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Game #14: 12/7/19 - 3:00PM @ #5 Montana State [FCS Playoffs Round 2]


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On 12/1/2019 at 1:18 PM, DanesRGood said:

										
	Passing Offense									
RANK	TEAM	G	PASS ATT	PASS COM	INT	PASS YDS	YDS/ATT	YDS/COMP	PASS TD	YPG
33	Albany (NY)	13	435	247	9	3316	7.62	13.43	39	255.1
105	Montana St.	12	304	172	4	1990	6.55	11.57	14	165.8
										
	Passing Yards Allowed									
RANK	TEAM	G	OPP CPL	OPP PASS	OPP PASS <BR/>YDS	OPP PASS <BR/>TDS	YDS/ATT	YDS/COMP	YPG	
46	Albany (NY)	13	228	382	2712	21	7.1	11.89	208.6	
85	Montana St.	12	281	438	2864	15	6.54	10.19	238.7	
										
	Rushing Defense									
RANK	TEAM	G	OPP RUSH	OPP RUSH YDS	YDS/RUSH	OPP RUSH TDS	YPG			
17	Montana St.	12	414	1440	3.48	17	120			
47	Albany (NY)	13	502	1926	3.84	15	148.2			
										
	Rushing Offense									
RANK	TEAM	G	RUSH	RUSH YDS	YDS/RUSH	RUSH TD	YPG			
6	Montana St.	12	549	3241	5.9	39	270.1			
82	Albany (NY)	13	426	1780	4.18	12	136.9			
										
	Sacks Allowed									
RANK	TEAM	G	OPP SACKS	OPP SACK YDS	AVG					
10	Montana St.	12	13	85	1.08					
76	Albany (NY)	13	31	196	2.38					
										
	Total Defense									
RANK	TEAM	G	PLAYS	YDS	YDS/PLAY	OFF TDS	OPP TDS	YPG		
38	Albany (NY)	13	884	4638	5.25	36	39	356.8		
40	Montana St.	12	852	4304	5.05	32	35	358.7		
										
	Team Offense									
RANK	TEAM	G	PLAYS	YDS	YDS/PLAY	OFF TDS	YPG			
19	Montana St.	12	853	5231	6.13	53	435.9			
53	Albany (NY)	13	861	5096	5.92	51	392			
										

 

It does look pretty even but out of all the stats I posted, these are the ones that stand out to me.  Again, this is all from stats and some highlights I've watched and I'm not a scout or analyst so I may be way off.

It seems their offensive and defensive lines are both excellent. They've only allowed 13 sacks and have 6th best rushing offense in FCS but are 105th in passing offense.  Looks like we might have to stack the box and hope our DBs can hold their coverage well.   On the other side of the ball their run defense is really good (17th in FCS) and they can get to the QB (19th in sacks in FCS) but their pass defense is mediocre (85th in FCS in passing yards allowed). 

So I think if we can be really aggressive in run defense and slow that down a bit while on offense getting some rushing yards and being very aggressive in the passing game we will have a shot. As I said earlier I think we have to win the turnover battle.  Cause some fumbles, grab an INT, make some special teams plays.

Again, take this for what it is.  Stats can obviously be misleading and gameplan/gameday adjustments will make a difference but most of the time the stats say who you are. 

 

 

Edited by DanesRGood
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38 minutes ago, HOF2013 said:

AND the consensus is that if we played Monmouth 10 times we'd beat them 8 - 9.   We had times, mostly early in the year, when the guys lost focus.  It is tough to learn to win after losing for even a couple of years!  Nothing new for us to get no respect, been that way all year.  Not even ranked when teams like Towsan, Central Conn, NH, Maine were ranked most of the year.

I do agree the CAA is down this year, maybe.  There is far more parity than there has been the last several years.   Is the Big Sky all of a sudden far better this year than the last couple?  Maybe.  I do not know much about those teams.  As I said that's why we play the games.   

As others have said, we were picked to finish last in the CAA and finished second.  AND JMU IS that good,  They have demolished ranked teams all year.

Wonder why MRuler 79 left our Game with Central Michigan off the list when he was telling us how weak our schedule was.  We lost 21-38 - and as we know the game was closer than the score.  Maybe Montana State is as good a team as Central Michigan is.  I guess we'll see. 

I was not detailing the weakness of our schedule when mentioning Delaware, NH SBU and CCSU, I was indicating that every team we played had zero respect for us on various sites.  

Edited by MRuler 79
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Report from a Griz fan on AGS

 

Montana State is an anomaly. They are a rushing team by choice but also out of necessity. They have 3 or 4 marginal QBs. They will throw the ball about 1/3rd of the time. They CAN occasionally throw a nice deep pass. However none of their QBs can seem to do it consistently. They'll get some passing yards on Albany but probably not too many.

