[NU Sports] Putting it into perspective

[John Labbe]

I don't think I had been quite as excited about a game since the Penn 
State game in 1995.  Maybe that's why after Cole's interception down by 
the endzone in the first quarter, I commented that it reminded me of 
Ismaeli's interception in that game.  Ismaeli's was down along the same 
sideline, but at about midfield.  I remember thinking interception on 
both plays when the ball was in the air.

A win today, coupled with another win next week, would have cemented us 
in the rankings for the season.

But frankly, even had we won today, our chances of a Big Ten 
championship were slim.  I think we all recognized how hard it will be 
to win in Columbus, and odds are that either Wisconsin or Penn State 
(probably Penn State) will win out with a 7-1 record.

So we lost another one under the lights to a surging Michigan team, who 
played a great game of defense today.  Kirk Herbstreit tonight said he 
thought the Michigan defense had the number one performance today in 
all of college football.  I would agree.  In the second half, Basanez 
never had open receivers downfield.  We killed ourselves with holding 
penalties, but it was really the Michigan D that did us in.

If we recover from this game and secure a victory next week against 
Iowa, we will likely finish 5-3 in the conference and 7-4 overall.  
That's not too bad at all.  Much better than most people were 
predicting before the season began.  I think we will regroup and get 
the win next week.  Maybe our offense got a little full of itself this 
week.  It's hard to say.  But I think we'll be ready to play next week. 
  We know what's on the line.

As I watch the game on DVD while I write this, that darn no-call pass 
interference play in the second quarter was a real killer, and one of 
the worst no-calls I can recall.  We were driving to tie the game, 
something we never did.  Michigan then took their ensuing drive for a 
TD to go ahead 14.  Although I'd have to say the fumble return wound up 
being the real thing that killed the game for us.  That was essentially 
a 14-point swing, if you assume that we would have found the endzone 
had we not fumbled.

Who thought that if we could hold them to 6 points in the second half, 
we would lose?

Well, if you're still reading, here's the stat that tells the story of 
the game:  Our average drive in the second half was 6.3 yards.  We had 
7 drives in the second half.  Four of them were three and out for a net 
loss of 9, 6, 6, and 1 yards.  Our longest drive of the half was 23 
yards.  The other two were 22 and 21.  We got into Michigan territory 
on just two of those drives, the deepest drive to the Michigan 42.