BisonReport Film Review

[99Bison]

I don't think anybody said he's a scrub or that he flat out sucks. The reason you're surprised is because numbers don't tell the whole story. When Stick's off, he's way off. My memory, which may not be accurate, seems to indicate he's way more inconsistent than Brock or Carson. Maybe he hasn't been at 100% at times, I don't know, but I think that's why most people would be surprised at the numbers. He'll need to be better in the title game than he was against JMU last year or SDSU this year, I think we can all agree on that. And I think he will be.

Yep memory is off , winning tends to make that happen. As the stats show you.

Especially for Jensen, there were several times, especially starting second halves where he could not throw at all. Like pitching into the dirt type stuff. Then vigs would call some qb runs to get him “into” the game, then passing would sometimes come around a bit, other times not so much and it became a passing game of screens, etc. Do you remember the first two championship seasons? Where the D had to be so lights out so many times because o couldn’t get going? Or would throw a pick 6 or two in a playoff game? Anyway older memory tends toward the last thing you saw, like domination offense in Jensen senior 2013 season. Also point being, Jensen had times of being way more “off” than Stick and Wentz.

Wentz only played about 1.5 years, had up and down games too. Times when couldn’t move the offense. His bit of recklessness in fumbling, etc was a different kind of “off” that Jensen and so far Stick have been better at avoiding. Heck, his senior year he was what 4-2 as a starter? While Stick ended up 9-0 or something that same year.

Any of these guys playing hurt affects them, it is as certainly obvious in hindsight last year as Stick was on fire the first part of the season throwing it all over the field, then the offense changed to be run based more, he got hurt and we continued to attempt to run and be vanilla the rest of the year.

The Wentz easy example is hurt in EW game and hurt is SD game. Both times had several chances to end the game with the offense and didn’t get it done.

Jensen don’t remember injuries back that far, but it seems he was always “nicked up.”

[Christopher Moen]

Yep memory is off , winning tends to make that happen. As the stats show you.

Especially for Jensen, there were several times, especially starting second halves where he could not throw at all. Like pitching into the dirt type stuff. Then vigs would call some qb runs to get him “into” the game, then passing would sometimes come around a bit, other times not so much and it became a passing game of screens, etc. Do you remember the first two championship seasons? Where the D had to be so lights out so many times because o couldn’t get going? Or would throw a pick 6 or two in a playoff game? Anyway older memory tends toward the last thing you saw, like domination offense in Jensen senior 2013 season. Also point being, Jensen had times of being way more “off” than Stick and Wentz.

Wentz only played about 1.5 years, had up and down games too. Times when couldn’t move the offense. His bit of recklessness in fumbling, etc was a different kind of “off” that Jensen and so far Stick have been better at avoiding. Heck, his senior year he was what 4-2 as a starter? While Stick ended up 9-0 or something that same year.

Any of these guys playing hurt affects them, it is as certainly obvious in hindsight last year as Stick was on fire the first part of the season throwing it all over the field, then the offense changed to be run based more, he got hurt and we continued to attempt to run and be vanilla the rest of the year.

The Wentz easy example is hurt in EW game and hurt is SD game. Both times had several chances to end the game with the offense and didn’t get it done.

Jensen don’t remember injuries back that far, but it seems he was always “nicked up.”

EW, or did you mean Montana? Also have to remember that he hurt his ankle against SDSU when it got twisted (I think) while trying to run out of bounds and played "not-so-great" the next week against UNI.

[99Bison]

EW, or did you mean Montana? Also have to remember that he hurt his ankle against SDSU when it got twisted (I think) while trying to run out of bounds and played "not-so-great" the next week against UNI.

Yep Montana, darn memory thing [emoji16]

[RossUglem]

Here's Sam Houston State.

[Professor Chaos]

Here's Sam Houston State.

Great work Ross! It really is encouraging to see the kind of throws Stick is making. He's come such a long ways from that 3 game stretch of WIU, UNI, and SDSU earlier in the season where he had 7 INTs. He's so much more than just a game manager. I'm trying to temper my enthusiasm a bit for Frisco because I know JMU's pass defense is better than anything he's seen since last year against JMU but I'm thinking he's going to surprise some folks down there after they saw what JMU reduced Christion to.

[tony]

Easton Stick has had some of the greatest games in the history of Bison QBs. Against SHSU, his incomplete passes were almost all perfect - it's just that NDSU WRs don't sell PI as much as other teams. (and, hey, I'm looking at Ross's breakdown and he agrees - so I must be right or, at least, less wrong than usual.)

[Bison"FANatic"]

So with JMU having very good cover corners and that will make it hard to pass on them. It seems that we will some how have to get our receivers to get some separation. I do watch a lot of football and it seems that one thing we don't do as much as others is use picks or rubs or traffic to get our receivers open as much as other teams do with good success. We seem to do it with the back out of the back field but do we do it much with WR's and TE's or is that a wrinkle we may see a bit more of come 1-6?

[EC8CH]

Easton Stick has had some of the greatest games in the history of Bison QBs. Against SHSU, his incomplete passes were almost all perfect - it's just that NDSU WRs don't sell PI as much as other teams. (and, hey, I'm looking at Ross's breakdown and he agrees - so I must be right or, at least, less wrong than usual.)

Agreed, Stick might have had his best passing game against SHSU. It's easy to get lost in the blowout win and the incompletions (PI), but he was on point that game making some great throws.

[tony]

Agreed, Stick might have had his best passing game against SHSU. It's easy to get lost in the blowout win and the incompletions (PI), but he was on point that game making some great throws.

Hard to top Wofford which I think was the best QB performance I've seen in NDSU playoff history.

Fun facts about Easton:
- His lowest pass efficiency rating of the playoffs was 204. The FCS season leader is at 177 (and he played in the Southland)
- He has the second-highest passer rating in the FCS right now.

Now, of course, JMU's defense is on a completely different level than any NDSU has faced this year so it's going to take an amazing effort by the whole team and coaching staff to get anywhere near a Pass Eff of 200 but if anybody in the FCS can do it, Easton can.

[KNOW IT ALL]

The past few games Stick's throws have been very sharp, with velocity. Starting to see the tight ends getting some looks now as well, not sure what the deal was earlier in the year. If Stick is as sharp as he has been of late against JMU we may have another title. Look for Stick to run the ball a lot more as well. It's win or go home in this one and Stick is as good as it gets running the ball out of the shotgun. This game is going to be a slug-fest.