September Swan Song

And so, my one word biggest season challenge—September—is over. And the Irish emerge 4-1. We certainly laid an egg against Michigan, struggled against Georgia Tech and had to score 19 in the 4th quarter to beat Michigan State. So, are we happy?

Sorry, I have to say no.

This offense should never be held to 14 or 21 points. Just shouldn’t happen. And our defense is not good. I’m really tired of creating new All American receivers for the other team every week. First it was Mario Mannigham for UofM. Today, it was Selwyn Lymon , who set a new ND opponent record for receiving yards with 220.

Let’s do some glaring but completely inappropriate comparisons based on today’s home game guests: the 1966 Irish gave up 5 touchdowns ALL YEAR. And pitched 6 shutouts. Yes, I know it’s not 1966. Not even close. But c’mon. This defense is not good. We still haven’t “solved” anybody; every team has moved the ball on us pretty well. One glimmer: Terrail Lambert is becoming a bit of a presence in the defensive backfield. Let’s hope that continues

OK, so did anything go right today? Look at drives three and four in the first half. After drive three, I wrote down “the perfect drive”. Three different receivers and DW for 15 and the score. The run/pass distribution on drive 4 was P-R-P-R-P-P-R-R-P-P. Beautiful.

The fake field goal was one of my surprises. I was “watching” the game on espn.com, so I knew about all the scores. But I didn’t know we were going to fake a field goal. What a call. And perfect execution. Just yummy. My other surprise was the “why didn’t we score any more” question I had. Weird, long drive that resulted in a missed field goal and two punts after some first downs. I was expecting three or four 3-and-outs, which didn’t happen, so that was good.

Other game observances: on Purdue’s first TD drive, their first play was a 38 yard pass. There was a HUGE hold on that play when Landri was going to get the sack. No flag thrown. Would have completely changed things. On their next drive, they had three consecutive first downs with gains of 14, 11 and 14. Like I said, our defense isn’t good. We’re lucky Purdue seemed sluggish in the 4th quarter; no sense of urgency down multiple touchdowns. Strange.

So what’s the prognosis from here? Everyone ahead of us other than Ohio State and Michigan looked very average this week. SC struggled with Washington State. Auburn only by 7 over South Carolina. Va Tech lost. Georgia looked bad. Florida’s 15 point win was a one point game midway through the fourth quarter. But, we could still have multiple undefeateds at the end, between USC, Ohio State, Michigan, Louiville and West Virginia. OSU plays Michigan, Louiville plays WVU, but that could still yield 3 undefeateds. I don’t think anyone in the SEC will emerge undefeated; they all have to play each other. Hard to believe Rutgers might have a say—they play both Louiville and West Virginia in November. So we’re still way on the outside looking in, although we should be 10-1 going out to Southern Cal. UCLA is the “trap” game, depending on which Bruins team shows up. But we’ll have two weeks to prepare, so I’m hoping we take care of them.

It’s official: we ruined Michigan State’s season. They lost to Illinois yesterday, which is truly amazing. Almost feels like George Perles is coaching the Spartans, doesn’t it?

Question: was Pat Haden wearing pink pants yesterday? Maybe it was my TV. Or maybe it was just the reflection off Tom Hammond’s definitely pink tie.

How wet did you get, Godfather?

And so, it’s now time to look forward to being in The House for what I’m sure will be a drubbing of the woeful Stanford Cardinal. Bring your ear plugs; 1000 instruments on the field isn’t going to be quiet. Rock is most definitely up. See you all Friday!

GO IRISH!!! BEAT CARDINAL!!!