ND Football 2010: A Year in Review

It’s been a while since I’ve have taken the time to sit down and write about ND Football.  My life has been a whirlwind with work and my free time has been spent doing other things not blog related.  When I sit down to write here, I like things to be well thought out and not horribly rushed just for the sake of getting something out there (besides, that’s what my Twitter feed is for).  So, if you are wondering why this space has been stagnant for so long, there you have it.

Anyways, now that I actually have the some free time and plenty of thoughts together for a post, it’s time to take a look at the 2010 Notre Dame football season (a will do an in-depth statistical analysis in the future).  Obviously, Brian Kelly’s first season with the Irish will be considered a success with a winning record, defeating USC, and taking down Miami in the Sun Bowl.  This of course happening in a season in which Kelly saw his starting quarterback, running back, and tight end go down, but was also faced with off-the-field issues: the tragic death of Declan Sullivan and a media blitzkrieg concerning the Lizzy Seeburg case (and talking about that would be another post in itself).

This season had every opportunity to be a complete disaster and yet it wasn’t.  Coach Kelly kept the Irish focused, and most importantly, improving throughout the season.

To me, 2010 is the story of two separate seasons with the Navy game splitting the two apart.  Prior to Navy, the Irish, for the most part, beat the teams that they should have beaten.  Losing to Stanford wasn’t too big of a shock, but losing to Michigan and Michigan State in the fashion that we did was simply gut wrenching (giving up a last minute TD drive and giving up a TD to a fake field goal).  However, losing to Navy seemed to be an example of how bad we were, especially on defense.

Navy was by no means an awful team, but that game looked like a scout team attempting to hang with the first stringers.  As Herbstreit put it, ND had a “high school defense” and after that kind of performance, it was hard to argue.  It was a sickening loss.  Hell, it’s still sickening to think about how soundly we were beaten on every side of the ball during that game.

I was wondering how ND would respond against Tulsa, especially with the death of Declan still very fresh on everyone’s mind.  Then Dayne Crist went down and my stomach turned.  I remembered how poorly our backup QBs fared against Michigan and considering how quickly Rees was yanked, I was positive that our season would quickly fall apart under a QB with no confidence.

Rees, thankfully, proved me wrong and not only kept the Irish in the game, but placed them in a spot to win.  Unfortunately, Kelly made the call to go for the jugular instead of playing safe for a game winning field goal and it completely backfired.  Kelly was unphased and I wondered how he wasn’t in complete panic mode like I was and the rest of the ND fanbase.  With #5 ranked Utah about to come in, I was expecting the worse.

Instead, the Irish came out and soundly destroyed Utah 28-3.  Our “high school” defense completely shut down one of the best offenses in the nation and Rees looked like a QB in total control.  ND continued the momentum against Army, holding them to only 3 points as well.  I actually felt like we had a slight chance to beat USC if we could keep playing this well, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

Against USC though, the Irish finally surrendered a TD…a 3 yard, 4 down drive.  It couldn’t have happened at a worse time too as it allowed USC to tie the game up 13-13 late in the third quarter.  The Irish offense continued to struggle and USC took the lead with a 4th quarter field goal.  With 6:18 left to play, the Irish put together a 7 play 77 yard drive, primarily through the legs of Cierre Wood and Robert Hughes to put the Irish ahead 20-16.  However, there was still 2:16 left, and I had seen this movie before.  After an unreal drop by USC that would have easily been the winning TD, Harrison Smith intercepted Mitch Mustain to finally thrust the dagger into USC, sending ND Nation into pure bliss.

Then of course you have the Sun Bowl in which Notre Dame made Miami look absolutely ridiculous as they cruised to a 33-17 in a game that was basically over in the first half.

