Portland State Vikings Scouting Report

[bearister]

This game reminds me of NDSU. Griz are underdogs. No one knows what to expect. Chance for the team to silence some of the doubters and make a statement. I see a Griz win.

 

[SaskGriz]

In order to control TOP we still need the long TD passes to Henderson and Jones but we need to take longer running them in. Both of our WR could have slowed down on those wide open runs and used up valuable seconds.

 

[Caseyorourke]

I was listening to interviews with both Coach Barnum and our OC, Steve Cooper. One thing they said that in the UND game, being our second conference game, they both said they felt that Alex hadn't had enough time with the playbook to feel comfortable with the passing scheme, so they elected to go with the run for most of the game. But after that loss, they decided to simplify it for the North Texas game, and we see what happened there.

Plus I was listening to Colter Nuanez during the recent coaches call, and he said IIRC (please correct me if I am wrong) that UND's defensive backfield was pretty banged up and many of their regular starters were out, so there were some younger, more inexperienced underclassmen playing.

in a more recent newspaper article said that Coach Barnum

tossed aside the game plan, spread the field and told Kuresa to take over.

"I asked him to chuck and duck," Barnum said. "They had two weeks to scheme us up, and they were prepared for everything we did out of every formation. We had to do something."

So it became Kuresa's show. He changed plays at the line, evaded a blitzing Cal Poly defense, threw when he had open receivers and ran when he didn't.

"They put me in a position that was new to me at Portland State, but it wasn't new to me in football," Kuresa said. "That's the role I played in high school and at Snow College. I've been in those positions before."

I'm not going to make any predictions about the game, because you guys are always tough opponents. If PSU can keep up with their current level of play, I'm hopeful and I believe they will win. If you guys come out, if you can pardon the expression, loaded for bear, it could go the other way.

Here is the link to the Oregonian article I quoted.

http://www.oregonlive.com/vikings/index.ssf/2015/10/leading_running_throwing_portl.html

 

[kemajic]

Who was it that had the idea of "bipassing" the red zone all together on the way to the end zone? I like that idea. Punch it in from the 38.

http://www.egriz.com/grizboard/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=71833&p=1095444&hilit=appearances#p1095444

That all changed last week with Simis. We'll see if that can continue. This is not the best offense for red zone performance.

 

[bgbigdog]

Explosive plays beat UND, they would beat PSU as well. Minimize theirs, maximize ours.

 

[grizeyes]

This game scares me. PSU has proven that they can win big games with this crew and coach while Montana really has not. The sheer number of question marks around this team from who the starter at QB actually is to which team shows up in Portland. Even Brint, who always finds the bright side of anything is worried. I am decidedly more pessimistic than Brint, and if he is worried...

This. I picked thre wrong week to stop chewing my fingernails.

 

[Yukon]

Key to game in the rain is turnovers. We need to get hands on ball.

yes, 1" of rain expected tomorrow. wow.

 

[AZGrizFan]

Key to game in the rain is turnovers. We need to get hands on ball.

yes, 1" of rain expected tomorrow. wow.

Pssshhhhh.....We got 6" of rain last night at my house between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. this morning. :shock:

 

[albinogriz]

In order to control TOP we still need the long TD passes to Henderson and Jones but we need to take longer running them in. Both of our WR could have slowed down on those wide open runs and used up valuable seconds.

:clap: :clap: :clap: Love it :thumb:

 

[Htowngriz]

This game scares me. PSU has proven that they can win big games with this crew and coach while Montana really has not. The sheer number of question marks around this team from who the starter at QB actually is to which team shows up in Portland. Even Brint, who always finds the bright side of anything is worried. I am decidedly more pessimistic than Brint, and if he is worried...

Was NDSU not a big game?

 

[Yukon]

Key to game in the rain is turnovers. We need to get hands on ball.

yes, 1" of rain expected tomorrow. wow.

Pssshhhhh.....We got 6" of rain last night at my house between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. this morning. :shock:

playing football between 3-8am? that's dedication. were you on turf or grass?

