Great win last night. Defense wins another one similar to the Louisville game.
My thoughts:
Positives:
This is the year. The toughest two games on the schedule were just won. The toughest games remaining are at home. We will be favored in every game going forward. But will we do it? Will we take the next step and get to the playoff this season?
If we make it to the playoff I think we would have a lot of trouble against TCU/Baylor/OSU/LSU/Alabama etc. but we can worry about that another day. Let's just get there and get better each week and hopefully be a better team and then be ready to compete against a very high level of competition.
But can we take care of GA Tech, Miami, FSU, S Carolina and the eventual Coastal Division champion first? Undefeated and we are in. One loss and it becomes a lot tougher especially playing in the ACC and the later the loss, the worse it will hurt us come selection time.
It's time for us to take the next step. Let's go.
My thoughts:
Positives:
- Brent Venables is the best defensive coordinator in college football. He is still underpaid and will need a pay raise at the end of this season again in order for us to hold onto him.
- NFL talent across the board on defense. Lawson. Kearse. Mac. Wilkins. Etc.
- The team gutted it out. Forcing turnovers. Shutting down the run. Doing just enough on offense early to build a big enough lead. Impressive win against a great team.
- The fans showed up given the rain and it made a difference with crowd noise and the ND freshman QB. We need an equal amount of fan support for next week to hold off a pesky GT team.
- We still don't have a gamebreaking type player on offense. We miss Williams badly. Gallman is solid but not a homerun threat. RB depth is weak. None of the young receivers are far enough along yet to be depended on except for maybe Renfrow. Peake needs to wake up. Leggett is hit or miss. Watson is a great talent but his lack of downfield receiving threats are turning him into a run-first QB instead of a dual-threat QB.
- Playcalling is questionable at best on offense. The slow developing QB sneak play with Watson looks like an Ohio State Cardale Jones play. The biggest difference is 210 pounds vs 250 pounds. Watson usually tends to juke before trying to run though someone given his skill set but this play requires tough, falling-forward yards. Also, every time he gets tackled I'm still worried about injury and probably always will be after last season.
- Stalled drives on offense hurts our defense the most. Our defense doesn't have a lot of depth and were looking gassed late in the game when ND made their run. Sustaining drives will be very important if we want to gut out these type of wins going forward.
This is the year. The toughest two games on the schedule were just won. The toughest games remaining are at home. We will be favored in every game going forward. But will we do it? Will we take the next step and get to the playoff this season?
If we make it to the playoff I think we would have a lot of trouble against TCU/Baylor/OSU/LSU/Alabama etc. but we can worry about that another day. Let's just get there and get better each week and hopefully be a better team and then be ready to compete against a very high level of competition.
But can we take care of GA Tech, Miami, FSU, S Carolina and the eventual Coastal Division champion first? Undefeated and we are in. One loss and it becomes a lot tougher especially playing in the ACC and the later the loss, the worse it will hurt us come selection time.
It's time for us to take the next step. Let's go.
