Keys to Victory

• Dial up the heat

We might be fortunate enough to see Maine’s backup QB and we need to find a way to bring pressure on passing downs to disrupt his rhythm.  Blitzes must be effective though as leaving our young secondary exposed will get us beat by the Black Bears’ talented wideouts.  Utilizing line stunts and finding favorable matchups for Moore, Kissel, Roman, Sampleton, Callender and Nickerson will be crucial this week.

• Attack the Maine defense vertically

The only glaring weakness on the Maine defense is the secondary.  Rawlings (or Conte) won’t have much time to throw the ball, but must stay strong in the pocket just long enough to deliver a strike to Shohfi or Klubnik.  Maine has slowed every opponent’s rushing attack thus far, so we won’t be able to stay in the game simply handing it off to Alston every play.

• Limit the big plays on defense

Plays that would have gone for twenty yards last year are now long touchdowns this season due to poor tackling, lack of pursuit and atrocious angles.  We mentioned last week how Rodney Thomas’ bad angles led to long Cornell scoring plays.  The blame can’t be placed on him though as no other defenders were in pursuit and several others had already missed the ball carrier.  We have to get better this week at wrapping up and hustling to the ball.  It’s going to be a long season with a lot of missed opportunities if we can’t grasp the basics.

Above all, we need to stay healthy, compete and use this game as a chance to improve before the brutal Ivy schedule.  Princeton has been dominant, Harvard won’t be a pushover and Dartmouth looks even better than they did a year ago.