Ragin' Dave' USA breakdown
So here we are, the two best records in the SBC West, USA is 3-0 and UL is 3-1 and they have gotten here two different ways. USA is undefeated in beating the breaks off a struggling USM team, beating a peer conference team in Bowling Green and really struggling against FCS SWAC team in Alcorn State, then we know how the Cajuns got to 3-1. USA has showed to be a really good defensive team early in the season, what I don't know is, is that because they have played bad offensive teams or are they that good. Offensively they have shown a few good things, but have not been great.
QB—Jake Bentley is a transfer who is on his 3rd team. He started his career at South Carolina, transferred to Utah and now is at USA. He is a senior grad transfer from Alabama, so he is back home. He is a good one, he played quite a bit for both USC and Utah and has put up some pretty impressive numbers at USA so far. He has completed about 65% of his passes and only thrown 1 INT so far. What is interesting is he is only averaging 228 yards per game and only thrown 2 TD’s and both of those were vs USM. He is not a guy who will beat you with his legs, he is a pocket passer, but a good one. Behind him is Desmond Trotter who was the suspected starter until Bentley transferred in and Trotter has allot of experience as a Sophomore.
RB—They have a 2 headed attack, with option #1 being a transfer from Mississippi State, Kareem Walker. #2 is Terrion Avery, neither of these guys have put up great numbers so far this season. Walker was expected to be the main guy and pretty much has been. He has 53 carries for 208 yards and 4 TD’s while Avery has 35 carries for 115 yards and 1 TD, neither guy is averaging over 4 yards a carry for the Jaguars. And while they both do have 4 catches each, it is only for a total of 18 yards combined, so they are not real threats out of the backfield either.
WR/TE—But where they are good is at WR. Their #1 and #2 guys are good, with #1 being possibly the best receiver in the conference. And while his numbers have been pretty good this season, they have not been Jalen Tolbert like, especially in getting into the end zone. Tolbert is a stud, he has 14 catches for 317 yards and no TD’s and #2 is Caullin Lacy, who also has 14 receptions but for only 133 yards and no TD’s. Jalen Wayne also has 10 catches. Tolbert is big at 6’3 and Wayne is 6’2, but Lacy is their speed guy and a much smaller receiver at 5’10. Lincoln Sefcik is their main guy at TE, but he only has 6 catches on the season through 3 games.
OL—This team has 5 Grad transfers starting on the offense including 3 on the OL. Bentley at QB is one, Walker at RB is another, but they have 3 guys that are playing as GRAD transfers on the OL including Jachai Baker, James Jackson and Antwan Lewis. Jackson is from La Tech and Lewis is from Mississippi State. They also have couple of other transfers and guys on the OL who are new which could be the reason they are struggling a little on offense.
DL—USA utilizes a little of a 3-3-5 defense. Their best player up front is Wy’Kevious Thomas, Thomas plays DT and is 2nd on the team in tackles. He has 12 on the season with 2 TFL and .5 a sack and 1 Forced fumble. The other guy that is a disrupter is Gi’Nouras Johnson, who has only 7 tackles on the season, but has a sack for 6 yards and is a big ole NT and causes a lot of blocking issues up front. Johnson s a transfer from JUCO. Thomas is a redshirt Freshman. The other guy on the line is Charles Coleman, who has a sack as well. They are really young at DL with only 1 Junior and the rest of the players on the 2 deep either Freshman or Sophomores.
LB—At LB they are very good. AJ Deshazor and Jamal Brooks are their best LB’s, but Chris Henderson is not bad either. Deshazor is 3rd on the team in tackles and Brooks is 4th. While Henderson is also in the top 10 in tackles. They also have Quentin Wilfawn and Shawn Jennings in the top 10 in tackles and these guys are backups. They are really talented and deep at LB. On the season they have 11 sacks as a team and 18 TFL and many of these come from the LB corp. This is a strength of their team.
DB—In the DB area they have two really good safeties, including Yam Banks who leads the team in tackles. But one of the other safeties Tre Young is in the top 5 as well. This team has 4 picks on the season and all of them are from the Defensive backfield. Devin Rockette is probably their best CB he is a Senior Transfer from JUCO.
Special Teams—Jack Brooks is their punter, he is averaging 38.9 yards per punt on 18 punts, their FG kicker is really good, he is 4-4 with a long of 48 yards and perfect on XP as well. He is also their kickoff guy and has 7 of his 15 kickoffs for Touchbacks. So we might not see a bunch of returns. Devin Rockette is their Kickoff return guy and is averaging around 22 yards a return and they do not have much on the punt return side as they have used 2 different guys to do so.
USA is averaging 27 points per game on offense and only giving up 15.7 on defense, but some of that is because of who they played. They have allowed a bunch of yards passing against them, but only 55.7 yards per game against the run. They are stout against the run. On the offensive side of the ball they average about 127 yards rushing vs 228 yards passing. They are 8-10 in redone TD’s while 9-10 in Redzone scores. They are also only giving up 33% of redzone TD’s on defense and only 44% overall. While holding opponents to 19% on 3rd down conversions.
Quote
Re: Ragin' Dave' USA breakdown
Originally Posted by RaginDave
