The Kansas Loss: What Happened--Reviewing The Film (Powered By WePlayed)

It's been almost a week now and the sting of Friday's loss against Kansas has not subsided. Everyone has talked, and blamed various positions or coaches for the loss. To help better understand what happened, I went over to WePlayed and rewatched the game. If you have a chance, go over and watch the highlights I created from the game. I l broke down some of the big plays, and tried to analyze what went wrong.

But here are the big overarching themes I noticed in the game:

* Kansas came out originally in a power set the first two drives, this led to a Carter Stanley interception and a punt. After that they went to a spread, thinning out BC's defense and the Eagles had no answer. By thinning out BC's defense it made it easy for Khalil Herbert and Pooka Williams to find space, and their skill sets took over when they saw the open field.

* There were missed opportunities on the offensive side of the ball as well. On the second drive of the game, after the Stanley INT, the Eagles attempted two passes, one was dropped by Zay Flowers and the others went through CJ Lewis's arm. Further on in the game, there were missed blocks by tight ends, running backs, and the offensive line played subpar and really lost any sort of push they had in the second half. While Anthony Brown certainly slid at the end, the play of those around him did him no favors.

* The biggest story of the game had to be the blown assignments, and watching the film the biggest culprits were the linebackers. On at least three of Kansas's big runs, BC linebackers were in the wrong gaps, leaving huge holes that let Khalil Herbert and Pooka Williams get incredible amounts of open field. Having good to elite defensive line players could have covered that but...

*The defensive line really struggled. Kansas's offensive line pushed them around for most of the game. Another reason Kansas's running game was so effective was that the OL was able to quickly create holes in the defensive line, and then move on to the second level and demolish the linebackers. This could be a major problem moving forward, and one that may be difficult to fix because it is more of a problem of talent than scheme. Secondly, they had no pass rush, basically the entire game. There were probably only a few blitzes and they never got home, meaning that Carter Stanley had a clean pocket and could sit back and easily make his reads.

* In terms of coaching issues, the ability to adjust to what Kansas was doing was non-existent. The biggest issue was that Kansas was able to find space past the defensive line, and BC never adjusted to a four linebacker set, or push the safeties up closer to help battle this. Instead if you watch the film there were downs where they had two linebackers in, and an additional defensive back but who was pushed back for the zone, with the linebackers to the right and left, with just one backer in the middle. If he got beat, it was off to the races for the back. I was just shocked watching this that the coaching staff didn't see this too.

* The secondary played a soft zone, which honestly wouldn't have been so bad if they could have closed on the wide receivers to make tackles or to disrupt plays. The DBs always seemed to be a step behind which led to missed tackles with huge yards after the catches, or just getting beat. The tackling itself was sloppy.

*Mental errors just killed BC. Between the presnap penalties, roughing the kickers, missing blocks. They have to clean this up quickly.

Addazio apparently saw a lot of these issues as well:

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