I'll go ahead and recap this one while the wounds are still relatively fresh, let's get to it. To sum up, that was a huge L.
- First, things way first: thanks to all the people who commented along. I thought it was going to take me a while to find anybody willing to comment along during games, but we've already found a solid core of people for the comments section, and since numbers talk, wow, 339 comments. Not bad.
- a good thing: we played like gangbusters for the first half. I mean, yeah, it was only 7-0, but our defense looked great, and on one drive, our offense moved the ball pretty well.
- And all things told, our run defense looked superb. 2.8 yards per carry for MSU, and this coming from a unit who couldn't tackle anyone, let alone Big Ten running backs, less than a month ago. Adam Hahn has worked wonders since he replaced Marshall Thomas as a starting DT. Great work on the early goal line stand, and throughout the game - even as the clock started ticking down and things started going MSU's way - our run defense was stout. Unfortunately they were passing the ball pretty effortlessly in the second half, so that's a downside.
- Commenter Purple Flag on Saturday suggests a drinking game, tentatively called "Dink-and-Drunk", which consists of drinking every time the announcers say that NU's offense is "dinking-and-dunking" or any variation on that. I would support that game, but if you played that with a shot a phrase today, you would've consumed enough alcohol to kill an adult horse.
- Now, negatives: I have no idea why there are such crazy week-to-week variations in what this team is good at and what they're not, but, uh, this team couldn't stop anything through the air. We could hand MSU 3rd-and-25 and they'd convert a 24 yard pass to Blair White and he'd get 4 yards after the catch. The dude had 186 yards, and two TD's. ErrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRR? Our pass defense was anemic today. Brian Peters actually played excellently today, making great tackles and bringing someone down in the backfield almost every time he blitzed, and Jared Carpenter didn't do anything explicitly bad, save getting dragged Larry Caper for about four yards, but let's be real: when two of the best players on our defense in Brendan Smith and Brad Phillips aren't playing for most of the game, it's bad news. (not to even mention Corey.) I didn't see Peters or Carpenter miss any plays, but when half of your secondary is out, it bodes poorly for your pass defense.
- To be plain and simple, Dan Persa as the spell QB just doesn't make sense. Just sayin'.
- Something I fully understand is that practically everything college football players are expected to do is extraordinarly difficult. I tried to be the center for my IM football team, but turns out I snapped it over the QB's head about 20 percent of the time, and when it got cold, I couldn't grip the ball very well and I could barely get it to the quarterback, not to mention the fact that I was so focused on snapping it that I completely whiffed on blocking my guy half the time. Catching kicks and punts is one of these things that is very difficult. The ball is falling from like, 50-100 feet in the air, coming down end over end most of the time, and you have to be focused not only on catching it but what you're going to do as soon as you catch it, where your blockers are, where defenders are, and since the field is relatively wide, you have to run to catch the ball a lot, and also, you have to fair catch signal about three seconds before you catch it on a lot of punts. But the fact that we dropped two kicks today, and one of them cost us seven points - I mean, we woulda been down three when we had the ball driving late if it wasn't for that dropped kick, think about it - it's absolutely inexcusable. Finding out who on your team is the best guy on your team at catching kicks is one of the easier things to do: you get a jug machine, point it up, and let some guys try it out. The one who is the best at catching it and fastest should get the gig. Now, I understand there are injuries and all, but if there's not five guys on the squad who can routinely catch punts without dropping them, first, practice until that never ever happens again, and if you still don't have five guys, well, you're doing something wrong in recruiting. Rant over. (and I understand that I could never be a football coach and therefore have no right to say any of this stuff, but, coddamn that was annoying.)
- Demos is killing us on punts. He's a great placekicker besides the one shank vs. Syracuse, but, man, he's murdering us on field position.
- Drake Dunsmore, you are no longer the best I've ever had.
- Hey, the real Kafka was back. 290 yards, 2 touchdowns, no picks. If only the guy could hit a receiver more than 11 yards down field. Still, pretty much all you can ask for from Mike today. And, no, we should never run. Ever. Unless it's a scramble from Kafka, which he seems a little anxious to do, and when he does, he probably should go down a little bit more easily instead of ramming himself into defenders, because that's like buying a business class ticket on a flight to concussionville, and a concussed Mike Kafka is way worse than a normal one.
- So here's the season: we win next week, we beat Illinois, and praying Illinois beats Indy tonight, I say we have a pretty decent shot at, oh crap, the Motor City Bowl. But it's better than nothing, ain't it? If we can throw in another win in there - looking decidedly less likely right now with the other three games being Wisco, PSU, and Iowa, we're most definitely bowl bound. So don't give up yet. To quote the guy who nearly bit off Jeravin Matthews' head today, we need to flush it and move on.