The Bobcat rushing attack is effective and unconventional in nature. Because of injuries and by design they utilize about 10 different running backs. They've had six or seven put in 100 yard games this year. These are some good backs (especially Ifanse). 

However, their effectiveness seems to rely on the Bobcat offensive line. When they are "on" they are bulldozers making holes I can run through. When they're not (see Sacramento State, North Dakota, and Texas Tech) their line looks unbelievably porous and bad. I have no idea which one will show up Saturday but stop their run and Albany wins. Tell your coach that is the key.
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2 hours ago, MRuler 79 said:

1. The CAA is way down this year. Despite claims to the contrary, they are a 1 team conference. Moreover, we don't know how good that team (JMU) is because they only have had two competitive FCS games this year (@Stony Brook - a team that started strong and faded quickly, and vs. Villanova).
2. The best FCS teams Albany faced this year were fellow playoff team from the Big South - 10-2 Monmouth (loss), plus 7-5 Towson (win), 6-6 Maine (loss), and 6-5 New Hamphire (win). Their other loss was against 5-7 Richmond. The rest of their wins were against sub-.500 squads in the CAA, Patriot, and NEC.
3. The Big Sky was strong at the top this year. Five teams playing a Big Sky schedule made the playoffs. Four were seeded 3-6. Another Big Sky team (Davis) played 7 playoff teams (NDSU, UND, San Diego, and the Big Sky 4) and an FCS team this year. Not surprisingly, they finished 5-7. EWU started slow, but finished 7-5 as well. The rest of the Big Sky was their own form of mediocre, winning games against each other they shouldn't win and losing games against each other they shouldn't lose. They were the CAA, only they faced 7 teams they really couldn't beat unless they pulled an upset (Weber, Sac State, MSU, UM, North Dakota, EWU, and Cal Davis).

This season was a perfect storm for Albany. They had to have faced the easiest schedule possible in the CAA, their non-conference opponents were from much less powerful conferences and they won 2 of 3, and they beat enough mediocre teams to get to 8-3 in the FCS. Winning 8 games in the FCS isn't easy, so I'm not diminishing that, but I do believe that had Cal Davis played their FCS schedule, Davis might have been 10-1 or 11-0 in the FCS. Anyhow, Albany looked overmatched in the first half against a CCSU team that was way undersized. I mean, on a field goal attempt, an Albany D-Lineman was able to push a guard straight back so far that the kicker kicked the ball into the middle of his back. At half, the adjustment to be made was informing the team that the CBs on CCSU had neither the size nor the speed to cover the Albany WR at all.

So, when I say Albany is lucky to be in the playoffs, I point to their schedule and remind you the toughest team they faced this year was either Monmouth or 6-6 Maine. They got to their 8 wins, but it seems like the path there was pretty easy. When I compare them to the lower half of the Big Sky, it is because I feel that the Big Sky is much, much better than the CAA this year. Go take a look at all of Albany's games and results and look at the same for UC Davis. Luck plays a huge role here.

I'm not generally optimistic. I was really nervous for a few games this year: SEMO, Cal Poly (bad matchup), Sac State (I knew they were good), Davis (good team, bad schedule), and UM. I wasn't worried enough at UND. I am confident for next Saturday. I feel like this Albany team would have settled in below EWU, Davis, and UND of the teams playing a Big Sky schedule this year. Can they beat MSU? Of course! Will they? No. 38-17 Bobcats.

This is the post I was referring to.

 

Edited by HOF2013
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57 minutes ago, HOF2013 said:

This is the post I was referring to.

 

This wasn't a post by MRuler. That was a post I copied from one of the delusion fans over on the Montana forum who thinks his team is the Alabama/Clemson of the FCS. I think your quote button is broken and showed the wrong person as the quote contributor.

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24 minutes ago, Eli said:

This wasn't a post by MRuler. That was a post I copied from one of the delusion fans over on the Montana forum who thinks his team is the Alabama/Clemson of the FCS. I think your quote button is broken and showed the wrong person as the quote contributor.

I got that and my apologies to him.

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I stopped watching when he said at 2:22 that we don't get penalized a lot and don't shoot ourselves in the foot. Like their fans saying all we do is throw slants, this guy is clueless. We were ranked 8th out of 12 CAA teams in penalties, averaging 52.3 a game. Granted we got the opposing team to average 62 penalty yards a game.

Hopefully he's that asleep at the wheel on Saturday lol.

Also, lol @ the sponsorship shoutout at the beginning. You'd never hear that in this stupid state. Way go to Montana!