This ending run was unlike any recent Irish “return(s) to glory”, which were all capped off with either a late November meltdown or bowl ass-kicking at the hands of a much better opponent.  This time around, Notre Dame ended on a high note, winning their last 4 games, taking down a ranked team and a hated rival in the process. Even better, the Irish closed out football games as they should.  Previous Irish teams would’ve folded against USC (much like this 2010 squad did against Michigan), would have let the slow (and scary) start to the Army game last for an entire half, and would’ve let the late Miami resurgence become a serious issue.  None of those happened this time around.

Not only that, but players on the defensive side of the ball started to step up in big ways.  In particular, Brian Smith and Harrison Smith stand out to me.  We’ve been waiting years for these guys to step up and late this season they did.  Harrison Smith has even done so to the point in which several Irish fans, myself included, would love to see him come back for a fifth year.  Whatever defensive adjustments Diaco made post-Navy paid off.  Clearly something has clicked with this coaching staff, our team, and our previously underachieving upperclassmen.  You can’t help but be thrilled by that.

Brain Kelly’s reputation of being able to switch QBs at will also held true to form.  Although the Michigan game scared everyone to death, with a little bit more time, Kelly was able to get true freshmen Tommy Rees ready to fill in for the Irish if needed.  After having his extremely short leash yanked during the Michigan game, I was fully expecting that to be a major blow to Rees’ confidence.  How do you come back from something like that?  Well, ending the year 4-0 as a starter is one hell of a way to do that.

Let that sit in your head for a bit.  4-0 as a starter.  As a true freshmen.  As a backup.  Against ranked Utah.  Against USC.  Against Miami in a bowl game.  Try to find that in ND’s history.

And of course, you had a myriad of other injuries that hit the Irish.  Allen and Rudolph were lost for the season.  T.J. Jones and Theo Riddick spent time sidelined with injuries just to name a few.  Yet the offense still managed to prosper for the most part.  This tells me two things: first, Kelly’s system can definitely work with what we already have in place, and, second, this system is something that the entire roster is able to grasp with relative ease thanks to this coaching staff.

And talk about some serious recruiting power that Kelly now has a hold of.  Rees is now the obvious example, but from just this season alone, Kelly will be able to point to a load of examples of players stepping in and doing so successfully under his system and coaching.

Unlike the start of the Weis era, there are signature wins to build off of instead of disappointing losses.  And unlike Weis, Kelly immediately came under some major fire for his calls on the field as well as issues surrounding the program off the field and handled it all as well as anyone could expect.  There is little doubt in my mind that Kelly is the right man to (re-re-re-re-re-)return this program to glory and I cannot wait to see what next season has in store.

Tragedy

Yesterday’s football practice delivered a crushing blow to the entire Notre Dame family.  Declan Sullivan, a 20 year old junior at the University, fell to his death after a gust of wind toppled the scissor lift he was filming practice from.

There are undoubtedly many questions to be asked: Why was he up there when the lift states it shouldn’t be used in winds above 25 MPH? Why was the team practicing outside when in similar conditions they were indoors?  Why did practice still continue after the lift fell?  Why didn’t Kelly or someone else in charge of the film crew tell him to get down?

The ongoing investigation will reveal the official answers to these questions, it all boils down something that ends up being very hard to explain.  Basically, I’m sure no one thought twice about it, even Declan whom, by his own Twitter and Facebook posts, was admittedly terrified.  Again though, I’m sure no one thought any of those lifts would come crashing down.

Now I’m not looking to absolve anyone from blame because there is no doubt this was avoidable, but there is a culture that few people really understand.  I myself was struck quite hard by this news.  Being a former student manager myself and working alongside other fellow students who were either managers, sports medicine, or the A/V team that filmed the practices, I never thought something like this could happen.  I was a part of this culture myself and I’m sure I have attended practices myself in which the winds gusted over the suggested 25 MPH limit.

As one poster at NDN brilliantly put it, we never thought much about such things (quoting the post since they are flushing the boards more often than a public toilet right now):

I was a student manager for three years at ND so yesterday’s accident hit me pretty hard. All students that assist the team (managers, trainers, film crew, etc.) take their job seriously and want to be the best. We always considered our manager organization the best in the country.

