[NU Sports] The elephant in the living room

[Tom Maycock]

>    The run defense was lousy, and these penalties are, 

Actually, the run defense was good to very good most of the game IMO. Close to 
half their yardage came on two plays--one was really well blocked, the other was 
a nicely executed misdirection play. The rest of the time, we were extremely 
stout against the RBs, and fairly effective against a very fast QB. The one 
exception was their last drive, but they had great field position, momentum, and 
our defense was deflated by the blocked kick.We were really strong against the 
passing game all night.  

On a couple of other key plays--notably the TD on 4th and inches (if I recall 
correctly) we had a guy in place but they mis-read who had the ball (going for 
the QB when he had handed off on one, going for the RB when the QB had faked the 
handoff on another. That may have been doing what they were supposed to do, and 
someone else should have been there to take the other guy, but both were big 
missed opportunities. I think it's the same "eye" issue Fitz was talking about 
after the Minny game. 

We are not a dominating run defense by any means at this point, but the D was 
absolutely good enough to win that game. If they had been even better, we might 
have won *despite* the offensive lapses and special teams miscues. But as others 
have noted, we are now physically stout and talented enough to hang with just 
about anyone, and that's a major change in the last few years. But we do need to 
play really well every game. 

Here's what I saw:

* Persa was off a bit compared to his best efforts, but he was still impressive. 
And in the clutch moments of that last drive, he came through perfectly--did 
everything he could have done to get us in position to score a TD. He didn't 
commit the hold, and even after that killer penalty he got us back in position 
for a FG attempt. 

* Persa does need to learn to throw the ball away more often. A couple of those 
sacks were really damaging. The problem is that he's so capable of making a big 
play with his feet that it makes sense for him not to give up on a play. But as 
the D's get better, he's going to have to just throw it into the stands more 
often. Keep in mind that pass rush is probably the one remaining strength of the 
Purdue team, along with a very fast QB. 

* The running game is slowly getting better, and I like working to establish it 
early. However, we probably should have gone more aggressive with the passing 
game sooner. They were able to put pressure, but they couldn't cover our 
receivers most of the time. Also, I hated the handoff to Schmidt on the next to 
last drive. Looked like they had 7 guys in the box on that play, and either the 
coaches or Persa should have gotten us into something else. Instead, no gain 
(loss) and a blocked (long) FG attempt. 

* Demos: What can you say. He's kind of lost his mojo, and needs to get it back. 
I do think the snaps and holds are really throwing him off--hopefully they can 
improve and adjust to that. People seem to forget just how good he was last 
year--accurate and with long range. 

* Special teams: difference in the game #1. We gifted them 3 points on the 
fumble, and really hurt our field position on the other bobbles. I can 
understand why Fitz stuck with Bates--he's been rock solid catching the ball all 
year. But I was really surprised he didn't try Venric there at some point. Maybe 
Venric's been dropping them in practice or something?

* Penalties: Ouch. Difference in the game #2. Bad penalties at all the wrong 
times. The tough-to-avoid-but-the-right-call personal foul at the end was kind 
of the icing on an extremely unpleasant cake. Even after all that had gone 
wrong, they were going to have to punt, and probably leave us time for one or 
two plays as well. Unlikely that we would have pulled it out, but sad not to at 
least find out. 

* Props to Jacob Schmidt for a nice game. Ran the ball well, delivered some 
great blocks. 

Agree with Roy that the real problem with the running game is still up front. 
With Schmidt and Trumpy, we've got guys that are finding the holes and hitting 
them pretty hard, but the O-line isn't delivering that one extra block. We had 
several plays (one screen pass in particular) where all we needed was an O-line 
guy to finish a block to spring a huge play, but they whiffed. That's got to get 
better.

Really disappointing loss, because the possibilities sitting at 6-0 were so very 
intriguing. The good news is, we've got a pretty good football team that just 
needs to play better. Also, after 6 games, we still have a shot to go 11-1. 
Likely? Surely not. But still possible. 

Tom