[NU Sports] Despite the loss, why I'm happy tonight (fwd)

[Beamsley, Jeff]

We seem to regularly find our team in this position after the non-con
sched.

As others have said, if you live by the sword of late game heroics, you
sometimes die by the same sword.

Didn't see the game and only heard the last quarter on WGN driving back
to Michigan from Indiana.

Sounded like our d was gassed.  Also sounded like we avoided a worse
fate only because Paulus missed a lot of open receivers.  

I defer to those who listened to the whole game, but the fact that we
only ran the ball for 52 yards says something about the Syracuse game
plan.  For those who saw the game, was there something about their
scheme that revealed a weakness in our run game?

But when you wash everything out, this was a story of turnovers. They
scored on two of the three turnovers we gave them.  We scored on one of
the turnovers they gave us.

I think it was a great demonstration of character to come back after
being down three scores.

The disturbing fact from the non-con season, is that the team hasn't yet
demonstrated that they know to put a team away early when they have a
big lead, or seal the deal when they get the lead late.  Evidence of the
former was the way that Michigan shut Eastern out in the second half of
their game even though Eastern had the ball twice as long as Michigan.

Jeff

  


The contents of this e-mail are intended for the named addressee only. It contains information that may be confidential. Unless you are the named addressee or an authorized designee, you may not copy or use it, or disclose it to anyone else. If you received it in error please notify us immediately and then destroy it.

From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com]
On Behalf Of SjT (Stephen J. Truog)
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 6:04 PM
To: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Despite the loss, why I'm happy tonight (fwd)

> I would argue that Walker had quite a
> few signature wins: Wisconsin and
> Michigan in 2000 (Wisconsin was in the top 5 at the time), and even 
> Ohio State in 2004 (they, too, were in the top 5, although they

Definitely -- all three of those were signature wins. Wisky didn't get
as much attention, but they were top ten and unbeaten. Michigan was a
nationwide game that made big-time highlights and OSU was an evening
game against an unbeaten and top five team

I do agree, though, in that Fitz and Walker teams are similar in the
majority of their big-time showcase games (see MSU last year) and not
ready to make that step up in general.

However, Syracuse wasn't a big-time game and we blew it ... as Barnett
did with Miami and Wake and as Walker did.

We're just never going to be that football factory school that can come
out against a MAC-like foe, put on the jersey and have a 28-point win.
We can compete with anyone, and we can lose to anyone. Last night, it
didn't seem like we came out ready and dug a huge early hole. Granted,
we dug out of it, but that takes a lot of the energy and we seemed to be
lacking that late.

Looking at our Big Ten slate, we're capable of beating any team on there
(we skip OSU, our mental block game where they win by putting on their
unis, and Michigan who seems to be playing with the most energy now) --
even PSU because they have momentary lapses of focus as well. However,
we can lose to any team as well - especially given how Indiana and
Purdue have shown they can play at times.

I understand the defensive injuries, but the overall defensive game just
disappointed me. We need them to set the tone early. We need to avoid
those 17-0 holes. But if anyone knows that league play is a whole new
slate, it should be NU after the last decade or so. Go get them Gophers!

GO CATS!!!
-SjT


      

_______________________________________________
nwu-sports site list
nwu-sports at tssi.com
http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports