[Music] I know you heard me on the radio flexing she love the sound of my voice it's the best thing Day Dreaming of the Jazz all day pick up the phone Late Night with Larry K I know you heard me on the radio flexing she love the sound of my voice it's the best in Day Dreaming of the Jazz all day pick up the phone Late Night with Larry K Scarlet Knights fans welcome to another episode of Night Watch I am your host Larry K here discussing ruter football forgive the attire I've been having a rough go of it a lot going on this week so I kind of threw my clothes on but I'm repping Newark local beer great Brewery awesome stuff Steve's might dud it out there if you're ever a nework right on Broad Street come through um you know threw the Hat on some Ruckers read had to run to the game got to the game Saw the game game was great want to talk about the game um rain held off so a nice day out there a little bit of cloud cover sun came out and poked out a little bit a little bit of humidity but not too bad uh good day to be out there again we got kind of Lucky without these you know cookers in the early go of the Season here so the early two games are out of the way um Howard and akan now we move on to a bye and then we come back on the road against Virginia Tech much anticipated game uh and then you get into the meat of the conference schedule so the season is really just underway for the Scarlet Knights Come Away uh 4917 Victory uh move to 2-0 on the season some things to talk about here I think early on there was a lot of frustration amongst uh Rutter's fans and me included um you know look you never know how these games are going to go and I understand that there's frustration early in in games uh but you look around the league you look around college football and and Penn State uh has a scare to Bowling Green barely comes away with a victory um you know I think Iowa state is is playing Iowa close right now um Notre Dame is down right now uh so you know and I'm sure these games by the time you're listening will will change but that's my point right I mean early on in some of these games where you expect you know easy wins or you expect easy treading in hindsight at the end of the game a lot of times it is easy treading uh but uh early on in games these teams come in fired up teams got to find their grooves and it's not always right out the gate gate easy um and it's Northern Illinois that's up on Notre Dame 13 to7 end of the second quarter I don't expect that to hold necessarily by the time you guys are listening to this later but uh that's what it is on Saturday afternoon as I get home to record this cast and talk to you guys um so look aan cak Manis he he comes out uh the first week against Howard he looks like he's everything ruter had been missing just pinpoint accuracy uh really played a near flaw I think near Flawless game uh the first game this week you come in and and one of athan's issues last year had been um his his his propensity to sometimes throw picks and to make mistakes and it's not really physical deficiencies where he can't squeeze the ball in or he can't get it there it's sometimes where he's squeezing the ball in where he probably shouldn't be and today you saw early on a an interception from aan um but that interception you know in in all honesty he was drilled absolutely drilled was it a a great throw you had a Defender uh up front you had a Defender over the top behind the receiver that Defender is the one who actually came up with the ball um do I fault him for an erron throw I mean could he have squeezed it in there had he not been drilled at the point of throwing it I don't know maybe not he was drilled you have to that has to account for something with aan um but still you got two Defenders there uh you're under pressure it's a deep throw kind of across the field uh to your left side I mean do you need to to throw that thing probably not right probably not um you then had the uh Cory the duff touchdown Which welcome young man to the Scarlet Knights welcome to the stat sheet um awesome fortuitous serendipitous play there by Duff but I didn't love that throw there were that receiver was blanketed as well and that pass probably should have been an interception uh some serendipitous football luck there and I'm happy to have it against akan at home early in the season where you can expect such serendipitous luck uh but going forward into uh the conference schedule and against maybe more formidable teams uh with less room for error you don't want to see those types of throws so eighth in overall for the day 14 of 23 for 230 yards three touchdowns one interception um respectable stat sheet there uh you want them over 200 yards you like the touchdown to int ratio again the int he was getting drilled um completion percentage not terrible um so I think it's just a little bit of reminder that hey we don't need Athan cak Manis to be a world beater we don't expect aan calak Manis to set the world on fire every single week what we need from aan cak Manis is efficiency what we need from aan cak Manis is uh the ability to get the ball into Playmakers hands when we need it most and I think you're getting that but this was just a reminder that there's going to be a couple throws where it's not going to be perfect every time where you're going to have to overcome some adversity where he's going to have to see the field clearly and and do some things uh right so you know it's just a little bit of a reminder there but look let's let's be honest as the the game went on um into the second half he he was much more I think poised and playing within himself the throw to long for the 50 I think 53 or 58 yard um touchdown pass was a thing of absolute Beauty uh