(Written by kencraw)

Sorry for the lateness of this… it’s been a crazy busy few weeks and I’m heading out to the Notre Dame game on Friday, so I have a lot of stuff I can’t just push off…

Here are my UNLV game thoughts:

• One thing I haven’t much seen in other commentary is the theory that “the Bears got complacent and let UNLV get back into the game”. I felt that the Bears had the game well in hand until halftime. Then they came out of the tunnel, got the ball to start the 2nd half, marched down the field and scored. It felt like at that point, the Bears really let off the gas, particularly on offense, particularly Plummer at QB.
• Or said another way, the only thing about this game that is frustrating is that the Bears offense sputtered in the 2nd half. I put a lot of it on Plummer. Here are his pass plays after that last field goal: incomplete (here forward: inc), inc, sack, (punt), 7-yard completion (here forward: comp), inc, sack, (punt), 4-yard comp, 16-yard comp, 3-yard comp, inc, 5-yard comp (but short of 1st down), (FG miss). To sum up, he played horrible for 2 drives, then seemed to refocus himself enough to get the ball down the field for a missed field goal, then after that, it was just the last drive attempting to run out the clock. Imagine if he plays the way he did his first few drives and puts up another 10ish points on those two drives… I think we’re a lot more satisfied.
• All of that is a long way of saying two things: 1. Offensive performance will be heavily dependent on Plummer performing well. 2. In the first two games he’s shown signs of being better than competent and then other moments where he’s lost his mojo. We’ll see if he can improve his consistency.
• Another point of concern is play-calling and offensive efficiency in the redzone. It’s harder for me to put into words precisely what is wrong, but in both cases where the Bears settled for a field-goal my gut feeling was that the execution was poor in those moments and that the plays chosen weren’t wise for the personnel we have. It’s particularly concerning because every point is going to matter later in the season. The Bears need to have pretty good redzone efficiency numbers if they’re going to be much better than 6-6 and could even have a losing season if those numbers are poor.
• The other weak point on offense is the line, particularly in pass protection. They’re not horrible, but I fear they’re going to get beat up pretty badly against ND and at least a few of the Pac-12 opponents. Run/pass balance (to keep the defensive line from being able to be focus on sacks) and mostly keeping the pass plays on the quick side will be key.
• My biggest bone to pick with the coaching staff against UNLV is the refusal to use Ott on that last run out the clock drive. How can you put in Brooks? He’s the least capable of the three in getting the “hard yards”. Perhaps I could have made my peace with Moore… he was playing better than week 1 (although not as good as Ott). But Ott was the right choice. When we need 10 yards in 3 plays… a healthy Ott is the only logical choice.
• Defensively I was pretty happy with the Bears. Both of UNLV’s touchdown’s were “scrappy”. One required a lucky break on what was principally an interception but probably correctly called on the field as a shared possession by the technicalities of the rules. The other was a momentary but repeated exploit of a weakness in the Bears scheme that was promptly cleaned up on subsequent drives.
• If I have a concern on defense it is the defensive line. They seem to give up a few too many 4 yards in a cloud of dust type runs where what it indicates is the offensive line is winning in the trenches. That was true against UCD as well. Additionally, they’re not getting very good pressure on passing plays without bringing risky blitzes.
• Back to that non-interception… here’s both sides of it as I see it. From the “technical rules” perspective, the WR had his arm in-between the ball and the defender as soon as the defender grasped the ball. You can then technically suggest that he had enough of a grasp on it at that point to be shared possession and the WR then further enhanced his grip on it without ever letting go. So that’s why it probably was technically called correctly. But from a principled perspective, if the defender isn’t there, that ball falls incomplete. If the WR isn’t there, it’s an easy interception. Thus it’s principally clear that it was the defender who caught the ball and the WR who was the lesser party as far as possession is concerned. But when it comes to principle versus the technicality of the rules, unfortunately (in this case) the right thing to do is going with the rules.
• Overall, I both have some hope moving forward but at the same time, there’s a lot of things to be concerned about. If this team can clean up its act and get more consistent on offense, things could go pretty well. But I fear we’re in for another season of inconsistency.

Go Bears!