People ask why was he in the lift. Who told him to go up? The reality probably is that no one told him to go up, that was his assigned job for the day and that is what he did. He knew what was expected and he did it. Yes, he was scared but he knew what had to be done.

It hard to explain, but the mangers are not micro-managed by anyone except themselves. We knew what our jobs were and how to do them. The coaches had a job to do and we assisted them without bogging them down in the details. It’s not like someone had to tell the student to go up; he knew his job was to film.

No one probably gave any thought to the lift being up there. It was there up in the air every day for filming. Nothing unusual. It’s not like Kelly or Swarbrick ordered him up there. I am sure he loved what he was doing and wanted to do the best job possible.

I know when I was at practice I wanted nothing more than to make the practice run perfectly. That was my position: get the job done with no one noticing. I am sure that this kid felt the same way.

I know there are thousand more questions to come. I know an adult should have been overseeing the weather. I know someone should have brought him down.

But you see these kids are so committed to their work. That is what makes them special; that is what made him special! It is tough to explain but my heart is broken. He was doing what he loved and paid the ultimate price.

Maybe this is just me being emotional, but for the moment forget the blame game. The student assistants are special kids; may God always keep them in his love.

GOLDBOILER

That post and this whole incident reminded me of an experience I had as a manager during the Weis-era.

Usually during cold weather, practices were held indoors; however, on one particular day, Weis wanted to take advantage of an absolutely blistering cold day outside to toughen the team up.  There was no snow outside, so I’m sure he felt the chance for injury was minimal.  A bit of cold wouldn’t kill his players and besides, it would give them an advantage during a cold home game.  They would be moving to stay warm and when they weren’t, they would have heavy winter parkas available to them.

Everyone else also had these jackets available for use during the practice…well everyone except for the student managers since it was not a part of our issued gear.  So for weather in the teens (and some pretty stiff winds too), we had on our issued sweats and wind-suits covering to try to keep us warm.

It failed quite miserably.

Sure we bitched and complained, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. We had a job to do, so we did it.  The sophomores working under us were even worse off as they were not issued any kind of real cold weather gear.  It was awful, but we were going to fight through it.

A few periods into practice, Weis had enough.

He stopped practice, turned to the head equipment manager for Notre Dame (staff member) and chewed him out for allowing all the managers to freeze.  Weis got an explanation that we didn’t have any issued jackets, but that wasn’t good enough.  Weis demanded that additional jackets be brought out for us and that the sophomores be sent home as a precaution.  A few minutes later, the sophomores were warm in their dorms and I had a nice fluffy parka on for the rest of practice to comfortably continue my job.

Yes, it wasn’t a life or death situation, but, to put it mildly, some of the things that went on during football practice and the managers program could boil down to pure “this is how we do it” stupidity.  Believe me, our group questioned several things that we did, many of them with the same “this is how we do it” answers.  However, we just shrugged our shoulders and went on with things.

Like “Goldboiler” said, we all had pride in our jobs and wanted to help the team and coaches.  I’m sure Declan felt the same.  The team needed film of practice.  The overhead high-angle film is needed to get a good view of things on the field (hell, they even did that for our student manager game too each season) and someone had to control the camera to get it.  I’m sure the last thing on anyone’s mind was that one of those lifts would topple (there are three out there each practice [EDIT: after reading more news, looks like my memory is hazy, there are only two scissor lifts, but also two permanent towers]).

Yes, this was an avoidable tragedy.  Yes, I desperately wish someone would have played the role of Weis to stop things down to slap someone in the face of with the question of “why the hell are we doing this?!”

Mangers, sports medicine, and film crew alike are there to ensure that the coaches only have to worry about their players and their practices.  Unfortunately, this can allow for them to get tunnel-visioned.  I guarantee Kelly wishes like hell he was thinking more about the students in the lifts rather than his team preparing for a possible windy day against Tulsa.  I would wager the person in charge of the filming crew didn’t even think the lifts could be toppled by a gust of wind.

