[Music] ruter defeating akan on Saturday afternoon at SHI Stadium 49- 17 to move to 2 and0 on the season this is my sort of Rapid reaction I'm a couple hours late here had a family birthday thing uh on Saturday so a little bit late but wanted to give my full thoughts on on the win little bit of a slow start for Ruckers uh for sure especially Ethan khik Manis at quarterback it was 7even to3 in the second quarter akan had an opportunity uh and had missed a field goal could have been uh Ruckers could have been trailing at that point in the second quarter so I understand some frustration there obviously took a little bit to get going uh defense gave up some big plays in this game there were some frustrating penalties at times more towards the second half half uh but overall Ruckers took care of business and I understand listen I think people shouldn't not expect uh ruers to have an uneven performance here in week two you still have a ton of players out 17 players on the availability list down from 22 in week one you were missing Wesley Bailey once again on defense you were missing Sam Brown on offense behind Kyle manangi you had uh Tyrene Powell uh out against again although he was questionable on the availability report flip Dixon was out against you still have some younger players working in the wide receiving core is still getting uh acclimated as a group so there's a lot of things that Rucker still has to work out special teams uh this team there's a lot of returning pieces there's a lot to like but it's not a perfect team and I think maybe expectations are just expecting rers to come out and be ahead of akan 28 nothing in the middle of the second quarter just doesn't work that way and you can see across the Big 10 uh today Wisconsin as I record this struggling with South Dakota at home up one score in the fourth quarter Penn State was trailing Bowling Green uh at the half they won by a score bowling Green's a better Mac team than akan no doubt uh but the bottom line is ruter showed some things in this game they pulled away in the second half khi Manis really got into a rhythm uh and they were able to establish things he started five of 12 in the past game with an interception he had a couple bad throws that were dangerous throws uh into traffic he was a lot of first read passes not really going through his progressions very well so that was concerning no doubt but then the second half he looked a lot better he finished nine of 11 on 178 yards three touchdown passes he had that beauty deep ball to Chris Long uh that was you know it's funny how fans are celebrated I mean it's been so long since we've seen that type of action in a Rucker offense uh but C manag show he could throw the Deep ball today uh he you know he missed at times too but he was three to seven from Deep uh he was uh better in terms of connecting in the second half they had several I'm going to look it up right now again this is a rapid reaction this is how we do it uh might not be completely smooth here uh but going through the essentials here in terms of short passing he was three of four that's less than five yards he was eight of 12 on medium passing uh five to 14 yards and he was three of seven on deep passing 15 plus yards uh in terms of that short to intermediate passing he was 11 of 16 last week he was 15 of 20 11 of 16 right around 70% the week before 75% so that is certainly an encouraging sign for this offense and then when you throw in the combination of the deep ball being able to to stretch the field uh in terms of the receiving you know you saw saw Chris Long really establish himself I did a podcast on Friday talking about Playmakers Ruckers needing to count on reliable Playmakers Chris Long really showed up after kind of a quiet they were trying to get him involved in week one he had a much more productive day today and he was able to uh have lead Ruckers with uh 87 yards on four catches obviously that 58 yard touchdown was the highlight you also had deir Miller have another good game four catches 77 yards he a 31 yard catch uh you had Ian Strong just one catch but was 16 yards Cory Duff had that deflection touchdown catch 23 uh sh that was a six-yard he had a 23 yard later in the game talking about that deflection that's when I think things started to change for CI commis yeah he got lucky off the the uh the bounce off the backboard so to speak uh and Duff showed great awareness great hands in making that catch in the end zone but I think for whatever reason it just kind of loosened khik Manis up and that's when he started to cook uh once he got into that second half after halftime shortly after that touchdown pass so that was something that really I thought for him kind of change things and turn things around and you saw that when he can deliver the ball he has he has the ability to deliver the ball to find receivers to make throws that ruers hasn't been able to in a long time at least a couple years and that speaking directly to Gavin whims so cic Manis is absolutely an upgrade I don't know if people thought he is going to be like this top Big 10 quarterback he's not he's going to be around 60% what he saw in the second half I mean he finished 14 to 23 230 yards three touchdowns one interception uh 61% completion rate 179.2 uh quarterback R if they can get that every week you take it and he's gonna look bad on certain throws he's gonna look bad on certain drives he he's not a perfect quarterback this is not a perfect team but I was encouraged especially also the fact that sh and shano opened up the Playbook a little bit in that second half I thought that that was encouraging I I honestly thought that the play calling be a little bit more vanilla than it was uh manangi I mean where would Ruckers be without Kyle manangi absolute Beast uh career high 208 rushing yards 27 attempts 7.7 yards per carry uh had a 62 yard dash three touchdowns uh just looking back at last year and where Ruckers is right now KY manangi is so it's unbelievable I mean it's scary to think what Ruckers would be without him he is so important and going into last season nobody thought he would be what he is now so he's now close to 400 yards rushing on the season obviously that game in two weeks at Virginia Tech his ability to control the game on the ground is going to be everything for ruter and if he can have dominating performances in Big 10 play and against Virginia Tech that we saw him at times have last year but have even more so this year this is going to be a eight n 10 win team if other things can come about so overall offensively I was pretty encouraged also Kenny Fletcher cut caught a touchdown second straight game just one catch but had the cut touchdown Ben Ben black had his his first catch of his career uh so I thought the offense the offensive line again I thought did a pretty good job I just want to check I think akan had a couple uh sacks uh let me check the defense here in terms of akan they had uh zero sacks they had four pass breakups they had three QB hits and uh don't have the hurries here uh but overall uh they did a pretty