[NU Sports] First half thoughts ...

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

- Woohoo! No blackout. Thank you, DirecTV!:)
However, I should note that the Hawaii announcers and camera crew are
TERRIBLE. A nice job on the islands ... couldn't they find someone better?:)

To the game ...

- Penalty! Penalty! Penalty! And that was just our embarassing attempt at
an opening kickoff! UGH!
- The defense did a heck of a job in the first quarter. Limiting that
offense to nothing past midfield and stopping the first three drives cold
was a great start.
- That said, we should have been up a lot more than 13-0 after the first.
We got a quick seven off the second INT the D gave us (nothing off the
first! UGH!) and three points (and negative yardage) over the "onside"
short kick ... but really only had one good drive and stalled for the field
goal.
- To go along with that - RUN NOAH UP THE FRIGGIN' GUT!!! I appreciate that
we passed on the opening four plays to try and open it up ... but once we
get the run game going (with big gashes up the middle), we stalled by
running to the sidelines ... and after the onside kick, we ran two run
plays to the outside. Hawaii's only defensive edge is speed ... don't play
right into their hands. We had success running up the gut early - DO IT!!!
- But two nice LONG field goals right down the pipe - that's promising!

So 13-0 after the first quarter, but Hawaii's driving and nearing midfield,
finally finding their rhythm. So a good start, but one that could have been
(and should have been) 21-0 or 24-0 and a knockout punch early. To quarter
two ...

- Big defensive stop on third down at midfield to start the quarter by
Roach and Backes. We're getting good pressure up front and some nice,
hard-hitting coverage from our linebackers and DBs.
- Now if the O would only support them! But I guess that since Hawaii and
NU's offenses depend a lot on finding rhythm, there will be a lot of
maddening drives today.
- Little disappointed in the line play so far ... they should be dominating
these guys. But we're getting beat a lot by speed.
- Pickens: STUPID late-hit penalty on Chang. Thankfully, Chang wasn't hurt
... but that could have forced third and long and instead kept a drive
alive. D.U.M.B. Are we trying to top last week's yardage total? A few plays
later, Hawaii finally enters NU territory on a deep pass to the 10 and
their first touchdown. DUMB. The D had been doing such a solid job.
- What should have been a blowout is now 13-7 and anybody's game.
- Nice work on the play-action and Baz rollout calls ... no problem with
our pass plays ... but I really don't see why we keep trying to beat Hawaii
running outside instead of POUNDING THE FRIGGIN' BALL!!!
- Good quick-thinking by Baz on that goal-line fumble to run around to the
side for the TD. We needed that answer drive after Hawaii's offense finally
woke up and scored.
- We needed the Big Ten replay folk on that second Hawaii TD ... he was
clearly out of bounds at the 5 or 4. But as I said earlier, too bad we
couldn't just leave the Big Ten refs at home and go with WAC officials. But
still, another third down play where Hawaii comes up big. Looks like the D
may be wearing out.:(
- ANOTHER interference on a punt? Our special teams play today has been an
embarassment and a disaster aside from Howells' two long field goals.
- Well, we lost our lead. Wake! UP! OFFENSE!!!
- Another penalty on our kickoff return? Sheesh - is this the same crew as
we had last week?
- That last-second drive was a kick to the face. They obviously got Chang
going ... it's about time we get Noah going.
- A sweep to end the first half? Just another example that we're not
getting it on offense. What the heck are we trying to do by playing right
into their strengths?!?!

A disheartening second quarter for the Cats. We did so much right on D in
the first, but the O was so inconsistent that we never took advantage ...
now Hawaii's back and we have a dogfight of a second half coming up, down
28-20.

You can't fault the D at this point ... they gave us ample opportunity to
put this one in the bag early. The stupid late hit probably fired Hawaii up
a bit, but the game should have been out of reach by then anyway. Our
offense has only mounted one sustained drive on this defense ... and even
that stalled out when we tried to run outside. We gotta wake up on offense
in a hurry if we want to stay in this game, because Hawaii's waking up on
offense and while our D has done a good job, they can't hold this passing
game in check forever.

* Cut out the stupid penalties (sadly, last week doesn't appear to be an
abberation ... but the start of a trend after 10 games of doing so well).
* Run Noah up the middle as many times as humanly possible!
* Play smart football and get drives going to disrupt Hawaii's offensive
momentum and get our offense going. The O-line has to come out and play a
heck of a lot better in this second half.

A promising start gone to squat ... Randy's gotta rip 'em a new one at
halftime and get some kind of direction going in this offense. Our line
should be dominating this game. We have to come out and get Noah into this
game to answer Chang. Oh yeah - SOMEBODY COVER OWENS!!!!!!!

UGH! It started so well! WAKE UP CATS!!!
-SjT


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