Convincing, but not Convinced (Yet)

A lot to like about today’s nifty win over the (not so pesky, Godfather) Wolf Pack. Charlie’s first shutout—that surprised me.

The best numbers from the game? 68. 78. 80. 80. 99. Those are the yardage lengths of our five TD drives. We earned all our points. A very good thing.

Seven different receivers caught passes. Good. Four different backs got a good amount of carries. Also good. And a 3-0 turnover margin. Excellent.

An interesting oxymoron: Nevada had 9 offensive plays of 15 or greater yards but didn’t score a point. Four of them happened on three drives that ended in turnovers. And on the plus side, their longest gain was 24 yards, so they didn’t have any game breakers.

Unlike the Irish, which had 4 Big Plays (>= 15 yards) that turned in to TDs. Including two Major Big Plays, on short and long passes from JC to Mr Floyd that both resulted in paydirt.

And wow, only two penalties on opening day? And none of them false starts or delay of game? Oklahoma had 3 false starts on their first drive in a friendly stadium. They had at least 12 penalties in the game and lost.

Our pass blocking was very good. JC got hit a few times, but he mostly had at least as much time as he needed to throw.

And the crowd was definitely into the game. Good and loud at the right times into the fourth quarter. I’ll let actual attendees confirm this, but it sounded good on NBC.

And I’ve always liked blitzes. We blitz a lot!

So what wasn’t good today?

First, many of Nevada’s big gains resulted from their QB breaking contain and running for first downs. Good on the pass coverage—no one was open. Bad on keeping the QB in the box. For example, on their last drive of the first half, we missed two clean sacks that turned in to 23 and 17 yard gains.

Also, I’m not convinced our run blocking is in a very good place yet. We averaged 4.3 yards per carry, but I’ll state it was a weak 4.3. The big bad plays on my list include a 3rd and 2 on the 3rd drive of the second half and a 3rd and 1 on the 4th drive of the second half. Gain of one, loss of one, two punts. While I realize the game was well in hand and we probably had several 2nd teamers in on the line, too bad. We should have been able to convert against a by then demoralized Nevada defense and we didn’t. I’m not a believer yet. Especially given our O-line now has 100 cumulative starts among them.

Interesting note: three Freshmen had impact. Nick Tausch may be our 4 year kicker, although he didn’t kick off long enough and didn’t get to try any field goals, which would have been nice. Theo Riddick is returning kicks and got carries at tailback. And our new crowd favorite seems to be Manti Te’o. That bodes well.

And finally, this week’s minor miracle: an NBC game lasted less than three hours!

Conclusion: A highly satisfactory team effort.

But let’s not get all ga-ga and start predicting 12-0 here.

Another set of numbers to ponder: 31. 44. 52. 56. 44. 38. 39. Those are point totals from today of several of our 2009 opponents. While many of them weren’t playing challenging foes, they definitely demonstrated an ability to score. Plus, Navy almost beat Ohio State and Washington gave LSU a halfway decent tussle.

So it’s on to Ann Arbor to face a potentially rejuvenated Michigan team. Hopefully their true freshman quarterback will show his “freshman-ness” in the face of our defense. More on that later this week.

Good play. Good result. Good start.

GO IRISH!!!! BEAT WOLVERINES!!!!

The Colonel.