It’s the way we do things.  Nothing like this has ever happened before.

Like I said, I don’t wish to pass the buck or use this all as an excuse; however, I know there are people who want someone to take the blame.  In the end, someone will be held responsible.  I’m sure of it.  My main goal in writing this is to shed some light on the “how can this happen” question.

It’s beyond tragic that a 20 year old kid will have to laid to rest because of this.  My prayers go out to Declan’s family and friends as well the entire Notre Dame family.

As a former manager who has worked alongside students like Declan, I hope for nothing more than for the words “this is how we do things” to forever be erased from the vocabulary of anyone involved with these organizations.  It has taken one life and that is far, far too many.

Why I Can’t Sleep Tonight

It’s time for my only happy postseason memory to be replaced.  That memory was the sole Rangers postseason victory before 2010.  And I didn’t even get to witness it.  I was playing a baseball game myself.  I was eleven.

It’s time to replace that with the memory of watching the game with my dad and girlfriend (a Cubs fan, but she’s forgiven for hating the Yankees).  A few hours of nerves and excitement that I had never felt before in all my time watching sports, culminating in a absolute moment of relief when Kinsler drove the final nail in the coffin and feeling like I was in a dream as I watched Cliff Lee finish his complete game to send the Rangers to the ALCS.

It’s time to be thankful for Nolan Ryan, Chuck Greenburg, John Daniels, Ron Washington, and Mike Maddox.  Whether it was the old-school approach to pitching, buying the team from an awful owner, making fantastic trades, sticking to the course of developing our young talent (and actually holding on to them for once), focusing on defense and base-running, or creating a clubhouse atmosphere unlike any in baseball, none of this happens without them.

It’s time to appreciate just how damned important that zero-hour signing of Justin Smoak was after he was drafted in 2008.  That deadline draft-pick signing turned into a Cliff Lee trade that turned into two of this organization’s biggest wins ever.

It’s time to leave all the awful seasons, awful trades, awful owners, awful contracts, and awful postseason history behind.  And oh my have there been a bunch of all of the above.

It’s time to celebrate as Rangers fans, especially those of us that have stayed with this team through thick and thin: from Nolan Ryan to Chan Ho Park and back again to Cliff Lee.

It’s time to laugh at Sports Illustrated for picking the Rays to sweep the Rangers because that “beast from the AL East” would easily win with their “superior pitching staff”.  That sound you hear is Cliff Lee and C.J. Wilson laughing their asses off.

It’s time to welcome the Yankees into our house for a change.  Where last time they visited, we swept them.  Where Mo Rivera has blown multiple saves.  Where yes, we have still yet to win a single playoff game in our history.

It’s time to change that as well.

It’s time to show the Yankees and the rest of the baseball world that there is nothing more dangerous than a team that has nothing to lose, one playing with house money and a chip on their shoulders.  A team that has just tossed the franchise postseason gorilla off their backs, one that traces back all the way to Washington D.C. when they were the revived Senators.  A team who, previously known only for a huge slugging offense, broke two ALDS pitching records (team strikeouts in a series and Cliff Lee for individual strikeouts), and scored the majority of their runs tonight on nothing more than aggressive and smart base-running.

Stanford: By the Numbers

As always, if you want to play along and see the numbers I’m referencing, you can do that here.

Offense

Let’s the the obvious out of the way: the offense was abysmal.  We didn’t get a TD until the fourth quarter and the game was pretty much over.  We only had five plays in the red zone total.  We couldn’t convert a third down to save our lives as well (4-13, 30.77%).

Just awful.

As far as play calling balance goes, Notre Dame set a season high in pass play percentage at 70.59%.  Unlike the last two weeks in which the Irish were able to squeeze more plays in the fast-paced Kelly offense, the Irish were only able to run 68 plays as opposed to 76 and 81 the two week prior.  The amount of plays is more along the lines of what we ran against Purdue (62) and in that game the Irish had a 53.23% run play percentage.

