[NU Sports] Sad

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

It was painful to watch - but I did find some hope for
the future in this game, namely in Kafka's gutsy
performance. However, he looked a bit too hurt at the
end and throwing floaters off of his back foot instead
of on the run really doesn't make him look good.

But a total team loss tonight -- much like New
Hampshire, we played well enough to win in most
aspects of the game, but that turnover ratio just
killed us.

I guess it's to be expected with a young quarterback -
but it's hard to watch at times, and our heralded
O-line, while much better on the run tonight, is still
pretty inept at pass blocking.

As for the D, unfortunately we just get picked apart
by an experienced quarterback, and the Big Ten is
loaded with them this year. Our only chance against a
fellow newbie QB will be next week at State College
and 106,000+ Lion fans more than compensate for that.

As for special teams - bad all around. Missed kicks,
blocked kicks, fumbles. We had a nice return in the
second quarter but did nothing with it. Ugh.

For awhile there, it looked like we were going to have
a nice comeback win for a tough young QB coming of age
in the second half ... but the injury and replay
really swung momentum around. Yes, he was out of
bounds, but they got more than their share of generous
spots on the night and that replay 1st down hurt a
lot.

But that's something we'll probably see a lot this
year. We're not exactly a team that blows others out a
lot and what we're seeing this year is the difference
an experienced QB like Baz made. We're pretty much 4-0
if we hang on to the darn ball - we gave New Hampshire
and Nevada early leads with turnovers and tried to
play catch-up with a freshman QB, never a good idea.

The good news is that we're close -- cut out the
giveaways and free 1st-and-goals and we're not too far
away. Getting Kafka's confidence is key and it looked
like we were close to boosting that big-time tonight
with a win.

The bad news is that we're in Big Ten play from now
on, and unless we can grow up in a hurry, those
freshman mistakes that gave away games in the
nonconference will lead to early blowouts and big
confidence-killers against the Big Ten, especially in
Happy Valley, Madison, Ann Arbor and Iowa City.

We knew this was going to be a tough year - yes, it's
tough to watch us hand over games we should win. But I
saw some improvement and effort tonight. We just gotta
hang on to the gosh darn ball!!!

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!

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