 

[SoldierGriz]

Key to game in the rain is turnovers. We need to get hands on ball.

yes, 1" of rain expected tomorrow. wow.

Pssshhhhh.....We got 6" of rain last night at my house between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. this morning. :shock:

playing football between 3-8am? that's dedication. were you on turf or grass?

:lol: Turf...definitely no grass in south texas....well not grass to play football on anyway.

 

[UMGriz75]

Portland State ran into a brick wall against UND's defense, and was outplayed by UND's offense. Montana has a demonstrably better defense than UND and demonstrated a much better offense against UND than it has displayed in any other game this season, including NDSU.

"If" any of that lends itself to predictability, Coach Stitt sees that he needs to let Makena do the long balls to Ellis, Jamal and Ben, etc. The strategy he resorted to with Brady of lots of short passes (64!) led to not only a loss at home, but throwing the ball into lots of traffic and notwithstanding Brady's superb power, resulted in three interceptions.

The long ball strategy produced a solid win, and reduced the risk of interception. Traffic is minimized, and UND did nothing wrong, it was just that Ellis, et. al. are so good at their positions, that even with UND defenders practically exchanging DNA with Griz receivers, they could not prevent the good catches.

Bruce Barnum does not have defenders equal to UNDs to match our wide receivers. His strategy has to be to "get to Makena," in order to derail what Montana was able to achieve against UND.

 

[Griz!ron]

UND was attempting to get to the QB, thus the need to man-up on the outside receivers. Our O-line did better that past week, with the help of the chip blocks from the H playing out of TE position.

 

[hokeyfine]

The cats have a way of making FCS teams look like the New England Patriots. PSU is not a bad football team but the same UND team the Griz handled last weekend beat this PSU team.

i believe that the starting und qb was out for the griz game and some previous ones. so i don't think it was quite the same team.

 

[mikegriz]

The cats have a way of making FCS teams look like the New England Patriots. PSU is not a bad football team but the same UND team the Griz handled last weekend beat this PSU team.

i believe that the starting und qb was out for the griz game and some previous ones. so i don't think it was quite the same team.

How come we never just beat someone around here?

 

[BWahlberg]

The cats have a way of making FCS teams look like the New England Patriots. PSU is not a bad football team but the same UND team the Griz handled last weekend beat this PSU team.

i believe that the starting und qb was out for the griz game and some previous ones. so i don't think it was quite the same team.

UND had a different QB when the beat PSU - they also had a healthy starting safety that is a good player, #8 - he returned against us but played like crap. I think they also had an experienced starting corner that dropped out of that game.

It seems to me that PSU leaves a lot of injuries in their wake. Not saying they're dirty but many teams after they play PSU are beat to hell.

 

[grzz]

I will say it. Until PSU proves otherwise, they are dirty. They have been for years.

 

[grizindabox]

The cats have a way of making FCS teams look like the New England Patriots. PSU is not a bad football team but the same UND team the Griz handled last weekend beat this PSU team.

i believe that the starting und qb was out for the griz game and some previous ones. so i don't think it was quite the same team.

UND had a different QB when the beat PSU - they also had a healthy starting safety that is a good player, #8 - he returned against us but played like crap. I think they also had an experienced starting corner that dropped out of that game.

It seems to me that PSU leaves a lot of injuries in their wake. Not saying they're dirty but many teams after they play PSU are beat to hell.

Nope...that is exactly what you are saying...

 

[Htowngriz]

The cats have a way of making FCS teams look like the New England Patriots. PSU is not a bad football team but the same UND team the Griz handled last weekend beat this PSU team.

i believe that the starting und qb was out for the griz game and some previous ones. so i don't think it was quite the same team.

UND had a different QB when the beat PSU - they also had a healthy starting safety that is a good player, #8 - he returned against us but played like crap. I think they also had an experienced starting corner that dropped out of that game.

It seems to me that PSU leaves a lot of injuries in their wake. Not saying they're dirty but many teams after they play PSU are beat to hell.

Nope...that is exactly what you are saying...

Did you watch this?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BizmjBn8pA#t=14[/youtube]