good job I mean obviously the Run game but then also in terms of giving CI Manis time to throw in that second half they did a really good job so H again no sacks that's really uh positive and keeping those guys on the field uh just in terms of this offensive line the continuity that they're building now super encouraging uh in terms of the defense gave up some big plays uh in terms of let's see look at the advanced stats in terms of big plays allowed uh akan at eight totaling 203 total yards rers had 12 321 yards uh but overall uh you know they gave up a couple drives couple touchdowns that I saw some complaining on again this isn't a perfect defense you're missing some key guys when you don't have poell Dixon uh Tor té uh Bailey I mean those are four Primo guys I thought Aron Lewis played uh well today uh what w is actually statline um he had a big pressure at one point uh I don't see it oh there he is yeah he had two quarterback hits a pass breakup he had a key uh play I forget which play it was but he got to the quarterback uh pretty uh impressively uh you had overall uh six pass breakups from this uh defense four tackles for loss two sacks uh just want to give Malcolm Ray his du when akan had that uh momentum after the interception and they were going into the Red Zone Malcolm Ray had the I don't know if it's the play of the game it was the play of the first half it changed the game in terms of they handed off to bulock uh which was a read option and he buried him uh and he just read it perfectly and physically he was a beast uh huge sack there huge play in the game for Malcolm Ray who I think two weeks in a row now has looked like a pretty good player he had another three tackle game uh and uh just in terms of his anticipation on that play it blew up the offense and it changed the game because akan had a settle for a field goal with which they ultimately missed Ruckers was able to catch their breath ultimately take the lead and never Trail in this game so that was huge you also had a really impressive sack uh from Eric Rogers uh in terms of uh his ability uh playmaking ability we saw the pick six in week one we saw the sack in week two you had uh over a dozen guys with multiple tackles in this game uh longer beam had a couple pass breakups you had Jordan Thompson had a couple really good plays in this game he had three tackles but he had two quarterback hits he also had a pass breakup tackle for loss so I talked about Playmakers on Friday and this defense showed multiple guys that were stepping up in key spots and uh I know Adam Brenan mentioned that at one point in The Telecast talking about guys needing to make plays when Ruckers defense needed it most and you saw some of that today uh and different guys that were stepping up overall linebackers I thought were okay uh you know akan was able to get some big plays off but overall uh this was a bigger test for this defense they got experience that they needed by the way Northern Illinois another Mac team beat sou Notre Dame in South Bend just now so that's crazy uh listen 4917 Ruckers put up over 40 points two weeks in a row they're two and0 they go into the bye they get ready for Virginia Tech now and this is a team that has everything in front of them obviously we don't know what the availability report is going to be like uh but overall uh I think that the Improvement you've seen in the past game uh the Improvement you've seen in the big playmaking through that pass game uh Kyle manangi being even better than he was last year so far the offensive line really looking like they're starting to gel having more depth offensively more options defensively uh they haven't been great but they're they're solid and you are seeing guys get experience that haven't gotten experience in the past uh jab uh is playing a lot he had four tackles again today had a quarterback hit Abram Wright played a lot today uh you have obviously have uh Moses walker uh you have kashan Griffin had a couple really good impactful plays today you have guys that are starting to make page Sanders got a lot of run again get opportunities here and I think it's going to pay dividends in the long run overall special teams not a lot to take away uh Jay Patel no opportunities uh from field goal range you did have Sky have trouble on kickoff a little bit uh and then in terms of punting Anderson you know overall 40 41 and 40 on his punts one Pand inside the 20 so that was good uh and then Dremel had one punt return of 11 yards uh in terms of I didn't listen to Shan's press comment yet I'll have that up on the site as well soon with some highlights later tonight but I think at the end of the day with all with all the injuries that they've had and with a lot of questions coming in about the offense I think Ruckers has done pretty well up until this point you know and I think that heading now you have a week off you have a week to reinforce some lessons to reinforce some things that we're learning in this game for some younger players you have a better idea of what you can do offensively I'm sure Shaka has saved some things in his back pocket for Virginia Tech and Washington and so forth and so on this team's going to be able to build on the base that they've established you bubble rap KY manangi for two weeks you keep that offensive line intact CI Manis what I will end with and I just you know he's got gumption he's got uh resiliency he had a bit of a rough first half and he kept chopping and he made some really good throws in that second half so that was super encouraging and I think that sharaka has a really good feel for CIS and how to reach him and I think that that was very smart to let them open up the field a little bit throw the ball down the field in that second half get multiple receivers involved and really get this offense showing that they can do some things that we have not seen them do in the past uh a couple last stats here uh in terms of ruter 515 yards total offense held akan at 307 they averaged uh in the past game 16.4 yards per completion I gotta look that up I don't know the last time Ruckers averaged that many yards in the past game uh in terms of third down conversion uh Ruckers was six of nine akan was seven of 14 so that wasn't great on the defensive end uh in terms of uh fourth down Ruckers was 0 of one under their one attempt five penalties for ruers 12 for akan listen akan is not a good team they shot themselves in the foot a lot uh but ruter listen it was never that first half you know wasn't as impressive as you wanted and they still went up with a big lead so I think that's saying something people need to recognize that that's progress for this program so we'll take it ruter is two and 0 Let's Go lot to be encouraged about certainly some concerns here we'll cover a lot in this biwe I'll have the press conference for shano out very shortly as well as some highlights later and I'll have plenty on my big 10 review uh Sunday night Monday morning check out for that thanks so much for listening and watching once again here at the Scarlet faithful podcast [Music] [Music]