again Richie said in the preview show watch out for long and we are watching out for long um just great to see him get down deep and and perfect dime of a throw by cak Manis and that's what you can get from him just a dime of a throw exactly in stride let long catch the ball and continue to run and take his momentum into the end zone it's exactly what you want to see and it puts something on tape for other teams to now have to account for and I think you saw that after we went deep a few times we had some success and I don't think it started with that pass I think it started really at the end of the first half on the drive where Athan was really threading the needle more than than once had a nice couple throws to Miller and some other guys to get us down that way um near the end zone and to finally push into the end zone I think the team you know akan had to start accounting for the deeper ball and for the threat of the ball going over their heads and so they couldn't be looking in the back field quite as much and that also helped the Run game continue to gain its momentum and keep rolling forward which I think is beneficial you put those kinds of things on tape and it makes teams have to account for other things which bodess well for your game planning and and bodess well for that little chess game you're going to play there um overall a balanced game you the kind of game you want to see if you're ruter uh you know uh 515 total yards 230 of which came from the passing game 285 of which came from the running game averaging 7.7 yards per play uh third down efficiency six of nine um it's it's just just a nice thing to see you you want to be up there um above that 50% Mark and third down efficiency uh you want to uh have a balanced attack where you can rely on both your rushing and passing game especially in a in a game like this um I think it it's a good sign in that regard um busted coverage there on the long touchdown play from akan uh ly we came on a corner Blitz I believe and loyal or whoever was responsible for that coverage was late and rolling over there uh to make up for it results in a touchdown early in the second half for akan there were some things early in the game you know whether it was the offense stalling and whether it was the defense not looking quite as Stout as you might want them to look um that were a little bit concerning against a team like akan in hindsight it's it's always hard to gauge because like I said early in these games a lot of teams struggle early in these games a lot of teams that end up lopsidedly losing look like they're having a good showing and so you got to take the game as a whole um but I do think you know when we're looking at a season where we have expectations where they are um you know you you got to be a little bit tough in your analysis because you you want to see things really be clicking and you want to see things really be be run with ease in some ways if you want to uh once you get into the difficult parts of the schedule you want to have the type of success you think ruter can have so nothing wrong with being a little bit critical in some respects um we come out with I think two sacks nice to see Ray get on the board nice to see Ray get some pressure up the middle I think that's something I was looking for right defensive line um defensive line being able to ex you know assert itself and uh Akon's not the type of team that has a dominant trench game on either side of the ball so you wanted to see our trenches perform well I thought our offensive line out the gate uh again when you have the kind of you know you have 285 rushing yards um the line's playing well right uh especially in the Run game I thought they asserted themselves early that was nice to see Kyle manai absolute Beast 27 carries for 208 yards averaging 7.7 yards Carry Three touchdowns just I mean he's well on his way to having a career season again I mean now that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to hold um for the the entire duration of the schedule but thus far he's been every bit of the type of Runner and every bit the premier player you think he'd be and my colleagues at the college huddle my big 10 colleagues have very high expectations for Kyle and I think uh it's coming to fruition so far um and then Raymond 17 carries for 77 yards averaging 4.5 yards a carry for one touchdown uh somebody made a a good point on one of the post games show saying you know Raymond kind of runs with a similar decisiveness and a similar style to Kyle manangi so it's easier maybe for the offensive line to have a nice Rhythm and chemistry with him and you don't seem to really miss a beat in some ways when he Subs in now we'll see how this continues to play out Sam Brown we got odd news you know uh right before the game that he was out not even questionable but out and you really didn't hear a peep all week about it and all of a sudden he's out and I think as fans you know this is going to be one of the things that we're going to be aggravated with all year I feel like because shano has already said he's not going to indulge us at all with injuries unless they're season ending and we're going to get the report before the games and he's going to stick to the report every week and that's as much as we're going to get with injuries and the frustrating thing about that is you really have no Clarity on what type of injury these guys have when they got the injury and how long the injury is going to sideline them right it could be two weeks it could be a month we're never going to know unless it's season ending so who knows what happened to Sam Brown this is another season where he misses a game due to injury you feel for the young man um and we're