Defense

Mond had a bad game, but he wasn’t the biggest problem on offense. We couldn’t run, could pass protect, and couldn’t catch.

Hocker was the goat today...and not the GOAT.

... played well. Not well enough to win, but better than expected

I hope, that if Calzada shows promise beyond what mond has shown us, that Jimbo makes a change. If not Jimbo has to ride the horse he’s got I guess.

Mond was absolutely the biggest problem on offense. He had time to carve Clemson up and couldn't do it b/c he was inaccurate, slow on his reads, or both. There were open WRs all over and he was either missing them on the passes or not seeing them at all. These are issues he has always had. Even against Texas State save for some really impressive placement passes he wasn't all that great. Our WRs were beating the Texas State WRs bad enough that he should have had a 20/23 type night.

I still say the line troubles are far more related to how damn long he takes to get everyone set up. Taking until 5 seconds or less to snap the ball is a massive present for defenses b/c it gives them time to figure out their matchups. As for pass protection you aren't going to consistently get a pocket for more than 3 or so seconds against teams like Clemson, Alabama, LSU, and Auburn. Sometimes sacks will happen. They have good players too. But when your QB doesn't take advantage of opportunities that are there it's going to make the line look worse than it is.

The run game actually wasn't bad and more than anything was hurt by Mond's inability to complete passes. If he isn't hitting the D can creep up closing out space where RBs might be able to gain some yards. The most glaring example of this was his freshman year vs UCLA and while he has improved since then he still gets into ruts where he can't pass to save his life and the defense only has to worry about run plays.

More frustrating than anything is Mond still does not take off running on pass plays when the defense has given him the room to take huge chunks of yards. Just doing that will open space for everyone else but for whatever reason he has never seemed to want to be the true duel threat that he has the ability to be.

I expected him to play much better yesterday. He wasn’t helped by way too many balls that just had to be caught in that environment if we were really going to compete. But it still looks like he’s behind the chains, for whatever the reason. He doesn’t look like he’s playing naturally — he looks like an athlete who’s got too much information in his head and is trying to be too perfect, which makes him indecisive and late. Completely agreed re using his legs — I just can’t understand this. For god’s sake, Joe Burrow hurts defenses with his legs on a regular basis. Kellen has shown that he can flat turn it loose, but it’s a rarity when he shows it.