Given our expectations going INTO the Penn State, I have to say that my enjoyment of our game was MAJOR, despite the score. Why??? Because the team showed up and showed the world that Michigan has pride and heart. Leading 17-10 at the half??? NONE of us expected that. Granted, entropy, an elbow injury, and well Penn State intervened in the second half to piss on my party, but it was sure a lot better than I expected.A quick review of my keys to the game will tell the happy tale: again, looking for improvement not perfection:
- Fewer Turnovers--5 fumbles, only 1 lost on our side, and get this--NO INTs. Victory, relatively of course.
- Shore up the Pass Defense--Previously giving up 12.1 yds/catch. Yesterday? up to 13.2 yds/completion. And unfortunately allowed an average 6.1 yds/rush, way up from the 2.1 previously. On the plus side? Penn State had "only" 482 offensive yards total for the game...........Ok, nevermind. The defense is sad. So, I'm still calling out Scott Shafer on this one and the usual suspects: Trent, Brown, Warren, et al.
AND now Brandon Graham has gone and done this: "We're going to come out, we're going to work hard this week because I don't think we're going to ever lose to State. I feel like we're not going to lose to State because we're not going to lose to State. We're going to work hard and we're going to win." uh-oh - Pressure their QB--whoa-hoa: 3 sacks for a loss of 17 yards. Mo' betta
- More takeaways--No INTs but 1 of their 3 fumbles recovered by us. Not too shabby but still lots of work to do here, of course.
- Improved 3rd down percentage--hard to compute since we were 4/15 for the entire game (26.66666%) but 3/8 (37.5%) with Threet in for the first half. Whaddid I say?? Huh? Over 35% we can get the offense moving. Hmmm 37.5% in the first half and we go in with the lead.....I'm just sayin'....
- Better QB Performance--Much better job, check out Threet's line: 13-9-0, 84, 0, 28, 2 Andy is dead on here, without a QB to lead the offense there i
s no TOP, no way to keep the defense off the field, minimal psychological momentum for us, and no hope for the spread. Everyone pray for elbow healing this week. And new recruits?
GO BLUE
BEAT (POSER) SPARTY
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2 comments:
Does the cliff hanger cartoon count as "healing" ?
T9,
My thoughts exactly!! Our team didn't come out flat and unmotivated like their entire experience of Michigan Football meant nothing to them. They demonstrated they had pride and spirit with their play. Forget the final score and the lousy record, right now this is about building for the future and our players still put up a fight like they cared about that. That's what I am looking for the rest of the season; yes improving play is important... no, essential... but I want to see how much our players show that they really care and are committed to this plan and the success of the program. In Happy Valley they showed me that they cared and that's what mattered against a vastly superior opponent (for now).
Andy is also right about the QB situation. Posters are saying that that doesn't matter, its the defense that stinks, but you are not paying attention to your own argument as even you are stating that as soon as Sheridan enters the game, everything goes down the drain. That's the point that people are not taking into account. On such a big stage we like to look for stats to justify our successes and failures, and perhaps that is commentators setting the trend; but we forget that there are just as many intangibles in the college game as there are in Pop Warner and the Pro game alike. Our defense loses it's punch as soon as Sheridan enters the game and the offense stalls or much worse turns it over on a regular basis. The D is thinking in that situation, "What kind of a chance do we have left?". You are preaching to the choir if you say bad players are a cancer to the health of our defense, (as much as he tries Trent is a sad DB as he has been for his entire career) but if you really want to look at stats we seem to be middle of the field in most of the major categories stated, and that's actually pretty promising. Develop some better talent and an offense that isn't 90th or worse in every major category and imagine how good our D will be. If we get a competent attack, our D will be rested deeper into the game, and have the motivation to keep up the pressure on the opposing O. With a good O for us I think this D right now would be ranked about 25 to 40 places better than it currently stands in those major categories. That would put us in or near the top 25 of about everything other than pass D. I think we will see massive improvement from this year to next.
GO BLUE
-and bring on the healing!
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