Granted, we were playing catch up for most of the game; however, we weren’t too far out of reach for well over a half.  And that fact still doesn’t take away the horrifying fact that rushing plays feel for the fourth consecutive week to 20 plays (three weeks prior: 33, 31, and 25).  Even more disheartening was the yards per rush feel again to an abysmal 1.91 for 44 total.

Our rushing attack is on life support and, in this game, we became without a shadow of a doubt a one dimensional team.

Crist’s passing percentage this week was another disappointing effort at only 57.78% which was just slightly lower than last week.  The 73.08% completion rate against Purdue seems like a distant memory right now.

A piss poor rushing attack and a shaky passing game equals disaster.  This is by far the best defense that ND has faced to date, but you would still hope for the numbers to look even just a little bit better than this.

I don’t doubt the potency of this offense.  Crist being a little more accurate alone will do wonders.  A bit of help from the rushing game sure wouldn’t hurt either though.

Defense

I think each time I run the numbers after a game, I continue to be surprised at how well the defense did all things considered.

Stanford scored 17 points off of turnovers.  7 of those, the defense couldn’t do a damned thing about as it came on an INT return by Stanford.  3 came from a Dayne Crist fumble in which Stanford started that drive on the ND 15 and was the only three and out for the defense all game.  The remaining 7 came off the ND failed fourth down conversion and the defense again had a short field as the drive started on the ND 49.

Stanford also had one more drive start in plus position after the failed ND onside kick, which resulted in a field goal.  Toss on those 3 points and you have a grand total of 20 points scored on a defense that was absolutely put into a hole.

Even more sickening is the fact that the Irish defense was able to force two Stanford turnovers from a QB that doesn’t throw picks and the offense got a big ‘ol goose egg in return.  The only points scored off a turnover came from a gift that Stanford’s punt returner coughed up to us at the start of the game.

The defense was far from phenomenal, don’t get me wrong, but again, they probably played well enough to win and kept the Irish in this game for far longer than they should have been.  They gave up 404 yards, which while not great is the least amount of yards given up to an opponent in a loss.

Stanford attacked ND primarily on the ground and kept it there to nurse the lead late, creating a total run percentage of 57.89%.  The defense had their best performance against the run since Purdue giving up only 3.77 yards/carry, which is nearly a full yard improvement from last week against the Spartans.

While all this is a thin silver lining in a horrid loss, there is one spot in which the defense can absolutely not be forgiven and that is on third down.  Stanford converted 11 of their 16 third down attempts (68.75%) which damn near doubles their second “worst” performance in this category which was against Michigan State at 35.29%.

Far too many drives were kept alive longer than they should’ve been.  Considering ND’s offensive woes, I doubt this would’ve changed the game drastically at all; however, this definitely needs to be a one game hiccup that goes away because a third down conversion rate that high is flat out unacceptable.

Um…Maybe This Does Mean Something…

Remember last week how I said ND has lost two games in a row that lasted 3 hours and 37 minutes?  And the only win against Purdue had a game time of 3 hours and 1 minute?

Game time against Stanford: 3 hours 35 minutes.

I’m not saying it’s a trend, but I will say this: if ND can only win games that are around 3 hours, it’s a freakin’ win-win for everyone.

Stanford Aftermath: Time to Look at the Big Picture

Notre Dame football is 1-3.  The sky is now falling.  Knee-jerk reactions on the Kelly regime are flying around.  I’m sure soon I’ll be reading how ND can’t recruit with the rest of college football and doesn’t have the speed to compete as well.  Some people my also be wondering why we can’t have a coach like Harbaugh and a team like Stanford.

Then there are those crazy people like myself who actually take a step back and look at the big picture.  An Irish fan that, while disappointed, is far from ready to hit the panic button.

I’ll do the statistical analysis in another post soon, but as far as my personal reaction to the game, the better team won plain and simple.  Yes, Stanford is far better than Notre Dame right now and anyone shocked by this fact hasn’t been paying attention to college football the past couple of years.  Stanford is a team now ranked #9 in the county, 4th in points for, 12th in points against, 19th in total rushing, and their narrowest margin of victory is 23.  They are good, damn good.

