What needs work? What worked well?

I don't want to drag down the FAM thread. There were things I saw that if they're fixed could lead to some serious improvement.

Because I like good news, I'll start there.
The running backs ran like they were determined to get yards. They seemed to find holes and capitalize. There were a few of our usual head scratchers where a back ran into a pile of blockers. But, it wasn't wide spread. And we didn't have much in the way of backfield dancing for no gain.

Receivers helped Burmeister. He was a little slow or behind on some passes. The receivers did their part and made the grabs. There was one throw to Blackshear that had potential for serious yardage if it's not behind. Blackshear still made the effort to get the grab, then add some yards after.

Defensive pursuit was good. There were only a few times I felt like we weren't pursuing. One play in the first half actually seemed like everyone thought the play was dead. It resulted in decent yardage for Carolina.

Their punter was not good. Ours was better. We caught punts.

The biggest piece of good news is there aren't groups to complain about as a whole. Sure, people made mistakes. But, each group played reasonably well.

For the flip side:
Burmeister isn't seeing open receivers. Sometimes this came with pressure in the backfield. But we could be rolling in some serious yardage if he starts seeing those guys.

We've seen recent comments about pass interference calls being nonexistent. We played like we expected that. For the most part it worked out. But, when they did decide to call, it was not well timed. Our DBs were poorly positioned on receivers several times early. The extra contact we were allowed prevented catches. If we try to play it clean, they make the catch. If the ref does his job, we get penalized. Either way, UNC would have moved up the field.

I'm still trying to decide what I think on this last one. UNC ran some rushing plays where their entire line just rolled our defensive line to one side. I don't know if our line was flowing with that movement, or just getting rolled. If we were flowing with the movement, I'd expect line backers to be filling the void that was left on the other side. I didn't see that happening in a way I liked.

I'll probably come up with more as I'm able to digest what I saw last night. I think we can fix the minor issues and be that much better. I'm hopeful that having the MTSU game next will let the team refine their game.

Side note: they did a player feature for Dax on hokie vision. The next play he comes up big. Then they do one for Blackshear. We didn't give him the ball. Come on Cornelson. Aren't you paying attention to Hokeivision?