re: Mettenberger is improving

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No he isn't. Pocket awareness is horrible and Alabama will kill him if he doesn't improve in 2 weeks

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This!! Pocket awareness is sub-par. This mass protection junk with 2 man routs doesn't help though. Especially when they're running the same rout. Plays with two man routs. I've even seen us run plays with a one man option. That's high school stuff. You have time to have for a 5 step drop or playaction, granted there's no heavy blitz, if you get the ball out of your hand. Mettenberger struggles gettin the ball out, but is it bc of simple play calling and no options?

He has improved

Our receivers could create more separation if they didn't run such lazy routes. They tend to round corners rather than cutting hard which is where much of your separation should come. None of them are big/strong enough to just go up and consistently win battles for the ball. The best way to offset that deficiency is by running crisp routes.

The reason we threw the ball deep so many times was because A&M played the majority of the game with no safeties playing deep. Our best separation was coming when the receivers just ran by corners. It was actually smart play-calling for once, but Mett just couldn't connect. With no safety playing deep, he would have been more successful by putting more air under the ball and letting the receivers run under it. Instead, he tried to throw it perfectly as if there was tighter coverage making it more difficult on himself and resulting in overthrows.