The Irish, however, are not that damned bad.

No, I haven’t lost it.  Let’s just take a look at the Stanford game for a quick second.  Stanford’s narrowest margin of victory is 23 and the team that was against? Notre Dame.  The first defense to make Andrew Luck turn the ball over? Notre Dame.  Before this game, Stanford was #1 in pass defense giving up only 90 yards/game.  After ND: now 11th with their average bumped up to 144.25 yards/game.

Michigan State had to perfectly execute a ballsy fake FG to beat us.  Michigan had a last minute TD drive to defeat us (and a half without our best player).

To sum up the Irish’s current situation, it’s time to channel good ‘ol Dr. Lou: “Things are never as good as they seem and things are never as bad as they seem.”  We don’t have to look that far back into ND’s recent history to prove this fact.

Of course, the Lou Holtz first year comparisons are obvious.  His first year started with consecutive losses against Michigan and Michigan State, a victory against Purude, and a loss to Alabama.  Yep, good ‘ol Lou started 1-3 himself on his way to a 5-6 season and much like Kelly, his initial losses are quite similar as far as margin goes: two one score losses, a solid win, and a multiple score loss.

But wait, what about Bob Davie?! He also started 1-3 AND lost to Stanford the following week!  Well, that Stanford team was also 5-6 that season and his one win to start was 17-13 against a very mediocre Georgia Tech team that finished 7-5 that season.

Great first seasons aren’t exactly a fantastic measuring stick of how well a coach will do during his tenure.  Look no further than Ty Willingham who had a 10-3 first season and Charlie Weis who had not one, but two great seasons at 9-3 and 10-3.  The end result of those three amazing rides though were the same: the Irish were on the wrong side of a bowl game ass-kicking.  Things weren’t as nearly as great as they seemed then.

For those wondering why we can’t be the kind of running, pound-it-down-your-throat team like Stanford and having such a great coach like Harbaugh, I wonder how many of your would’ve liked his first few seasons.  Harbaugh took over a 1-11 team and improved them to only 4-8, which one of those losses coming against the woeful 2007 Irish team that was 3-9.  Of course, he did manage to throw in an crazy upset against USC that I’m sure helped to ease the pain.  His second season wasn’t much better though.  Stanford went 5-7 and USC got their revenge.  Last year though, Stanford turned the corner and went 8-5, which included a USC curb-stomping that I will forever love him for.

Now they are 4-0 and #9 in the nation.

Kelly’s starting situation is not nearly as dire as Harbaugh’s was, but he still has quite a bit to overcome.  The fact of the matter is that he took over a 6-6 team whose two biggest stars decided to leave early and go play football on Sundays.  Dayne Crist’s timetable got bumped up in a hurry and a huge hole was left in the WR corps to start everything off.  Both Willingham and Weis had the luxury of not only having upperclassmen as their starting QBs, but also QBs that had at least a full season of starting under their belts.  Both Holiday and Quinn also had receivers that stepped up for them in big ways during their great runs.

ND may still have Floyd and a damned good TE in Rudolph, but Crist is still very green and there isn’t much that we can do about that.  It’s going to take time for him to get better and not only adjust to Kelly’s new offense, but being a starting college QB in general.  I’m definitely critical of his pocket presence and accuracy (or lack thereof), but take a look at Quinn and Clausen in their first year under the helm and the results were not pretty either.

Add on to that with the fact that Kelly took over a woeful defense that could use another ten Manti T’eos.  There has been some marked improvement, but this has been a recruiting gap for years that is slowly (but hopefully, surely) getting its holes plugged in.

That’s the current reality that this team is in as of right now.  If Crist doesn’t get his head knocked around against Michigan and Calabrese is able to jam his man for a second longer on the fake FG, and we could very well be 3-1 and saying today “damn, we got beat by a good team, that sucks, let’s go get BC next week.”

