I dunno. We’ve got a lot of offensive foibles to clean up. And ND has been playing Big Boy winning football. Texas played a great game and we were fortunate.
I don't have all the X's and O's knowledge that you guys do...but IMO anybody giving OSU a 2 TD advantage is completely ignoring how close that Cotton Bowl really was, and also how good ND has been playing.
Congratulations to the Buckeye Skyboxers. Pretty amazing finish, from a possible tie to a 2 TD win. Both teams played hard and well but Ohio State prevailed. According to the SET metric, ND is in big trouble. There's not a bigger challenge in all of college football for a defensive secondary than the Ohio State WRs and RBs and for a defensive front 7 than the Ohio State OL.
I felt strongly that the Texas D would keep them in the game. They were every bit as advertised and the game played out as such. Nasty defense. Classic example of the importance of being multiple and having a variety of threats on offense. They took away Smith but Tate stepped up big. The real strength of the Ohio State O is we have serious threats across the board, take Smith away and you still have to deal with Egbuka and Tate and Henderson is a home run waiting to happen if you blink. Hats off to Sark and his Longhorns taking it to the wire and kept swinging the whole way.
I was absolutely stunned when that happened too, I thought I was seeing things. He hasn't shown anything remotely close to that since he's been in Columbus. More often his is the calming voice and mature behavior. I can only imagine what it took to set him off like that
Heh...I was going to say that. It's an interesting story...I get an email from the editor of the Plain Dealer and he previews tomorrow's story in the paper. I'll try to link it if it's not subscriber only.
I think we all were stunned, apparently some sort of trash remark sent him off? However that's a guess on my part. Coach Day said something to him when he returned to the sidelines, but seemed to be the end of the incident.
Not to mention the self inflicted wounds on penalties (I know that you mentioned Trevion's but there were way too many pre-snap and holding penalties for us being one of the least penalized teams in the country. Gotta clean that up or the Irish will feast on us.
Irish are too beat up, OL is down to backups playing on one leg, our top RB is playing on 1 leg. Our top DL is out, our next top DL is playing on 1 leg. We don't have any WR's to threaten the Buckeye defense. I'm grateful to how far Riley Leonard has brought us, but I don't think his back/shoulders are big enough to carry us past the Buckeyes. Longhorns were healthy and got beat by 2 TD's and they also have a better roster of blue chips.
OSU DL did a great job of keeping pressure on Ewert. I think they should be the MVP of last night’s game.
Terry, you are taking over the Lou Holtz award. Longhorns had a couple of premier players hurt early. Golden came back with a big catch but not until late.
Agree KP....goal line stop late on 1st and goal at the 1 was huge too. They made it impossible to run between the tackles at the goal line. Texas couldn't do it and Sark had seen the tape of past games. Neb couldn't do it, Oregon couldn't do it, PSU couldn't do it and forced the 2nd down toss sweep that got blown up. Still not sure why he didn't bring in the Manning kid in that situation, but happy with the decision
Not being a Lou, Stu. It's a fact, we are a beat up team at this point. Texas was not dealing with the level of injuries on the lines that the irish are dealing with. We're lucky that the bad Allar showed up Thursday, I have no doubt that there is no bad Will Howard who will show up and as everybody knows the weapons he has to throw too are NFL level. Sure Texas played a zone defense that limited Smith but the other guys got loose. Both of your RB's are 100% and headed to the NFL, our top RB is not 100%. We'll be lucky to keep it close.
Not Lou maybe but perhaps a damn fine Hamlet's Ophelia, "O, Woe is me!" I didn't fall for it last week and I ain't falling for it this time either. Nobody is healthy this time of year. We had 3 starters check out yesterday with injuries, one didn't return. JT got rolled up on but did come back as did Simon who had left with a knee. Burke, our best corner left in the second half and never returned and Sawyer is playing like Abdul Carter with pretty much one arm and we only have 2 of our starting offensive lineman playing and in their original positions after having lost the AA Rimington Award winner at center and a first rounder at LT and his #1 back up. This long season is a war of attrition and def puts a premium on quality depth but that's a bit too much to bear without having a meaningful impact. That said, we have been very fortunate to not having a major injury to any of our offensive skill guys (fingers crossed) Day is looking like a genius by making the conscious decision to take the air out the ball, huddling and running fewer plays than virtually anybody in the country because of the need to play the long game over the long season. Of the final 8 in the playoffs we've run the fewest plays per game at 60 -v- Texas/AZ St at 70. Over a 16 game season, that difference adds up and amounts to more than 2 extra games of hitting and stress on the body and wear and tear. It makes a difference. Our 2 RB who have split carries all season both still look fresh and explosive, very unusual for a back late in the season. The ND defense will keep them in any game that they play including the next one. Texas and X have mapped the blueprint for slowing down this offense if you have the players to execute which ND does. We've not really faced much QB run all year, but when we have, it's been a struggle. Marcus will try and play keep away with the QB run to move the chains, bracket Smith, let Egbuka and Tate get theirs but keep everything underneath and hope the front holds up -v- the Buckeye ground game and force Howard to dink and dunk. I fully expect a 4 qtr game with a one score difference throughout. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.....OWNID