[NU Sports] Was anyone else thinking . . .

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

You hit it on the head.:)

"The one time we don't WANT to be efficient in the red zone is when we score the frickin' TD in a couple quick plays" is what I believe I mumbled.

But there wasn't much we could do - you never want to have it come down to a field goal, plus Purdue had two timeouts left, so they would have been able to stop it.

A couple nice plays by Kafka and some nice defensive calls at the end to save the win, but the big thing we need to take out of this game are the two O's ...

- Offensive line (and wideout) blocking
- Offensive playcalling - especially in the red zone

Kafka played a good game (some big overthrows, but nice mix of pass/run. The special teams shined for once and the defense rebounded nicely from taking the first quarter off (McManis' INT was the huge HUGE game changer). And yes, Purdue obliged for the second straight year with turnovers galore.

But we can't let the lessons of this game slip by in the celebration of holding on for the win. We had six turnovers. We had eight plays inside their two yard line. We should have won this game by 21 or more looking at the stat sheet.

McCall needs to seriously look at his playbook and rip about half of it out - then he needs to reassess personnel on goal line situations along with the plays called there. This sort of ineffectiveness in the red zone will cost us down the road if not corrected now.

GO CATS!!!
-SjT


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


--- On Sat, 10/3/09, Jim Bendat <thehaze at earthlink.net> wrote:

> From: Jim Bendat <thehaze at earthlink.net>
> Subject: [NU Sports] Was anyone else thinking . . .
> To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
> Date: Saturday, October 3, 2009, 1:43 PM
> that maybe we scored too quickly,
> thereby giving Purdue a chance to pull out the game at the
> end. I know it's hard to control, but the fact is that we
> all we needed was a field goal. We could have run down the
> clock a lot more. Don't get me wrong - I'm thrilled about
> the win. But here's another thought:
> 
> After we scored the TD, we went for (and made) a 2-point
> conversion. I didn't like the call of a pass play on that
> conversion. If the pass had been intercepted and returned
> all the way back, then we would have only led, 25-23 --
> which would have meant Purdue would have only needed a field
> goal to win the game at the end.
> 
> Just a few things that went through my mind during this
> crazy game!
> 
> Jim B.
> 
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