The season is far from dead. Winning out isn’t very likely, but a chance to improve on last season is definitely well within reach.  Sure, it would be a disappointment to many, but you first have to stop the bleeding before the wound begins to heal.  Make no mistake, this program has been bleeding since 2007 and even an offense headed by Clausen, Tate, Floyd, and Rudolph couldn’t stop it.

When you take a step back and look at the big picture, you have to honestly ask yourself if the current results are really all that surprising.  Sure, we all get swept in by the optimism that a regime change can bring, and we can all be disappointed in the current results that we are seeing, but folks never forget that it could be worse, it could be FAR, FAR worse:

ND/Michigan State Postgame Report

Postgame Thoughts

Since I’m a little bit more behind schedule for posting due to my recent travels, I’m going to combine both my reactions as well as statistical analysis in the same post.  This way, I will hopefully be able to get to a Stanford pregame post within the next couple of days.

Anyways, this was a game that, truthfully, I thought we would lose.  Definitely not in the fashion that we did, but I felt that our rushing defense was still far too unproven to hold up against the rushing attack of Michigan State.  I was right and wrong there.  We did lose, but it wasn’t because of the Spartan rushing attack.

The sad truth is that we are 1-2 and we got there by awful mistakes.  They are mistakes that young teams make.  They are mistakes that teams playing with on-the-road-nerves make.  They are mistakes that teams knowing they have a huge losing monkey on their backs make.

You can take your picks of which mistake you wish to highlight against the Spartans.  It could be ND failing to close yet another game and allowing the Spartans to tie the game up.  You could point to a seemingly disciplined team acting completely out of character and raking up penalties at the worst possible times.  We can blame Dayne Crist being horribly inaccurate for a decent portion of the game.  You can replay the fake field goal ad nauseum, as I did, and sake your head as Carlo Calabrese and Harrison Smith fell all over each other to spring an open receiver.  Hell, we can even wonder what in the hell is wrong with Michael Floyd as he continues to drop and fumble balls uncharacteristically.

My notes are filled with marks in which we could’ve drastically changed the direction of the game.  My notes are also filled with marks in which Michigan State could’ve completely taken us out of the game.

I’m not trying to make excuses for the teams because we could honestly just as easily be 3-0 if we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot; however, the reality is that this team still doesn’t have it together yet.  There are flashes of hope, but we haven’t had the complete game in which we’ve executed, not simply playing hard, but executing for all four quarters.

Every game is getting better in its own way.  Despite Floyd’s issues, he definitely had marked improvement in this game.  I’m still a bit worried about what is going on in his head, but Floyd had moments were he finally looked like the Cannon.  Theo Riddick looked like a WR and a damn good one at that.  If he didn’t get a game ball for his performance, it would be a crime.  His continued improvement will force defenses to respect him and that just means more looks for Floyd and Jones.

On the defensive side, I was floored by our rushing defense.  We still lack the side-to-side speed, but we are no longer getting steamrolled up the middle.  Tackling has definitely improved, and players are not getting caught out of position nearly as often as we’ve seen in the past.  T’eo was a wrecking ball for most of the game, even though he did get burned going for a KO instead of wrapping up behind the line (next play was a Spartan TD as well).  And Gary Gray has to be the best surprise of the year so far on defense.  He was breaking up passes and making tackles in space like crazy.

There are positives.  This situation isn’t as bleak as our record makes things seem.  It sucks all the same, but I’m either numb to heartbreaking losses at this point or I feel like we are close to turning the corner.  God, I hope it’s the later…

Also, my piece on the fake FG:  crying about a delay of game is a fool’s errand in my opinion.  I watched the play several times at full speed and it is really hard to tell that the snap was late.  Second, we were prepped for it.  Calabrese just didn’t fully jam his man and it helped to complete the pick of both him and Smith to fall all over each other.  That’s exactly how that play is drawn up, tip your hat, we got burned.

Next Page: By the Numbers

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