14 yard drive. all 14 of their possessions against San jose resulted in net yardage gained of less than 30 yards. 8 of their 11 possessions against Merrimack were of a similar nature. So in 25 offensive possessions through two games, Air Force has advanced the ball more than 30 yards on a possession three total times.  Duck, why does any of this matter? Well. lets look at who the Air Force Falcons were playing.  Merrimack, gave up 56 first half points to Uconn and 624 yards overall. UConn ran for 7 yards per carry and threw 5 touchdown passes in the first half.  San Jose State- played sac state in week 1, the hornets went up and down the field on Jose and controlled the first half, jose had no answer for them. Sac blew a few chances in the redzone in the 3rd and 4th quarter but the Jose defense was not lights out.  And AF could not move the football on these guys at all. 22 of 25 possessions have resulted in advancing the ball less than 30 yards, how are they going to move the football against Baylor? I really cannot see a path to Air Force hanging in this one without explosive running back/full backs (triple option teams call them "A" and "B" Backs) or a dude at the QB position who can make things happen. they have none of that. and a weak OL that gets no push, which is why they are 10-33 on third down.  I see Baylor swarming the AF OL, living in the backfield, and relying on their athleticism to be in position to make tackles and limit explosive plays to next to nothing.  Once available, I might margin call this one and play baylor alt. total -21 and/or -24. Not the same AF punch we have seen over the last 15 seasons, they have looked really really bad thusfar.