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3 minutes ago, Eli said:

I stopped watching when he said at 2:22 that we don't get penalized a lot and don't shoot ourselves in the foot. Like their fans saying all we do is throw slants, this guy is clueless. We were ranked 8th out of 12 CAA teams in penalties, averaging 52.3 a game. Granted we got the opposing team to average 62 penalty yards a game.

Hopefully he's that asleep at the wheel on Saturday lol.

Also, lol @ the sponsorship shoutout at the beginning. You'd never hear that in this stupid state. Way go to Montana!

They said on their site that their coach would make us sound like the Patriots in his press conference and boy were they right.  WE ARE THE GREATEST TEAM IN THE HISTORY OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!  hahahahaaaa...

Some of what he said was right on.  Our two wideouts are excellent and JU is playing with a lot of confidence and has cut down on the stupid throws. Mofor is a bowling ball who can run people over. Some of the other stuff was just fluff to talk up the opponent so maybe his team doesn't take us lightly.  Who knows why he does it. 

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3 hours ago, DanesRGood said:

They said on their site that their coach would make us sound like the Patriots in his press conference and boy were they right.  WE ARE THE GREATEST TEAM IN THE HISTORY OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!  hahahahaaaa...

Some of what he said was right on.  Our two wideouts are excellent and JU is playing with a lot of confidence and has cut down on the stupid throws. Mofor is a bowling ball who can run people over. Some of the other stuff was just fluff to talk up the opponent so maybe his team doesn't take us lightly.  Who knows why he does it. 

Lol, he basically said to hand us the trophy, skip the playoffs, tell NDSU to pack up the season.  He has Mofor and Green in the NFL.  I think if someone asked him where Green might go in draft, he would have said Giants should draft him as #1 pick, lol.  Nice to be complimentary but he must not seen a few of the stinkers this year.  Let's prove him right Saturday, that we are that good!

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Howdy Albany fans!  MSU fan here.  I know there are a fair amount of us hoping to register here to post, but not a single one of us has been successful (which means any Albany fans trying to register likely can't either). 

Certainly some fans are taking this game too lightly but many of us certainly aren't.  People are still riding high after the 48-14 dismantling of our rival Montana who also happened to be the #3 team in the country at the time, but I'll be the first to tell you we could play that game 100 times and never win by that big of margin again, it was a perfect storm. 

There are a lot of intriguing matchups in this game.  I'm very curious to see how a team who has no familiarity with how MSU's offense operates decides to defend it. It is extremely unconventional in that it has elements of literally every running scheme you can think of. At the very least defensive coordinators have to spend a ton of time creating a game plan because we essentially run multiple offenses.  What MSU does on offense is basically take the first quarter or even into the 2nd to feel you out and then start adjusting to where it thinks it can take advantage, and lean our on defense to keep the game close until the offense figures it out.  If MSU's gameplan works right out of the gate that's where you've seen MSU put up 3+ touchdowns in the first half and if MSU has a 2 score lead at halftime it is going to be extremely difficult for any team to come back as MSU will literally abandon the pass and run for 4 yards a carry until the defense gives up.  MSU was beating UM 31-14 at half and won 48-14 and our starting QB only attempted 2 passes in the 2nd half as the Cats ran for 175 yards after halftime to preserve the win.  UM had only been giving up just over 80 yards a game rushing entering the game, including playing Oregon, before we put up 382 yards on them on the ground.

Defensively we do give up some yards through the air but we don't give up long touchdowns.  We've only given up 15 passing touchdowns all year through 12 games including playing at Texas Tech.  A lot of that starts up front with our front 7, in particular our DL who may not have eye popping stat numbers but are very effective at collapsing the pocket and making life hard on a QB - we are 2nd in the conference in pass efficiency defense, which doesn't translate well nationally because of the dynamic passing games you see in the Big Sky (and having played Texas Tech does not help).  To me the Albany offense poses a serious threat with a big gunslinger QB and a talented group of wideouts, coupled with a physical running back who looks like he needs to be gang tackled.  He does appear to be the least mobile QB we will have faced in a while so it'll be interesting to see if we can get to him with more regularity than we have against the typical mobile Big Sky QBs who get the ball out very quickly.

FYI Albany is 27th in the nation in penalties against, so our coach might actually know what he's talking about there Eli... I wouldn't call a team who is 27th nationally a team that gets penalized a lot?  If you finished that low in the CAA maybe refs just don't throw flags in the CAA - I just looked it up and Albany would be first in the Big Sky Conference by .02 yards per game over MSU (including starts from the CCSU game).  That's kind of a crazy stat - a bottom 1/3 team in penalties against in the CAA would be #1 in the Big Sky.

Looking forward to the game!

 

Edited by catbob
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  • Eli changed the title to Game #14: 12/7/19 - 3:00PM @ #5 Montana State [FCS Playoffs Round 2]

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