random comments

WR stats to come, I've got a 3 week backlog of spreadsheets to update and a new stat category.  So here are the random comments first.  These are mostly chronological

• Ezeh looked bad on Cousin's first long scramble
• In the first half, we were slow to adjust to the bubble screen, especially with white lined up in the slot.
• We were bad on third downs in the first half, both ways.  maybe due to it being our first road game.
• Kelvin had an awful drop early on, I think the coaches went away from him a little after that
• I liked the call with Tate at WR, but why run a sweep to that side, meaning you are depending on getting a good block from your QB?
• Koger with a drop too, could it be nerves?  I hate the first road game. 
• Unfortunate timing for a bad snap, 3rd down in the redzone
• Bad tackling, partially due to the rain?
• MSU killed our zones with corner routes.  Cousins has a good arm and was much more accurate this week.
• Coulda called timeout with about 30 seconds left in the half.  I can understand not doing it, but with stonum having a pretty good year on returns, we might have left 3 points on the field there, but it woulda been unlikely.
• Talk about a fast first half!
• I'm loving how I can actually see the team making good adjustments at halftime.  In the first half we were burnt on some bubble screens, and then gave up some big yardage on the fake bubble screen counter pitch or handoff.  but on MSU's first drive of the second half we had both parts of that play locked down. (nevermind we just gave up a big TD on this same play at the start of the 4th, they caught us on a blitz and mouton completely ignored the fact that his lineman was pulling.  grrrrrrrr bad, very bad.)
• But one adjustment I'd like to have seen sooner, was to only rush 3 and have a 4th guy spy cousins or nichol on 3rd and long.
• I also like seeing Minor and Brown in the backfield at the same time, but Minor didn't hold a block after donovan's INT that would have sprung Carlos to the races. We had caught MSU in a run blitz.
• Actually I like it more with Grady (24) in there because he's a better blocker (I think) and still a decent threat to run.
• At the time, I really thought we should have QB sneaked it on 4th and an inch from our 17, because we had been giving up waaaay too much T.o.P.  But while watching the replay I could agree more with the punt.  The defense was playing much better than I had thought, despite giving up the long drives.  Of course, zoltan must have been thinking we should have gone for it too. OOPS.
• Brandon Graham = teh awesome!
• Our right guard got owned a few times.
• I'm impressed by Roh's pass coverage
• Dear all Defensive lineman, when the man across from you pulls FRICKEN FOLLOW HIM! He'll take you right to the play.
• Denard is just not confident enough in his arm yet.  He hesitated on both 2nd and 3rd down called passes.
• I thought the game was almost over when Stonum fumbled. The defense really stepped up in the 4th quarter.
• 3 for 11 on 3rd down until Tate's heroics.  Not good enough.
• Stevie Brown was playing with anger, just throwing people down. I like, but he coulda been flagged once, lucky it was still during the play, but it was close.
• Mouton took a terrible angle on Cousins long scramble.  He looked like he was jogging.  He should run sprints for that effort.  A complete lack of effort.  Just disgusting. I understand that you're coming up from dropping in coverage and the QB just made you drop your jockstrap, but FRICKEN run after the play in case he fumbles it or something.  Don't just give up!
• Right after Stonum made the long TD, you can see a glimpse of GERG grabbing RR, I imagine he's making the case for his defense and asking RichRod to kick it deep.  I like that.  Shows confidence.  Of course it's easier to like it since the D delivered. 

Pic? Pic.

• Then GERG had the balls to blitz Kovacs twice on short yardage.  Nice.
• Can't argue with going for OT, with the rain and Forcier being completely exhausted after that drive.
• I don't know what the hell Mouton was thinking on Caper's final TD.  He put his head down and lept at a man who was engaged with another defender..  Ok, so Troy went high on a guy he shouldn't have, but Mouton is a linebacker who needs to clean up that tackle. Keep your legs and run through it.  Someone needs to get him to workout with the wrestling team in the offseason and learn a doubleleg takedown
• MSU pulled out a lot of misdirection plays.  It's like night and day compared to their Wisconsin game. I wonder if that was because they were saving the plays, or because of the type of defense WISC was playing.  Probably a little of both.
• Our YAC was really down this game.  I think two things contributed to this, obviously MSU had pretty good coverage, but many of Tate's throws were low, maybe due to his sore shoulder taking off just a tiny bit of his precision.

Well, so we lost.  I like the prediction of the guy who saw all the high score predictions and realized that meant the score would be much lower.  That's someone who's seen a lot of football.   I can't say this was totally unexpected. 

But it's strange, I actually feel pretty good about the team after this game.  I think a lot of questions got answered on defense.  I think JT Floyd is an upgrade at corner over an injured Booboo, and Ezeh had a "better" game, even if he did look bad a couple of times.  I'm still worried about Mouton.  Van Bergen looked like a man possesed and Roh continues to impress.

I think we're going to have a lot of nail biters in conference play.  But this team looks so much better than what we were thinking before the season started.   If we finish 7-5 it might be a slight dissapointement after starting 4-0, but a bowl game would be nice.  If we go 6-6 and miss a bowl, that'll be a huge dissapointment based on the progress I've seen so far.  I'm gonna guess we only lose two more times this year, and finish 9-3.  I think we've got a good shot at beating Iowa.

Anyway,  GO BLUE!

