Week 7: Clarkson North Canada

R

ReLoad

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The Bombers (5-1) host Clarkson North CN (3-3) this Friday at 7pm.
The teams have played the past 2 seasons with StX winning both games 47-14 (2017) and 38-19 (2018)

Clarkson North Schedule
8/16 beat Silver Oak Academy (MD) 79-0
8/23 lost to Cathedral Prep (PA) 53-34
9/13 lost to Mentor 28-15 (first half only)
9/20 beat Lorain 32-22 (game stopped due to fight with 8 minutes left)
9/28 beat St. Ignatius 41-40
10/4 lost to IMG Academy (FL) 50-0
10/11 at StX
10/18 at St. Edward
10/25 at Elder
 
 
The Ignatius loss is still embarrassing. North has talent but Ignatius should not lose to a Canadian team.

X will roll.
 
Offensively Clarkson is led by seniors
#14 QB Quincy Vaughn 6’4” 228lb Old Dominion commit
#63 Left Tackle Justin Stevens 6'6" 285lb Eastern Michigan commit

Defensively they are led by seniors
#10 LB Cade Cote 6’4” 220lb
#97 Nose Guard Mitchell Price 6’2” 285lb
 
Last year's Bomber offense was high risk/high reward because of the starting QB's penchant to play in the extremes.

This year the defense has been high risk/high reward seemingly by choice.

With lack of size at the defensive end positions and limited QB pressure from the outside the defense has chosen to play aggressive and blitz frequently from the linebacker and safety positions.

As a result the Bomber D leads the league in sacks and tackles for loss but has given up 9 long TD plays in the past 3 games.

The defense has been able to play fast and loose up relying on the explosiveness and efficiency of the offense to outscore opponents.
 
ReLoad said:
Last year's Bomber offense was high risk/high reward because of the starting QB's penchant to play in the extremes.

This year the defense has been high risk/high reward seemingly by choice.

With lack of size at the defensive end positions and limited QB pressure from the outside the defense has chosen to play aggressive and blitz frequently from the linebacker and safety positions.

As a result the Bomber D leads the league in sacks and tackles for loss but has given up 9 long TD plays in the past 3 games.

The defense has been able to play fast and loose up relying on the explosiveness and efficiency of the offense to outscore opponents.
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The other thing that we lack on defense is speed. We aren't going to run anybody down from behind so we have to keep the play in front of us to have success. The offense has to get off to a faster start by getting Rueve going early with the high percentage stuff and the run game. After he settles in he can be deadly. The other thing I noticed from the film was the inexperience of the receivers. Against a zone defense they have to know to sit down in between the zones and that didn't happen, they repeatedly ran into the coverage. That is really advanced stuff so I don't necessarily fault them for not fully understanding and knowing that as a lot of college receivers don't fully know this. We had our shots against Elder a few bad drops really hurt our ability to keep pace. In my opinion the dagger was letting them score right out of the half. That completely took the run game off of the table and we were having success there in the first half. I think we had over 90 yards rushing in the first half.
 
Vrsansky back after missing the past 4 games....important piece of the offense and by far best punt returner.
Maier likely back out after trying to return to action too early last Friday.
Uhl still with the wrap on the broken hand will lineup at left guard rather than center.
Probably won't be able to snap the ball until the post season so Parker to remain at center the remainder of the regular season.
 
Entering this Friday's game.....
Clifford with 7 receiving TDs is 3 shy of tying Sam McDonald's season record of 10
Rueve is 46 completions short of breaking Nick Tensing's season record of 187
 
2020Dad said:
We had our shots against Elder a few bad drops really hurt our ability to keep pace. In my opinion the dagger was letting them score right out of the half. That completely took the run game off of the table and we were having success there in the first half. I think we had over 90 yards rushing in the first half.
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All that said, we were kicking off with about 3 minutes and two timeouts left and huge momentum on our side. I really, really disliked the decision to try the onside kick there. I said it before and I said it after. I really felt like our defense would have benefited from having Elder somewhat backed up and the crowd would have helped.
 
L Hand said:
All that said, we were kicking off with about 3 minutes and two timeouts left and huge momentum on our side. I really, really disliked the decision to try the onside kick there. I said it before and I said it after. I really felt like our defense would have benefited from having Elder somewhat backed up and the crowd would have helped.
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I couldn't agree more. Especially with X being all about defense, that's been their mantra since Specht took over. I was surprised they didn't kick it deep. Even if they did stop Elder at the 45 there, they would have had to go 80-90 yards in under a minute with no timeouts. If you kick it deep and hold them, you get the ball around the 45-50. Granted one first down in either spot, the game is over.
 
2020Dad said:
The other thing I noticed from the film was the inexperience of the receivers. Against a zone defense they have to know to sit down in between the zones and that didn't happen, they repeatedly ran into the coverage. That is really advanced stuff so I don't necessarily fault them for not fully understanding and knowing that as a lot of college receivers don't fully know this.
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This is an interesting observation
The only holdover from last year's offensive staff is the wide receiver coach.
He played receiver at the D3 level and has been on staff since graduation (3 years ago)
Is he not in sync with Coverdale?
With the aptitude level of the Bomber players you would think this is something they would be capable of learning and Coverdale and his staff are capable of teaching
 
ReLoad said:
This is an interesting observation
The only holdover from last year's offensive staff is the wide receiver coach.
He played receiver at the D3 level and has been on staff since graduation (3 years ago)
Is he not in sync with Coverdale?
With the aptitude level of the Bomber players you would think this is something they would be capable of learning and Coverdale and his staff are capable of teaching.
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Elder on many occasions dropped as many as 8 people into coverage and they kept two safeties deep trying to take the long ball away which they did for the most part. We still had our opportunities but we dropped a crucial deep ball down the middle that would have put us on the 5 yard line and the QB missed high on a wide-open deep ball down the sideline that would have been a TD . The weakness of a cover 2 zone is the middle of the field. We had some success there but we left some opportunities out there. They caught us a little off guard with the schemes but as specht says "the other team practices too". Any hoo on to Canada, these guys are no slouches and we will need to bring our A game on Friday.
 
MickeyMantle said:
Man, I am interested in this game. That Clarkson win over Iggy has me intrigued.
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They are more of an academy like an IMG, They have players from all over Canada. In another 2 -3 years they will probably beat most of the best teams in the US. Last year they played elder pretty close as well as St X
 
Clarkson North has talent, but they are very thin in depth. They did play Elder close last year mainly in the second half. Elder was up 21-0 at half and gave up two scores in second half, but it rained hard that night so not a true gauge for either team. The schedule they play, especially after getting manhandled by IMG and the travel each week, is tough. I think they caught Iggy, who is a bit down, at the right time and only beat them by one. I also noticed they played and lost a half game recently because of a fight. They are dirty. A lot of cheap shots in that Elder game. They had a fight with LaSalle two years ago toward the end of the game. Need to keep composure with them. They remind me of the Florida team that Elder played this year. Very undisciplined. However, they don't have near the talent as the Florida team did. Good luck.
 
Fair&Balanced said:
They are dirty. A lot of cheap shots in that Elder game. They had a fight with LaSalle two years ago toward the end of the game. Need to keep composure with them.
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Yes, they have been dirty. You could see their players getting closer and closer to something as La Salle was beating them in 2016. Hopefully they've cleaned that up a bit.
 
The injuries continue to mount.
Kirby, VandeHatert, Maier and Smith.
With Kirby out, there are 3 sophomores on the OLine and Uhl playing out of position with a cast.
Rueve got sacked 3 times and the rushing attack was non existent.
With Maier and Smith sidelined and Vrsansky not up to speed the passing game was essentially Lang and Clifford (16 catches for 167 yards and 3 TDs).
 
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