Aloha to Michigan, Aloha to MSU

That’s goodbye, and hello (heyooooooo, same word) for those of you that are not fluent in Hawaiian. Why the hawaiian goodbye and greeting? Because I am off to the Islands today, and so I won’t be around to yell/rant/cheer/bleed/scream/have fun/be disgusted/kill with you guys for the MSU game. So, before I go to the Maui Massacre vs MSU (I suppose that’s US destroying THEM), I must first say ALOHA to Michigan (sucks).

It’s tough to put that game behind us, as fans, and as a blog, but with this post we (at least I) do just that. But NOT without a parting shot, very much courtesy of NDN, which fired me up with THIS FREAKING POST ON THE OFFICIATING. (and it’s only part 1). HIGHLY SUGGESTED, NAY! REQUIRED READING FOLKS. So many blatant examples of cheating. The flagrant late hit cheap shot (no call) vs the Shhhh of Allen (call) is probably the most obvious, but the whole run-down is good.

With that, Aloha to MSU!

I am looking forward to this game. Hopefully the coaches and players moved on a lot more quickly than we (I) did, but I hope they’ve kept the anger, the fire, burning. Who better to take it out on than MSU? Those called the Little Brother to Those that Suck? They’ve owned us at home, time to end it. They lost their QB and 99.9% of their offense, time to own them. They lost to CMU, time to make their misery last another week.

They did this:

Time to TAKE THEM OUT.

MSU comes to town with an offense that’s a bit patch-work-y with a 2-QB ’system’ which seems more like just rotating dudes in and out here and there. The RB situation seems to be locked, but the production has not been Ringer-esque. That said, our Run D vs their Run O is what has me concerned. If MSU can sustain drives on the ground and keep the ND O off the field, they’ll have a shot. If we can solve the run D issues we’ve had, ND will most definitely put up POINTS against MSU and will claim victory.

Most important for this game? A few things.

1) Keep the momentum on offense. We have played 2 solid games of offense. We need to keep that going. That means Allen has to go most of the game, and do what he did last week

2) Defense needs to stop the run, and I hope that it’s not just a schematic adjustment, but also an ATTITUDE adjustment of “You will NOT get this next yard” over and over and over

3) Focus and sharpness. ND was sloppy last week. As DMQ said, Allen was sloppy on his run to even get close to the line. The SHHHH was sloppy. Our coverage was sloppy. Sloppy tackling, sloppy filling of the running lanes, sloppy Tate-dropping-passes-everywhere. Sloppy sloppy sloppy. This team needs to come out sharp. Executing at a high level, consistently, and with few mental/physical errors (at least much fewer than last week)

4) BUST THEM IN THE MOUTH. This is my Dad’s way of solving any team sport problem. You need to want it more than they do, and you need to physically ruin them if they try to beat you. ND doesn’t do this much, and especially needs to on D this week, to set the tone.

So let’s get this done boys. Let’s make it happen.

I’ll be 6 fruity drinks in by half time, on the way to celebrating us going to 2-1 folks. Right about here.

Go IRISH!