[NU Sports] At the end

[mlinhardt at netzero.com]

Yes, yes, and yes.  You hit the nail on the head.

We miss the graduated parts of the D-line.  They were able to free up Woo-woo to be a menace to the backfield.

If you asked me before the season I would have been most worried about he QB and whether he was a one-trick pony(run).  Kafka has been a PLEASANT surprise.  He is NOT the reason why we are losing.  He is prolific, but he just needs to work on his internal clock.  CJ threw just as many or more picks, but after his first full year he stopped fumbling.  Kafka will be an amazing all-around game-dominating QB next year...oh wait he doesn't have a next year, which means the other parts of the team have to step up.  Maureen thinks you pull Kafka, not to get better results(probably worse results), but to season him for next year, otherwise we will repeat the brilliance/turnovers with Persa in '10.

Our defense can't tackle, excluding Sherrick and Brendan.  Brad is even a bigger disappointment than woo-woo -- check the film.

As one of the < 20K fans I am embarassed.  Even during my years(89-93) I thought we had better attendance and we didn't win more than a handful of games.

---------- Original Message ----------
From: Tom Maycock <tkmaycock at yahoo.com>

My 2 cents:

For the second week in a row, if a couple of plays had turned out differently, we'd be talking about one of the great QB performances in NU history. Unfortunately, the plays Kafka didn't make overshadowed those he did again this week. Same for the receivers--huge games from Fields, Markshausen, Dunsmore, etc. But a couple of drops really hurt.

But those few misconnections shouldn't have been the difference. Kafka and the gang didn't play championship football, but what they did should have been enough. 

The big problem was our inability to stop the run up the middle, poor tackling, and a lack of...something (energy? focus? enthusiasm?) on a couple of key drives. 

Ultimately, I suspect we miss Mims and Gill way more than I thought we would. I really think that if you plugged those two back into this defense, we'd be in a very different situation.

The reality is that we are now talented enough to hang with most teams, but we have a very small margin for error. Last year was no different in that respect, but the 2008 Cats made just enough plays to put Ws on the board.

I'm certainly not jumping off the bowl bandwagon yet, but a bunch of things need to improve. The Cats really need to shore up that interior defense, work on both ends of the kickoff game, and start making those one or two extra plays on offense.

Oh, and play Arby Fields more. Wow, he's got a huge upside.

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