Of course the #1 topic after this game is Josh Freeman, and it should be. He did not play well by any stretch of the imagination and he showed the issues I thought he had coming in, namely he is not a great at reading his progressions and this was only magnified by having no running game (best 2 backs by far were on the white team) and by the white taking away Nelson as a target and forcing him to find Gonzalez or a TE. He did neither well, though Gonzalez didn't help him much (I'll get to that later). So as a result Freeman looked much the same as he did vs ku and vs Rutgers and it was disappointing for the fans to see. You can't just whitewash that and throw it out, but at the same time I'm not sure you can put too much stock into it either. I know in the 3 practices I witnessed Freeman never looked nearly as bad as he did saturday, though he was helped by an offensive line with some continuity and a full stock of skill position players to back him up. At the end of the day Freeman is a guy who is much hyped and no matter what the circumstances there really isn't an excuse for what he did saturday. Now the hope is that (once again) he can pick himself up from a bad performance and learn from it as this team moves toward the fall.
That said, the 2nd most disappointing performance IMO came from our 2nd and 3rd WRs. Gonzalez and Wilson both had some big drops (tough catches, but still should be caught) and it hurt their team. Granted, on one Gonzalez was interfered with, but the purple needed to be bailed out and instead of having the ball near midfield, they only got the ball around the 30 after the PI penalty. Wilson dropped a sure TD. Both had drops on slants in traffic. Those guys will need to play better for this team to win, or we have to hope Brown, Pierce, and Murphy can come in and be in the mix right away.
Offensive line wasn't great, but wasn't horrible. Hard to really assess them with the mixed up rosters.
Defensively we played pretty well. I thought we got to the ball really well and WRs only got behind our DBs a time or two. The white defense was absolutely dominant, but again I don't think the converted WR at RB was much of a threat and that made things much easier on them. The front 7 looked solid.
Johnson didn't get a lot of touches, but showed his burst with his long run. Petrie showed that he gives us a solid 3rd option. This game really didn't show the gap that is there between Johnson and Petrie and Petrie came away looking pretty good. But time and time again in 1s vs 1s situations in practices Johnson shined where Petrie did not. Again, Petrie gives us a solid 3rd option at RB, but this is Johnson's to lose, and no doubt a healthy Patton will be in the mix. Again, I think the gamebreaking ability here that Johnson and Patton will provide will make things much easier on Freeman and the rest of the offense.
Finally, Coffman showed about what I expected. Like I said before, this kid was part of a great HS program, has great bloodlines and is flat out a competitor. From what I've seen he's better at reading through his progressions and it showed saturday. Over the long haul I don't think he's in position right now to overtake Josh, but if Josh doesn't improve he might challenge as soon as next season. I don't think its time to make this a tight race yet; this is still Josh's job to lose, but we know now that we have a guy that can challenge him and hopefully Josh steps up to that challenge.
Finally, the running clock makes it nice for the fans and for a short game, but it also makes it tough to assess much, especially for the offenses. This really makes it difficult for an offense to find any rhythm and gives the advantage to the defense IMO. Also, the mixed roster, especially for this stage of the program, makes it tough to get anything going. Both offenses looked like they were pressing and the limited possessions probably contributed to that. Not an excuse for the poor offensive performances, but its easier to understand given the format used for the game. I'm not necessarily complaining b/c I like that better than seeing the 1s beat the 2s 48-0, but it is what it is.