Well, with our QB's combining for a whopping 68 yards, there's really no point in charting WR stats this week.  I'll add the data to the year-to-date stats for next week.  Instead I spent the extra free time watching  other games from a pretty interesting weekend.

UM vs. EMU

• eh, it's just a mac team.  can't really tell much. 
• of course CMU is just a mac team too, so of course I prefer this result to MSU's
• Booboo seemed to do much better when not covering future NFL stars. still was giving a little too much room on the goal line though.
• Carlos is fast.
• Carlos might have a future in the NFL as a third down back.  Decent blocker on the blitz pickup.  Catches the ball well out of the backfield.  Has that home run speed. But he needs to work on his leg strength. he goes down a little to easily.
• We absolutely MUST get Denard on the field more.  I don't care how.  He's just too much of a threat to not have on the field against the tougher competition.  If not, it's a huge waste.  (Korean word for the week, 아깝다 "akapda!")
• It's not that Denard is fast, he's got amazing quickness. He's got major acceleration (and the little known third time derivative of position, "Jerk") that is usually just called a quick first step.  But it's more than that.  His acceleration is not linear.  I'm in awe.

ND vs. MSU

• Sparty, NO!  wow, two weeks in a row.  talk about rescuing defeat from the jaws of victory.
• Their QB's actually looked pretty good, except for the last two passes.
• ND's outside receivers have great ups, but they need to work on their landing skills. even last week, tate dropped the ball when he landed on his back, floyd skinned his knee.  and they had some other drops.  this week floyd breaks his collarbone and tate dives into the wrong band (which, LOL!) along with some other drops. 
• Rudolph is a serious receiving threat.  Pass catching tightends are pretty valuable in the pro's.  But he needs to bulk up and learn how to block better
• MSU was slow to adjust to rudolph on the bubble screen.  They kept blitzing from the far side but never got there.
• How many TE's do you see running bubble screens?
• ND fans shouldn't get uppity about this win just yet.  They had to beat MSU eventually, and got a little lucky that sparty spartied themselves this week.
• ND looks like it might go 9-3 or 10-2 and with the loses by byu and utah might end up in a bcs bowl (which makes me want to PUKE!)

Auburn vs. WVU

• Auburn's offense looks a lot like the old single wing, just out of a shotgun formation.
• WVU was on its way to a blowout until Jarret Brown turned into a turnover machine.
• I chalk that up to bad coaching and a lack of mental discipline.
• There's something about Auburn's uniforms or shoulder pads that make them look slow.  They're not, they just look slow.  Maybe their guys are wearing extra rib protection or something.

Arkansas vs. Georgia

• Mallet looks pretty good
• I keep thinking he's only got 4 plus games of experience, but he's really in his third year out of highschool and looks much more like a polished junior than a guy in his 6th game. 
• But he did stink it up in the fourth quarter, probably due to georgia's defensive adjustments.  But hey, coffee is for closers.
• I don't know why Arkansas would ever run, other than to just keep the defense honest.  their passing attack is so much better than their rushing attack. 
• Just like WVU, it looked like Arkansas was going to blow them out, but turnovers helped swing it the other way.
• I think Erin Andrews is dressing more conservatively since her incident.

Cincy vs. Oregon State

• Holy crap, Ben Terry has 12 fingers! Someone go tell Inigo Montoya! Mutants are walking amongst us! Shenanigans! Shenanigans!
• Brian Kelly = good coach
• If you were him, would you go to a second tier SEC school just for a ton of money... eh, yea probably.

BYU vs. FSU

• Why exactly was BYU favored in this game?  Ok, so they have a nice offense, but if you looked just at talent, FSU has bigger and faster players at just about every position.  FSU looked really good in coming up just short against miami.  That was a BCS powerhouse game.  BYU looked pretty meh in defeating a bradfordless oklahoma.  yeah, FSU looked lethargic against jacksonville state (or whatever they're called), but it's an emotional letdown game and completely understandable.
• Anyone else think it's unfair that many of BYU's players are like 26?
• So now Boise will finally be ranked ahead of BYU (which, like DUH!) but boise's schedule is pretty awful.

Misc

• Why the hell is ole miss ranked so high? What exactly have they done? (this was written before last night's game)
• The more time I have to watch actual football, the less desire I have to read about it. It's completely backwards.  Sports columnists don't write much in the offseason when I actually need something to fill the void.  And during the season I don't really care what their uninformed opinions are because I can download the games for myself. 
• I have almost completely stopped reading columnists I used to read weekly just a couple years ago.  Easterbrook, Fiutak, Mandel.  Maybe if I was stuck at work all day and needed a diversion.  But they seem to be filled with stupid opinions, and I hate stupidity.  I want actual analysis.
• Picture pages are awesome.
• In general, anything worth reading regarding Michigan is posted to the board here, so why bother wading through all the unrelated crap at the big websites?
• Or why bother reading some guy's opinion about michigan when he only saw the 5 plays that made the highlight reel?
• not a great week for the big ten, but still virtually tied with the pac ten and SEC for best out of conference records.
• The top of the MAC has definitely pulled even with the middle of the big ten. 
• Indiana is 3-0.  Who woulda thought this was going to be a matchup of undefeateds just a month ago?
• If iowa beats PSU, should I be excited that PSU is mortal or worried about going into Iowa? I guess both.

Anyway, GO BLUE!  I haven't seen any of indiana's games so no predictions.  But they barely beat Western Michigan, so I'm hoping we put up a similar margin on them.