Texas Tech is the Real Deal

I remained extremely skeptical of this squad, up until their upset of #1 Texas on Saturday.   And it’s not really because Texas was ranked #1 – it’s just the overall caliber of the Texas D, and how silly some of the Tech players made them look.   The WRs, in particular, on that Tech team are solid.  They played really well on both sides of the ball – I’d put them in my Top 2 for sure. 

Michigan is, Officially, Worse than ND Last Year

With a loss to a terrible Purdue team, Michigan (sucks!) has hit rock bottom.  They’ll be LUCKY to get to ND’s record-breakingly-bad record of 3-9 last year, and against a much much softer schedule than what ND faced last year.

Michigan (sucks) played a few solid teams this year so far in ND (that’s debatable though), Wisconsin (at the time) and Penn State.  The rest of the schedule has been weak and they’ve still blown it.  It’s nowhere near the gauntlet that ND faced in its first 6 games last year, and they’re still likely looking at 2-9.   They really do, truly and honestly, suck.

ND-Pitt

Schizo

This Irish team is incredibly schizo.  We’ve seen it all year, but we’ve especially seen it against the better teams on our schedule (I don’t say ‘good’ because, well, the jury is still out on whether the better teams are actually good).  In this bucket:  MSU, Stanford, UNC, Pitt.

Against MSU, we had fits and starts where we looked really good, and then mistakes cost us the game.  Our D did a good job on Ringer at times, and then he broke out for a big gain.

Against Stanford, we played a great half, and then just stopped playing.

Against UNC, we were up and down throughout the game – a few good plays and then garbage.  Then good, then garbage.

And yesterday, it was more fits and starts from the offense.  And on the Defense, it was an amazing first half followed up by a pretty bad second half.

I think there are two things happening here.  The first, is (shocker coming from me), youth.  The team is young, and therefore prone to let momentum shift rather than controlling momentum.   Younger players have more trouble adapting and adjusting.  They also are more emotional, as they just haven’t been in the situation as many times as an experienced player.  Remember, this isn’t a team anchored by vets and complemented by young players.  It’s the other way around.

Second, it’s coaching.  It’s up to the coaches to recognize that this is (or, 8 weeks ago, could be) a problem.  And to coach these kids up to address it.  We’ll see if the coaches are able to do so very soon – Saturday against BC.

The Offensive Struggles

As for Saturday, the offense had 2 solid drives.  The first TD drive, and the drive that put 24 on the board.  The rest of the day, we were either lucky (Tate’s reception that bounced off 2 guys’ hands) or lucky (the INT returned to the 10, that only happened because of a non-call PI that the refs missed).  As DomerMQ mentioned, we were in a rhythm with Allen.  Why change that?  The offense was moving the ball with him back there, and then things changed.  I’m not sure if CW and Haywood saw something in Allen or the D that suggested we needed a change, but I didn’t see it. 

Jimmy had an off day.  The stats look pretty, but he had a few very-near-misses that could’ve easily been picks.  That ill-advised toss up into the end zone to 3 Pitt players that managed to botch it comes to mind.  The route-running all day seemed shoddy, and it’s no wonder our receivers didn’t have any separation.  Seems to me like we might be getting a bit full of our selves at the WR position – just assuming that defenders will fall off because we’re sooooo good, and therefore we can run sloppy routes.

And the OL was a mess.  With 3-4 down linemen on the DL, somewow Pitt brought pressure all day.  They were dropping into max coverage and still getting sacks.  That’s just simply unacceptable.  Give me a dude 310 on my right and he and I might do a better job than what we saw yesterday – and I’m lucky to be 170.

Walker Kickin’ It

Despite his game-losing miss, Walker has improved dramatically recently.  Going back 2 games, he hadn’t missed a kick.  And he did a great job Saturday, making every try except the last one.  Of course, that last one mattered a lot.  But if you’d told me that we’d kick in every OT in this game 3 weeks ago, I would’ve called a miss in the first 2.  Give the kid credit, he’s getting better.  Let’s just hope this last miss doesn’t get in his head and totally screw up all that progress.

The One that Got Away

I know he’s tall and ended up with a few plays, but Baldwin isn’t close to as developed as some of our WRs.  He missed a few easy balls and his route running is horrid.  I don’t think we’ll miss him in 2 years.

Bottom Line

We’re right back where we started.  After the close losses to MSU and UNC, and a few good wins, I had the Irish on an upward trajectory and leaning North of my pre-season 7-5 projection.  I was thinking 8-4 was more and more likely, with 9-3 no longer a pipe dream.  Well, we’re dreaming pipes again folks.  This team is a 7-5 squad.  That’s good improvement from 3-9, and we all need to accept that you don’t go from Horrible to Very Good in a year.  You go from Horrible to Decent.  Next year we’ll go from Decent to Very Good, and in 2010 we’ll be Excellent.  But a turnaround is a long road – a marathon, not a sprint – and we all need to be patient.   I know, I know “WE DON’T ACCEPT THIS AT ND!!!! NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS ONLY!!! BLAH BLAH BLAH RABBLE RABBLE BLAH!!!!”.  Shut it.  That’s not reality.  In CFB today, it’s not that easy.  The losses this year – MSU, UNC, Pitt, were all to mediocre-to-good teams.  They could, each of them, have been wins.  We were in each game and with a few different plays, we could be undefeated.  But guess what?  A team turning around from 3-9 won’t make all those plays.   Hopefully that team starts to make more and more of them and we see a bit more consistency to close out this year – the evidence in the losses is that this is happening, just very slowly, and not enough to produce a W.  Against MSU, we were holding them close in the 4th, then they pulled away.  Against UNC, we got down-to-the-wire-questionable-call close, but just couldn’t get there.  Against Pitt, it went 4 OTs for us to lose.  That’s progress in some weird, twisted and depressing way in that the losses are becoming more and more competitive. 

It’s not good enough, no.  But I think we’re seeing what growing pains are, and we have to accept it.  Calling for coaches’ heads, and questioning play calls isn’t helping any, and it’s angering MQ, and believe me you – that’s dangerous.  So let’s be pissed at the team and the coaches for not doing better.  But let’s also get some perspective here and not lose our freaking minds.   Yet.

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