[NU Sports] Alamo Bowl: At the half ...

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

Tie game - should be happy, but frustrated is more like it. We dominated the first half and came away with a 10-10 tie. Ugh.

THE GOOD
- Hankwitz came in with an amazing game plan and is now officially the best coordinator hire. Ever. Holding that offense scoreless playing on a short field most of the game with the D we had last year is incredible.
- Sutton looks sharp. Sure wish we had him healthy all year (or last year), but at least he's playing well his final game at NU and hopefully some NFL scouts take notice.

THE BAD
- Red zone offense. After some nice tendency-breaking play calling early on, we really reverted to our old ineffective selves on that red zone chance in the second quarter.
- Momentum lost. Why kick a long FG on 4th and 2 when we've been running it over them? Why no runs in the red zone? We've had opportunity after opportunity to put this one away early and some awfully conservative play calling in the second quarter really put a damper on momentum.

THE UGLY
- The kicking game. I understand why we're not kicking deep, but just kick out of bounds then. And that last punt was awful. The kick went the opposite way of the coverage and made it all too easy for a great returner.

We really played well but a little tight in the second quarter once we had the lead and let a lot of big chances slip away. The good news is that we get the ball first and if we can get back to that good mix of offense we had in the first quarter and keep playing lockdown D, we can go up again before Mizzou gets a chance to rally.

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

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