A Win By Any Other Name...

Well that was interesting.

We ran like four completely different offenses tonite, it seemed. Let no one doubt, however, that JC is the real deal. He most certainly is. His team called on him to perform above and beyond in the 4th quarter, and he delivered. Todd Blackledge (great color guy) had it right—find his tight end. Fortunately, Kyle Rudolph ran the perfect route and JC hit him square on. Excellent drive, beautiful final play. 12 plays, 72 yards, Game Over.

In some respects, this might have been one of Charlie’s best games ever, offensively speaking. True, we scored our season low in points, but he had to improvise the whole night. I’m not sure why we didn’t come out in the 3rd quarter like we did in the second, but hell, we had the ball for like 13 minutes, so I guess I can’t complain. (Except that we didn’t score any points.)

I thought we had a turning point, in the wrong way, when we got sacked on 4th and 10 and then Purdue passed for 28 yards on their first play after that. It would have been the turning point, except that JC had the antidote for that.

Oh, and, by the way, Sam Young might be the worst offensive lineman ever to start for four years. He’s awful and will never amount to anything in the NFL.

On the plus side, isn’t nice to be able to assume reasonable length field goals are going to be good? And Nick’s kick offs have been getting progressively deeper, week to week. At least one tonight took the receiver into the end zone. And he’s just a freshman!

But boy we still give up a lot of big plays on defense. I counted 5 plays each half of over 15 yards from scrimmage for Purdue’s offense. While we did a very good job in the first half after the first drive, I never really felt confident as the momentum was shifting late in the third quarter.

A sad picture when they showed Floyd, Aldridge and Allen standing next to each other on the sideline, huh? And Jimmy was hobbled too, as we all know. But we managed to rush for 200 yards, which should almost always mean a W for us. And JC was 6 for 9 when we needed him on the final drive.

Officiating was good; I felt like all the calls were warranted and they didn’t miss any egregious fouls. And replay played no role this week, thank goodness.

And so we join a bunch of teams at 3-1. Many of them (USC and Penn State, to name two) didn’t think they’d have a loss this early. Four top ten teams and seven of the top 25 lost this week. And Florida’s season took a dicey turn as well with Tebow’s concussion. And like clockwork, our next opponent, Washington, lost in advance of their game with the Irish. Could have predicted that one. The beat USC, have to go to South Bend next week, of course this one was a trap game for them.

We’ll be 10 point favorites Saturday, and we’ll cover, if Jimmy’s toe is improved. On to October.

GO IRISH!!!! BEAT HUSKIES!!!!