[NU Sports] Big Ten today ...

[John Labbe]

>
> As for NU, anyone want to fill those of us who didn't
> see the game in on what we looked like? At halftime,
> it seemed like we were in it, and my brother -- the
> PSU alum -- said Nick Roach and the D was killing PSU,
> holding them inside the 20 three times for early FGs
> and intercepting a pass deep to set up our score. He
> said the one TD PSU did get in the first half came
> only after a bunch of tries at the 2 and 1 yard line.


If you missed it, the D played very well inside the red zone in the 
first half.  We held PSU to 9 points on their first 4 trips to the 
redzone, including, I believe, 3 trips inside the 10.  On the first of 
those we forced a fumble at about the 10.  The next three we held PSU 
to field goals.  Then on their 5th trip to the redzone we made them use 
4 downs to get the TD after they had a first and goal from about the 2.

The problem was that we gave up a number of big passes to let PSU get 
into the redzone.  I don't think we expected PSU QB to be able to throw 
as far as he did.  I thought he had a real coming out game against us.  
The one TD PSU got was on their 5th trip to the redzone, and it was 
after they got the ball with only about 2 minutes to play in the half.  
A couple of big plays later, and they were knocking on the door.

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to get our own QB act together.  It 
hurts that we're breaking in a new QB and on top of that the one we 
were going with is now injured so we had to start yet another QB for 
his first start ever at Happy Valley.

I also don't think we can underestimate the loss of our offensive 
mastermind or the fact that we're also starting a new offensive 
coordinator.  I just hope that we continue to see some improvement 
throughout the season.