The Bobcat Nation

Is it just me or am I the only one that thinks we should run more misdirection/screen plays when you are playing a defense that blitzes/goes after the QB the way Cal Poly does? I mean, we ran 2 fake reverses that would have been HUGE plays had Lulay ACTUALLY given it to the reverse guy. The other side of the field was TOTALLY open and our guy in full speed. But no, we give it to the RB draw down the middle of where they are blitzing for no gain. That one play they ran that was misdirection should have been a big gain as well had our RB not tried to get cute and moon walk past the guy. How about a stiff arm/lowering the shoulder once by our RB's? I see our RB"s going down way to easy right now. Misdirection plays keep the DE/LB's at home and not pinning their ears back all the time. We can run reverses/qb sweeps/screen passes and all of that. Those would be types of plays that could really help our OL if we are struggling. I am glad I saw Bailey call those, but you have to give it to the reverse guy once in a while. I don't think I saw a screen pass at all either (maybe they were afraid to do that with Beck). Anyway, if we need to use trick plays/misdirection once in a while to keep the defense honest while we go through our baby steps then lets do it! I would also call a few QB keepers/left/right gappers as well for Lulay as big runs usually always helps his confidence.

CARDIAC_CATS. On the button. Did you watch the Bengals last night. They faked the end around and up the middle 5 6 7 times and then gave to the WR. around the end for 12 yards. cats could have used another 12 yard run Saturday

jagur1 wrote:CARDIAC_CATS. On the button. Did you watch the Bengals last night. They faked the end around and up the middle 5 6 7 times and then gave to the WR. around the end for 12 yards. cats could have used another 12 yard run Saturday

Yep, was thinking the exact same thing. That is what you use on aggressive defenses as they over run the play. Glad I'm not the only one who thinks we should do that more/those types of plays work.

They ran the WR screen a few times, with little success. Screens to RBs get even more complicated for the OL. I'm not sure the OL is capable of succeeding, at this time, on a RB screen.

I know I keep beating this dead horse, BUT, dangit, if the receivers make the catches they get scholoarships to make, then we aren't even having this conversation.

What mystifies me is two of our three starting wide receivers are JC's. We supposedly didn't offer a kid like Ryan Bagley a full ride and we lost him to the friz. Does this mean that it's a rarity for a wide receiver to come up throught the ranks in our offense? Does it mean our coaches don't have enough patience to develop them, or does it mean we can't recruit against anyone else to get decent highschool talent. Roosevelt is there now, Turnquist was the last one...who was the one before him? Arie Grey? Other than these, I think we have always depended on 1-a transfers for the feature receivers and once in a rare case a JC works out.

I honestly dont think that Bailey and Kramer know what they are looking for, or how to get it here. The reason the O doesnt have any playmakers other than Travis Lulay today is that Bailey/Kramer either dont know talent or arent good enough to bring it in.

As Bill Parcells said, if you want me to cook the dinner, then at least let me buy the groceries...or something like that. Well, I dont know if these two have a shopping list or even a shopping cart to get them back home. Instead, they get what they can at the Holiday Station.

The same CANNOT be said on the defensive side of the ball. I dont think it is a coincidence that our defense has been so good. We build that side of the ball with hand picked Coach Pete talent as high school kids and let them learn the system and develop. Honstly, how many JCs or transfer kids we have out there on the D who start? Two DBs in Goins and Eddie Smith. How many do we have on the O? One OL, 2 RBs, 2 WR - and the depth there is even worse with JCs.

That is a great comment. We seem to be constantly rebuilding the offense with JC transfers where it is much more rare on defense. Does Coach Kwiatkowski know anything about offense? Maybe he could "help out for a little while".

Honestly, sometimes I think that if you told Kramer that he ought to look into offering "the second coming of Jerry Rice" a scholarship, he'd purposely avoid it just because it wasn't his idea. He seems so good with boosters and alumni, but I get the impression he's not very patient with recruits. Unless you bleed Blue and Gold you can wind up Maroon and Silver for all he cares.

He has to offer scholarship money to out of state talent because they may have offers from a lot of other programs. It seems he expects the in state kids to "earn" a scholarship by walking on and proving they deserve it. If this is a budgetary thing then he has done a fantastic job under limited resources and I applaud him. But if this is just an indictment of the in-state talent level, then I expect he has to re-think how many Dan Carpenters, Loren Utterbacks, Ryan Bagleys, Shane McIntyres, and Lex Hilliards there are out there that might have been Bobcats but for a little more attention being paid to them during recruiting.

BEAU CLARK is an example of a kid who was expected to walk on and earn his money. He was all everything coming out of Belgrade, and the CATS were gonna let him slip out and go to (I think) Dickinson State. Thank GOD, Beau bleeds blue and gold!! (if anyone gets a chance to meet Beau, be honored, WHAT A GREAT YOUNG MAN!!)

Yeah, its great to get talent from out of state, but we all know that there is some level of culture shock for most of these kids that come from SoCal and South Beach.

The Griz have been pounding MSU for years in the in-state recruiting wars. Each and every year, there is at least a handful of Montana kids that start for the griz. How many for our beloved Cats?

In reality, though, as long as we keep beating the griz, I would not care if the whole team came from Bolivia!!!!

First off, its not enough to just beat the Griz anymore. I want playoff success.

I think Kramer is not a very good recruiter. Why I believe this is the fact that he is so stuborn, I dont think he will play the game with kids/parents. Two, if he was such a great recruiter, why are we still plugging holes with JCs?

