[NU Sports] At the end

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> We just don't have it this year, and
> that disappoints me.  The offense is anemic.  We

Well, I think we expected the offense to be a bit sluggish with all the new people at receiver and in the backfield ... however, Kafka's actually been pretty solid. The O-line is the biggest disappointment for me -- and they got shredded by MSU in the second half (and have been largely responsible for the lack of running game, which hurts everything else down the line).

On defense, I think it's the injuries that have killed us this year. When they were running down the list during the game, it was long and had some big names on it. McManis out early, Wootton out late, our safeties playing hurt, our linebackers thinned out.

We had a chance to have a special defense this year, but we had to stay healthy and we just got decimated by injuries. It happens to everyone, but NU is just never going to have the consistent depth to overcome it.

And as we've discussed on the list, the play calling on offense has been unimaginative and won't make anyone scared on defense -- their interview with the MSU coach said it all, pretty much. Just do a "rope a dope" strategy, let NU complete all the 3-yard outs they want and sooner or later they make a mistake or drop a pass or make a penalty and you get a longer distance down where they can't convert. I was pleased to see us go downfield ONCE in the game (before the final minutes when we had to), but we need to find ways to make our offense work given our situation (more rollouts and bootlegs to ease pressure on the O-line, more QB runs - especially in the red zone, etc.).

We have our work cut out for us in terms of bowling. I do think we'll get two BCS teams because I think PSU will win out (unlike us, they're starting to GET healthy with Lee back today). That would mean we need to beat Illinois and Indiana (no easy task). 

If we can't double dip in the BCS, the path becomes much more difficult. The pollsters don't show the league much respect yet, but we should have five top 25 teams right now, with Wisconsin and Michigan ranked (how is ND in when they lost to Michigan???) -- we play three of those top 25 teams in our home stretch, and by the end of the day, the Hawkeyes, Nittany Lions and Badgers should be 18-3. It's tough to see where we break through there ... but then again, no one outside of Jim saw Purdue's win today either.

Gotta take care of business and beat IU for homecoming.

GO CATS!!!
-SjT