[NU Sports] Which team are we?

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> Regarding Sutton, I don't think he is "out of sync"
> at all.  In the last 2
> games (the only games in which he has touched the
> ball following his
> injury), he has rushed 35 times for 188 yards (5.4
> yds/carry) with 1 TD.
> During the 4th quarter of both of those games he has
> been handed the ball
> only 2 times and rushed for 1 yard.  Meanwhile, CJ
> has been sacked 6 times

Thank you Jonathan - I knew someone would have the
stats I was looking for and it sure felt as if Sutton
was forgotten both of the past two games in the 4th.
And yeah, it's hard to run when down big, but we were
up 17-14 in each of those games heading into the
fourth.

I do think Maureen's right, though -- not that Sutton
is out of sync, but that he is a distraction for
McGee. McGee had figured out how to run the offense
pretty well with Conteh and Roberson and doesn't seem
to know how to utilize Sutton's many talents yet. And
that's especially evident in the fourth quarter vs.
Purdue and Iowa where we head into the quarter with
the lead and give our all-conference running back the
ball TWO times.

> In any case, NU has been able to get down the field
> - they ended 11 drives
> in Iowa territory on Saturday, but scored only 3
> times.  The fact is that
> the offense has not been able to finish off drives
> (especially late in the
> game) nor has the team been able to finish games.

Exactly. It's time to stop saying "finish" and start
DOING it. But it seems to start before the 4th quarter
for the offense. Our play calling is noticably
different once we get the lead. The sense of immediacy
is gone and so is our balanced attack with the running
game mixed in to keep the D off balance.

I will say that Iowa's defense defended our screens
better than anyone else this year and really made it
tough for our back to release. Still, McGee needed to
adjust to that and call some other plays. Some of
those later sacks were on screens that didn't
materialize.

> In my opinion, the defense did almost exactly what
> they needed to do - stop

Yup - aside from McManis. I love the kid and he has a
lot of talent, but you could see him getting into a
trash talking contest in the first quarter and he got
taken to school on those pump fakes. Iowa really did a
nice coaching job there of using his aggressiveness
and emotion against him, starting with that roughing
the kicker call and ending with those two stop-and-go
routes.

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

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

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