Colonial Athletic Association Picks for Week #5

[ODUfanRazor]

Yep......

[BDKJMU]

UR (3-1/0-1) @ JMU 24-20.

JMU 31, UR 7

UD (3-1/1-0) @ Maine (2-1/0-0) by a TD or less. (3:00 PM)

Maine 31, UD 17

Villanova (1-3/0-1) @ W&M (2-2/0-1) by 3-4 TDs

W&M 20, Nova 16

UMass (2-1/0-0) @ ODU (3-1/0-1) by a TD or less.

ODU 48, UMass 33

Holy Cross (2-1) @ UNH (2-1/1-0) by 1-2 TDs....UNH finally holds a team under 40 points.

UNH 39, HC 32 Nailed it!

Brown (1-1) @ URI (1-2/0-1) by 2-3 TDs

Brown 35, URI 21

Towson (3-10/1-0) @ Maryland (1-2) by 2-3 TDs

Twerps 28, TU 3

My worst week, 5-2. GD you URI, everyone picked you to beat Brown....

Week 1 9-1 (missed UR over Duke)
Week 2 8-1 (missed Towson over Nova)
Week 3 7-1 (missed Monmouth over Nova)
Week 4: 6-1 (missed UNH over UR)
Week 5: 5-2 (missed ODU over UMass & Brown over URI)
Total: 35-6

[BDKJMU]

Suspect run defense?? Damn. What's a team have to do to avoid the "suspect" label?
I'll be the first to admit that what we did at Delaware was do to a focus to stop the run and the fact that we played "better than average along the D-line. But "suspect" is in appropriate.

-Because ODU I think is suspect on run defense they totally oversold stopping it vs UD. I watched the game and saw a lot of 8 man in the box, even 9 sometimes.
-Plus Pierce went down early 3rd qtr. I know he only had something like a doz carries for 20 some yards in the 1st half, but Pierce would have had the opportunity to get big chunks late 3rd-4th quarter against a ODU DL that looks good but not deep and likely would have tired. But Hayes isn't the inside runner that Pierce is, and UD never go the chance to really wear down that ODU defense.

Result? Held UD to 80 yards rushing, but gave up over 300 through the air to UD's #2 QB. ODU could slow down Hernandez (hold him well under 100) if they really oversell defending the run like they did against UD, but then then that will leave them vulnerable through the air (UMass starting QB looked much improved passing vs URI as he did while rotating vs Holy Cross). If ODU doesn't oversell stopping the run the run, Hernandez has a big day, especially late in the game150+.

I can't wait to see the backtracking in this thread after ODU pulls off the victory over UMass at home. Should be good for some laughs.

Someone actually said "I'm not sold on ODU's ability to stop the run" after we completely shut down the supposed best runner in FCS on the road last week.

Go figure. We also don't need to sell out against the run, our front 4 is more than capable of filling gaps by themselves.

Can't wait to here some of the explanations though for how we stopped two of the best runners in the country 2 weeks in a row. Should be good.

1st of all, congrats to ODU.

Pierce isn't even the best runner in the CAA IMHOP- probably Hernandez.

ODU held UD to 80 on the ground but gave up 304 through the air in a 27-17 loss
ODU held UMass to 79 on the ground but gave up 344 through the air in a 48-33 win. Hernandez did rush for 121. After sack yardage team net was 79.

UMass got 423 of total offense. If someone had told me that before the game I would have guessed UMass would win a close one (which is what I predicted). I saw UMass vs HC (rotated QBs) and URI (was all Pagel) They didn't have much of a passing game vs HC, but were much improved passing vs URI. I haven't had a chance to watch the game yet (don't know if I will this week) but my guess is ODU overplayed the run in a similar way as they appeared to vs UD, which worked ok, but also left them giving up a ton through the air to what might be a decent, but not great by any means, UMass passing game.

Now if I'm wrong, and ODU's run defense isn't suspect, then their pass defense is. Something is suspect- its got to be one or the other.

518 yds of offense- Looks like ODU offense won that game.

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[Steamin' Cleveland]

Our pass defense is to hurry the Qb and either sack him or force him into a bad decision. Our zone coverage is swiss cheese and we hardly play man. Our weakness has always been our db's.

[BDKJMU]

Looks like UMass has severe problems defending the pass, giving up through the air:
vs HC: 246, 1 TD, got 0 INT
vs URI: 279, 4 TDs, got 2 INT
vs BC: 196, 3 TDs, got 0 INT
vs ODU 338, 5 TDs, 2 INT

In 4 games thats 1059 yds, 13 TDs, gotten on 4 INTs....

[BDKJMU]

Looks like UMass has severe problems defending the pass, giving up through the air:
vs HC: 246, 1 TD, got 0 INT
vs URI: 279, 4 TDs, got 2 INT
vs BC: 196, 3 TDs, got 0 INT
vs ODU 338, 5 TDs, 2 INT

In 4 games thats 1059 yds, 13 TDs, gotten on 4 INTs....

But its not as bad as UNH. Through 4 games have given up through the air:
304, 401,351 ,352:

Thats 1408 (352 per game), 15 TDs, gotten only 6 INTs.