[NU Sports] genius or luck?

[John Labbe]

I think the punt in question was with 3:46 remaining in the THIRD quarter.  With that much time remaining, I didn't think this was a game-deciding issue, but at the time, I tended to think we should have gone for it, as well.  We were typically giving them starting field position at about the 40, anyway, and we were at the 46 when we punted, and in need of points.  But we had a decent punt and then eventually stopped them, although Iowa was able to eat up several minutes of clock.


On Monday, November 07, 2005, at 01:46PM, Jonathan Hodges <jonathanwhodges at gmail.com> wrote:

>> The final NU punt (the 4th quarter) came with about 9:30 left, it was from
>> our 23, and it was 4th and 6.  Methinks there is some confusion here.  The
>> drive was a three-and-out, we were lackluster, and had fumbled the ball on
>> second down.  Brett's pass to Herbert on third down was incomplete.  Slade
>> came out and got a great NU roll, all the way to the Iowa 20, for a 57
>> yard monster of a punt.
>
>I was thinking of the punt with 4:00 left in the first half when we
>had 4th and 3 at the Iowa 41 before the delay of game penalty (to give
>us more room to punt).  It was almost in 4 down territory (generally
>between the 30 and 40), but Walker made a good decision there to punt
>it and stick them in their own end (time ran out despite their
>attempts to move the ball.
>
>> Umm.. if by "got the stop" you mean "the kick went wide", then yes.  Then
>> there was the game-ending, stands-clearing interception that Brett threw.
>> Good thing it didn't turn out to be game-ending, but the stands-clearing
>> hurt.
>
>Even if the kick was good it would still have been a 2 score game (a
>stretch at 16 points, but still plausable).  I definitely categorize
>that as a stop since thus far in the 4th quarter the offense gave the
>defense virtually nothing to work with, especially after 2
>interceptions and a 3-and-out.
>
>>
>> I find it really interesting that recollections of the game here vary so
>> greatly from the official play-by-play... but then, the finish was so
>> exciting it's easy to blur the details of what might have been.
>
>I think it's because until the final 3 minutes nothing really
>noteworthy happened for NU to remember - started out down by 2 scores,
>ended the first half down by 3 scores, grabbed a TD on the first drive
>of the 3rd quarter but then the offense stalled and it all blended
>together.  I think it's more that we're trying to forget the disarray
>of an offense that was on the field most of the game, or maybe we were
>too busy fending off the intoxicated Iowans that were everywhere.
>
>Jonathan
>
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>Jonathan W. Hodges
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