WKU Football: Grading WKU’s 31–17 Win Over EKU
A season opening win is in the books. Let’s explore how the team did in the battle of the Bluegrass.
Lucky Jackson, A
Heading into the season, one of the Hilltoppers biggest question marks was who would replace Taywan Taylor as the go-to receiving option for Mike White? On Saturday, Jackson answered that question emphatically. The sophomore from Lexington hauled in five catches for 144 yards, easily leading all receivers in both categories. The highlight of the day was this 66 yard touchdown catch.
Let’s hope that Saturday was just the start of a huge season for Jackson and that we’ll get to see more of those highlights moving forward.
Mike White, B
White was at his steady best on Saturday, despite some conservative play calling. He went 20–for-31 trhough the air for 261 yards and that touchdown to Jackson. It was encouraging to see him lead WKU on multiple long, sustained drives over the course of the day. He wasn’t perfect but sacks and dropped passes ruined several opportunities to widen the margin of the game. During a very imperfect day from the Tops, White’s performance at least shows that he shouldn’t miss a beat this season.
Mike Sanford, C
Anytime a coach starts off his coaching career with a win is cause for celebration, but the Tops performance left a lot to be desired yesterday. Despite his pedigree, Sanford hadn’t been the man in charge prior to yesterday. That inexperience showed a few times; WKU lacked in several execution areas. The line play on both sides of the ball was suspect and the coaching staff allowed EKU to outscore them in the second half because of poor in-game adjustments (see: Roger Cray).
I do think that Sanford held a lot back for the Illinois game. The Tops only went deep a handful of times and the overall game plan was very vanilla. Two encouraging stats that show he could have been holding back was the fact that Sanford went 3-for-3 on redzone possessions and 3-for-3 on fourth down conversions. That shows when they had to convert, he was more than willing to elevate the play calling and complete drives when everything was on the line. Let’s hope he left a lot of tools in the tool chest that he will use over the next two crucial games.
Roger Cray, D
When De’Andre Simmons tore his ACL a few weeks ago, fans probably didn’t realize how important he was to the Tops defensive backfield. Cray, along with junior Deandre Ferris, were tabbed as Simmons replacements. Cray is a true freshman from Florida and that inexperience showed in the second half. Cray got picked on by senior EKU receiver Ryan Markush in the second half, giving up both touchdown passes to him and a 50 yard bomb that changed the Colonels momentum early in the third quarter. The coaches are still high on Cray and he did finish with four tackles and a pass break up. Hopefully he can put this poor performance behind him and elevate his play through experience.
Defense, C
The Colonels were a dumpster fire last year on offense but were much more effective yesterday and the Hilltopper defense played a part in that. Clayton White’s unit did have some positives, including holding the Colonels to just 25 rushing yards in total and a first half shutout. The second half was a different story; the Colonels executed their ball control offense and Tim Boyle came alive as the Tops defensive backfield kept giving up yards in the air (320).
There were several factors that need to improve in order to slow down a much more capable Illinois offense this week. First, the Tops have to improve their pass rush. Yesterday they finished with just one sack and four tackles for a loss. It’s going to be hard to be dominant on defense if those numbers don’t improve because they won’t leave much margin for error. The second factor is the fact that the Tops didn’t force a single turnover yesterday. That also kept them on the field longer and played into EKU’s ball control gameplan. Let’s hope once again both of these problems were a result of a vanilla gameplan and not a sign of things to come.
As poor as the second half went, it still was only 17 points and they were playing with a lead the whole time. If the Tops can improve on pass rush and turnovers then they can be the top flight defense we all thought possible this season.
Overall Grade, C
There were a lot of positives and negatives to takeaway from Saturday. After years of watching Brohm’s teams dominate inferior competition it was a little jarring to see WKU struggle to put away a team they were favored by 36 points over. The Tops did show just enough to believe they were holding back stuff for their crucial road trip next week. A win there and all of these first week kinks will be forgiven.
What say you? What would you grade yesterday’s performance in terms of individuals or overall? Were we too harsh on anyone? Let us know in a comment below, via Twitter at @TheTowelRackWKU or on our Facebook page.