5th year in Coach, we should be building this program with high school kids, not band-aids! This is the same quick fix problem that Hysell got himself into.

Another thing to think about regarding the recruiting in state. I think in a past thread, there was mention about looking for size, and how it just doesn't happen that often for MSU to find size and depth, plus being athletic enough to play 1-AA ball in our home state. Well, this year, where is a majority of our o-line from? THey are that big, and actually I think they look fairly little from where we sit. From the earlier post, they have to have HEART, the rest will come.

I agree Cat Pride about Kramer and recruiting. In year 5 we should not need this many JC transfers of which 1/2 probably pay off let alone to the level Junior did. We also don't seem to have built the depth I had hoped for. I know at I-AA that is harder with the limited number of scholarships but we are very thin at a number of positions - O line and secondary come to mind. It shouldn't have been a surprise to Kramer when Joey, Kane, Kenny, and Jay graduated last year.

WYCAT wrote:I agree Cat Pride about Kramer and recruiting. In year 5 we should not need this many JC transfers of which 1/2 probably pay off let alone to the level Junior did. We also don't seem to have built the depth I had hoped for. I know at I-AA that is harder with the limited number of scholarships but we are very thin at a number of positions - O line and secondary come to mind. It shouldn't have been a surprise to Kramer when Joey, Kane, Kenny, and Jay graduated last year.

So, exactly how would you guys fix the problem? Regarding UM thumping MSU in the in-state recruiting... duh! Shouldn't have to point out that their success has been building a huge, extremely loyal fan-base for the past 15 years or so. Sure, we have some talented kids that come from Bobcat families and we get some of those, and it's getting better, but you're simply not gonna go in and get a kid to come to MSU if he's a Griz fan. To say Kramer is a poor recruiter is pretty dumb IMO. Look at the talent level of some of these guys the past couple years. Don't forget, we've have the best defense in the Big Sky for the past 3 years... better than the Griz with all their recruited talent! Also, look at them now. They're playing too many young guys and it's been exposed. They have one of the worst defenses out there right now. I'm sure it will improve, but it's looking like maybe they should have grabbed some JC help there...

I wasn't speaking to the in-state recruiting issue rather our need to constantly fill holes with JC talent. I agree the in state recruiting wars have gotten a lot closer lately. I just don't see Kramer filling needs far enough in the future so we aren't down to burning a red shirt year all the time. I have never thought we have to have as many kids from Montana on the roster as possible. I would rather win with talent from wherever than win the in-state recruiting war.

As much as I'd love to have MT kids playing for MSU, and MT kids only, I know that the numbers just arent there to do that. Plus with UM out there, the numbers get even smaller. catatac makes a good point that MSU cant just go out there and win kids over versus UM. But I do think we are making headway in that area.

I personally dont care where the kids come from, but I'd rather see high school kids given a shot than see us turn to JCs. Take one season in the shorts, and build for the future. We did that in Kramers first year, and look what it panned out to be. Cats built a defense that is top notch by going the freshman route with Ioane, Thomas, Cooper, Montoya, Sebastian, Clark, Cordiero.....Yet on offense, we brought in JC after JC after JC.

Kramer a good recruiter....I strongly disagree. Look at Nick Marudus' class. How many high school kids are left on roster from that class - ONE, NICK! That is rediculous! The next years after that, the turnover is still too high. I know that some kids just dont adjust to college life, some get homesick, some dont pan out and lose scholarships. In my opinion, if you are a good recruiter, you are able to sift through those types of kids. If MSU is still at the stage where we have to take gambles on these kinds of kids....then it exactly proves my point that Kramer is not a good recruiter and hasnt built a quality program with depth yet!

5 years Coach....where's the next wave of talent? WYCAT hit the nail right on the head. Since Kramer came in, he knew Joey, Kane, Montoya, Swaggert, Jr. Adams, Turnquist, Ryan Johnson, etc. were going to graduate. Why are we still plugging in JCs to fill these positions? The defensive side of the ball is the only aspect of this football team which has continually built depth through the years. Kudos to you Coach Kwiatkowski! There is no coinicidence as to why the defense is the strength of this team, and the best in conference 3 years running!

Kramer is fighting an uphill battle trying to keep good athletes eligible. He hates to invest the Athletic department's good money in kids that will be there for a year, get all the valuable coaching time, and flunk out. God knows it happens enough as it is! It appears that he looks for kids who maybe aren't the most sought after out of highschool or JC but have the will to succeed and work. These are the backbone of the team. Case in point Ray Sebestian who had a scholarship, flunked out, came back as a non-scholarship player and earned it back. They are few and far between...that's why we are a little thin in depth. The way he gets the speed he needs on Defense is changing HS CB's to Safeties, Safeties to LB's, LB's to DE's and DE's to tackles.

He has to take his chances offering scholarships to speed guys (CB's WR's, RB's) because they really can't be had in any quantity in state, and usually are recruited pretty heavily by others. QB's are a shot in the dark that they will develop. Once in a while you get a Travis Lulay.

This whole plan is complicated by academics, especially at MSU. did anyone ever notice we have historically the highest incidence of high grades in the conference for those who stay in school...probably because we have a large turnover from kids who just don't make grades. It makes our graduation rate suffer, but our GPA looks good!

I would venture to bet that we never use all of the scholarship money normally allocated to a 1-AA institution by design. I have nothing to base this on in fact, but Kramer always has a scholarship for a D-1 transfer available at any time. Anytime he can have enough players to field a team and still have 4 or 5 scholarships available he figures he's saved the school around $50,000. I wonder if the friz use all of their scholarships?