going to see how the running back room's going to play out with Benjamin when he when he gets back with with brown you know Raymond now fitting in with a nice nice Rhythm these first two games we'll see how the running back position continues to evolve I will say this um as much as I love seeing manangi and just destroy the stat sheet and continue to up his uh stock and just continue to be the leader of this team whether it's on the stat sheet emotionally or just as a football Bruiser I don't want to rely and in hindsight yes this was a very balanced game in hindsight and that includes some of these long passes when we started to put things together you know towards the second half of the game but early in the game it really seemed like the only answer we had whatsoever was Kyle just running the ball now what do you do when you need a spark what do you do when you need something to happen you lean on your Superstars that's what you do I'm not faulting Ruckers for doing that I'm not faulting Kyle manungi or surprised that he's you know such jumping out at me at the stat sheet but when you get into the schedule where you're playing more formidable teams you hope you don't have to consistently only rely on Kyle manungi uh to make anything happen when you're going through some adversity because if teams that are a little bit more capable start Zer zeroing in on Kyle and we saw that some of the time last year and really doing everything they can to take him away you're going to have to have other answers other than just feeding him the ball so while I'm happy to see it while we should celebrate it today while I'm happy that the rest of the offense kind of came along after that I wouldn't say that you know I'm thrilled that early in the game we had to stick with that more than than almost anything else but it did come along so like I said you it's it's an entire game you have to look at in its entirety you can't simply cabin it to one half and too hard or too joyful you got to just kind of take it as a whole um if Richie said long was going to be good this year I think we all agreed and I I was very high on Dair Miller and I've continued to be uh impressed with him four receptions 77 yards averaging 19.2 no touchdowns but he played some you know key roles on some of those drives especially the drive at the end of the second half I mean the first half um some of the the throws that were incompletions that that might have looked a little errant from uh aan Manis I think these receivers you know Miller could kind of give a lesson coming back for the ball fighting for the ball I think sometimes Athan looked like he was expecting guys to come back to the ball and they didn't necessarily come back and fight for it that's just something you got to work on uh if athan's going to be taking and I don't want to call it a gamble because it's not just like a ridiculously erron throw but if he's going to try to squeeze the ball into Tight Windows he's going to take risks on balls that maybe his arm isn't getting enough zip but he's going to try it anyway and it's going to hang there a little bit and give both the defender and the receiver a chance to get it uh these guys are going to have to come back for the ball they're going to have to fight for the ball um and so that's just something I want to see a little bit more of in addition to some of the separation and if the separation isn't happening just consistently all the time I hope Kirk sharaka uh draws some things up to get the uh the separation working one way or the other if it's not just happening you know naturally because just early in that game it looked like there were some difficulties getting separation and getting receivers to to complete passes by fighting for the ball I don't want to be nitpicky and I'm not nitpicky and I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer I'm just trying to be objective with you guys and give you a legitimate postgame kind of discussion here um and for that reason I mean what are you going to get from akan I'm not going to sit here and and pop champagne over the win I'm not going to downplay the win so I'm going to be happy with the win on a Saturday happy with all the things jumping off the stat sheet uh and the overall margin of Victory and at the same time I'm going to kind of address what we can glean from akan and some of that are things to zero in on and watch uh going forward uh when we get into you know more difficult parts of the schedule um so Fletcher again with a touchdown um coming out of the flat he's becoming a real weapon uh we saw mention that konopka and Fletcher in there blocking as well on some of these run plays I mean the running game looks like it's a well-oiled machine thus far that's great to see um so the offensive side of the ball the push was good I I told you going into the game I wanted to see what would happen uh with the defensive line and like I said seeing Ray get in there uh early for the pressure and the sack um and then you know even seeing Lewis get in there um when Lewis Comes Around The Edge and I know the quarterback actually escaped and for a couple yards but it was still nice to see uh Lewis get back there and get some pressure uh I thought the overall contain um seemed a little bit better uh there were some plays where you get around the edge and you know guys are running a little bit open but for the most part aside from that blown coverage um you know ruter had steady control on the defensive side of the ball um so that was good to see um we had the pick um later in the game you had the uh the shaan loyal pick uh I predicted Shaquan would be leading the team in picks we'll see flip Dixon gets a little bit in there that's nice