Licking our Wounds

I’ll concur with Rosie, it did look just as ugly on TV. But I’ll also agree that I still had some hope at halftime, even down 20 points. Remember, we were down 20 to MSU even later last year and we were able to force overtime.

But near the end of the 3d quarter, when BQ badly overthrew a wide open Rhema McKnight on what could have been a TD, I put my clipboard down and stopped taking notes. My hand was tired of writing “another 3 and out”.

I didn’t mention this in my game summary, but I did still wonder a bit about our defense. Certainly looked late 2005 vintage yesterday, didn’t it? I’m waiting for Charlie to bring in the stud DBs that are taller than 5’10”. And I didn’t realize that “zone blocking” was such a mystery to solve. UM running game was very reminiscent of the old days when Butch Woolfolk was running, Mike Munchak was blocking. They definitely won with their big uglies up front, didn’t they?

And boy oh boy did our offense stink the joint out. Totally out of synch. Brady was bothered just enough by the pressure that many/most of his passes either looked rushed or UM got an arm on him. The first INT was just a bit behind Carlson, but he should have caught it, so I don’t hang that one on BQ. But it did set the tone. And let’s not get too down too much on Brady. We had 17 rushing attempts for 4 yards. Yes, you read that right. 4 yards rushing. I realize we fell behind early, but we still should have tried to establish the run. We threw 49 passes and ran the ball 17 times. I contend we had time to try to balance that out a bit. Even last week, I thought we should have run more than we did. We were 2 for 14 on third down conversions.

Yes, the crowd sounded dead on TV, although I don’t remember it sounding really loud last week either. Godfather, are the stands at 50 yard line +/- 20 yards still filled with white haired men and women who have had season tickets since Ara was coach? I wonder if the stadium just isn’t filled with enough loud rowdies. 10,000 students stuck in one corner can’t make 80,000 sound loud.

Godfather, it’s hard to say what the mix of Michigan Good, ND Bad is. I do know that Drew Stanton is again licking his chops, looking forward to our visit next week.

My only highlights: First, I saw Toni in stock footage from Wake Up the Echoes in the intro to the game. Second, I found the halftime show on NBCSports.com and the UM band played Led Zeppelin. Why do we play Motown when Michigan visits? Are we taking that to East Lansing too? Hmmm….

PROGRAMMING NOTE: I will not be able to see or tape the game next week. ABC has split coverage Saturday night, and I can state with relative certainty that the USC/Arizona game will be on locally. Plus, we have our annual AF formal Saturday night, so I won’t be able to go to the ND LA alumni club game watch. I was getting all ready to write my game preview around the theme that MSU has historically been a trap game for us. I was one week late on the trap game angle.

Try to have a good week, all. Continue to blog. We can use it as a support group now.