The Bulldogs fell to the Holy Cross Crusaders on Saturday 14-38 in a disappointing opener for Team 149. Yale started the game strongly with a perfect 19-yard pass from Grooms to Tipton while the defense forced Holy Cross to punt on its opening series. Mental mistakes, poor conditioning and lackluster play calling ultimately caught up with the Bulldogs as the Crusaders grew the lead to 38-7 before rotating in substitutes.
Alston’s absence at running back was a surprising development that proved to be a critical blow to Grooms’ success in the running game. Grooms averaged 4.1 yards per carry, but outside of a 22-yard run, was largely ineffective on the ground as the Crusaders had multiple defenders keying on him. McElwain earned the start at running back, yet freshman Josh Pitsenberger had the best outing with 50 rushing yards on 9 carries. The offensive line featuring Gargiulo at Center, Karhu and Schuller at guards, and Mendoza and Amegadijie at tackles had an up-and-down day. The line created some nice holes for Pitsenberger and Denney while occasionally providing a clean pocket. Snapping issues between Gargiulo and Grooms will need to be ironed out in a hurry. Grooms never seemed comfortable in the pocket often bailing prematurely to try to make a play with his feet. The receivers were not able to shine with Grooms staring down targets, forcing balls into double coverage and throwing errant passes. The tight ends will need to be utilized much more moving forward as Hawes did not record a catch and Yates hauled in one pass for 6 yards. The play calling never helped Grooms establish rhythm with series after series stalling out.
The performance on defense also left much to be desired. The vaunted defensive line of Patterson, Raine, Oso and Nickerson needed to dominate to give our defense a chance in this contest and fell short of expectations. The starting linebacker corps of Pope, Moore and Abraham struggled to fill holes in the running game and offered little support in the passing game. Cornerback Wande Owens had more tackles than all three starting linebackers combined. In fact, the top three tacklers were all defensive backs, a very troubling statistic on defense. Coverage lapses in the secondary were all too commonplace with Holy Cross’ receivers streaking past Yale defensive backs. Sluka finished the day with an 80% completion percentage and rarely faced much resistance from our secondary. Tackling was downright abysmal with arm tackles and poor angles allowing a small gain to turn into a backbreaker.
Bosman missed a 27-yard field goal but was decent in the punting game with an average of 43 yards.
One of the larger disappointments of the afternoon was Yale’s conditioning. Holy Cross clearly had the edge in this department simply from playing in two contests, yet it’s hard to recall a game in which our players appeared so physically unprepared. The lack of conditioning and early season injuries (in addition to several expected contributors disappearing from the roster) should force Reno to take a hard look at the strength and conditioning program.
The Bulldogs hit the road once again this weekend to face Cornell in Ithaca. Stay tuned for our preview to come.
10 replies on “Holy Cross Notes”
What happened to Alston. ? Why was he absent.?
How many left the team that were being counted on . More than 6 , something is rotten in Denmark.
6 new coaches, and the DB’s look lost. Linebackers are getting trampled. Come on man.!!
Yes, the conditioning is lousy, and it’s really too late to recover what should have been taken care of in the summer by the likes of Bear Bryant and his ilk. All of the videos we see seem to emphasize the fun everyone’s having playing, what the military calls, or at least used to call, “grab ass.”
The offense line never got to the second level to block the LB from holy cross for the running game terrible coaching on yale. Play calling was pee wee football creativity is needed on offense. Not talking about defensive they have there own problems seems the players have lost there will to fight for this coach time will tell . Next sat will tell a lot about this team they better show up to play Yale needs a new OB give someone else a chance,
YALE COMMIT :
.
CHRISTOPHER WHITE, DB, 6 ‘ 180, LBS. LINCOLN H.S., SAN DIEGO, CA.
After a few players ended up in the hospital during last season’s fall camp (over) conditioning maybe there was some hesitation going in to this season? You would hope a school that has a top-10 medical school could figure that out.
That’s disconcerting. Someone on this blog had mentioned that it seemed like Yale was using the Holy Cross game like a preseason scrimmage.
If true, that doesn’t speak well for the coaching. You don’t see Harvard or Dartmouth look unready for the season in game one.
That said, it’s still only one game. We need to see a little more preparation and intensity on the next couple of games.
How good is Tutas? Could he inject a little energy into the offense?
His mechanics looked a lot better, Grooms was rattled on Saturday. That was a good defense that he faced. Throwing off balance, he was rarely squared up to have a good throw. Tutus , looked a lot better fundamentally.
So is Alston hurt or did he quit.? McKenzie, De St. John, Twyford, Tate Goodwin all people thatbYale could have used
Alston is hurt and out for the season. McKenzie is no longer with the team – or at Yale from what I heard. Not sure about the others.
Sigh , Thank you Yalefan