to see because I think he's going to be one of the leaders on this team we're going to need him to be with motter out um so defensively I didn't necessarily early on see some insanely dominant thing but for the most part I mean they did their job they shut down Aur for the most part uh later in the game you know you got second and third teamers in they score a touchdown on a long run that that can happen you don't want it to happen but that can happen um and the blown coverage obviously was a problem and that's something that you got to look at because you're bringing a corner Blitz to try to get some pressure because you're not necessarily getting as much consistent pressure with the uh normal front four that you have and and like I said Ray got in there nice Lewis got in there a couple times uh didn't close the deal but got in there uh so you saw some of it but you were trying to create some extra pressure by bringing a blitz and then when you bring that Blitz you get burned because of a blown coverage um that's just something to keep an eye on when we're discussing um you know the the the outlook for the defense I expect this defense to come into its own but we haven't really I don't know who they are exactly yet CU we haven't gone up against a team uh that's really going to test them in that way uh so you know it's hard to glean a ton from that um linebackers continued to uh do their thing as best they could hopefully we're we're more closer to full strength against Virginia Tech we now have a by week so we go into this bye you really couldn't have asked for a better schedule uh this season we're going into the by week um another chance to get healthy we had two games early in the season season where we didn't have to overexert ourselves or try to play guys too early now we have a bye we and then you go on the road to Virginia Tech and you have a real chance to come out of uh this by we healthier um and with you know just a a a good chance to start the season 3 and 0 and come home for the blackout game against Washington and make it something to really uh get the fans pumped up about uh and really make a statement early in the season now this is going to be the first time uh this season that ruter is really you know uh tested in that manner um so we're going to learn a lot more we've learned a little bit the first two weeks we're going to learn a lot more now going into Virginia Tech um and even just just talking about our defense so Finley was 14- 31 for 138 yards one touchdown one interception so it wasn't like he was setting the world on fire by any means uh Taj block did come in uh three of three uh for 13 yards um and he rushed four times I don't think he got any yards so you know we contained him better than some people might have uh hoped and and and a little bit better than Scroggins last week um you know so so the defense did its job I I was looking for the um the dline and I think there was an improvement um jab uh four tackles including one solo Igman oen was the the hero though four solo tackles uh six tackles that he was in into uh tackle for a loss Eric Rogers four and three solo um flip Dixon two uh and one solo just good to see him in there Kos Sanders got in the game too um so I I liked what I saw they took care of business against akan on a beautiful kind of Gray breezy fallish day in September started off a little rough sledding you come down to earth a little bit with the quarterback you come down to earth a little bit with the receiving you know passing game but you continue to build on your reputation and confidence in the running game and then as the game goes on you continue to build your confidence in the passing game despite some miscues by the defense the defense overall is Stout the defense makes plays the defense makes things happen uh the dline looks a little more Stout but this is the end of the speculation this is the end of the what if this is the end of the you know who when who plays when who's back on the lineup this is the end of that we have two weeks one weekend of a by- week and then we we come up against Virginia Tech and all bets are off no more speculation we either put up or we shut up I expect us to come out swinging I will have some content leading up to the Virginia Tech game um not all my questions were answered but some of my questions were answered to some extent um I think we have what it takes in terms of efficient passing game guys on the roster the ability to do what we have to do in order to have a really successful season here but they're going to have to show up and execute and we're going to find out a whole heck of a lot in 2 weeks guys if you have not done so yet please smash that subscribe button I know I'm a little disheveled today my gear is all over the place I got this mix match hat and shirt on and I'm rambling and babbling and stumbling and mumbling but I'm trying to keep it as objective as possible I'm trying to keep it as concise and consistent as possible and I do it and more times I hit that sub you guys hit that subscribe button the more I hit that like you guys you hit that like button not me what am I talking about the more you comment below about what you think of my analysis and sometimes I screw up on my analysis so point it out in the comments last week I talked about the offensive line getting pushed and somebody said hey we ran I think they did their job so I when you guys comment sometimes hey I'm not always 100% accurate I'm not 100% on the ball comment and let me know but click subscribe if you haven't clicked subscrib yet I'll wait a second just click it click it thank you for clicking click subscribe let's continue 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