Saturday’s game may have not ended the way we wanted, but we got some valuable information from it anyway. First, the offensive line in the first series were the starters and they did great. Better than my expectations. The only weak spot I saw was Chris Hubbard at right tackle, but hopefully he will only have to start 6 games. Aside from Jordan Roos, Justin Murray, and Jaylen Duncan, the backups didn’t fare as well. And Nicholas Petit-Frere finished with a PFF grade of 35.5 with 1 sack and 4 pressures, the worst grade out of any lineman that played Saturday. Not to mention he played with the second and third string players. Both quarterbacks were sacked 4 times each. This has got to improve.
Both quarterbacks had their good and bad moments. Malik Had a great opening drive for a TD. He had one more scoring drive. Unfortunately, he had some flashes of old Mailk. He threw an interception on one play and took a strip sack on another. He finished the day 16-25 189 yards passing and 3 carries for 22 yards and a rushing touchdown, but he also had an interception and a fumble lost. Still not where I want him to be, but a massive improvement from last season.
Will Levis didn’t start off as hot, but he didn’t have starting linemen either. He made some errors. There was a throw that was behind Colton Dowell on his first drive that almost led to an interception. In his second drive of the game he had a nice connection with Mason Kinsey for 21 yards. The running game finished off the drive for another touchdown. He finished with 9-14 attempts for 85 yards and 1 carry for 6 yards, but he too had an interception.
Tyjae Spears had a nice game, even though he only played one drive. On his lone drive of the game he carried the ball 6 times for 32 yards. He had one really nice carry where he stiff-armed Eddie Jackson from the Bears and got 14 yards, his longest of the day.
The defense got off to a bad start, with most of the starters not playing. The first drive by the Bears resulted in a 62 yard pass to D.J. Moore, who was being covered by Trey Avery. The second drive resulted in another big play, this time a 56 yard pass to Khalil Gilbert. This time Avery allowed himself to be blocked out of bounds and should have been the player to make the tackle. Avery made up for it though with an interception on the next drive giving the Titans the ball at the 31 yard line. Which led to a touchdown.
The big bright spot for me on special teams was Kyle Phillips, who had a nice 17 yard return on the first punt of the game. Eric Garror also had a 17 yard return later. Caleb Shudak might have a slight advantage after making his field goal of 41 yards, whereas Trey Wolff missed his attempt from 48 yards. Both kickers made their extra points.
