Hail to Sparta

Credit where credit is due. MSU played a good game. Incredibly gutsy call at the end that was executed well and won the game. QB Cousins was 22/33 for 245 yards with a string of something like 14 in a row in the second half. Great balance by the MSU offense with 477 yards total. I wish I was stating all this stuff about the Irish.

We are getting better in some ways and worse in others. Have to say overall trajectory feels DOWN right now when you throw in the emotional hurt of two tough losses. Just too many little things going wrong to win a close game as we have seen two weeks in a row. We have to get better.

Areas for improvement. Stop the big runs and the broken play passes down field. Simply cannot expect to win when you give up 477 yards to the other guys. We had another 10 minute deficit in time of possession that has to be wearing on the defense. Turnovers have to diminish we lost that battle 3 to 1. Penalties were way up last night as well.

A couple things really bug me. We need a reliable way to get 1-2 yards on the ground when we need it. The great ND teams of our era could reliably run the ball even when the other guys knew it was coming. Our current scheme seems to be a Crist dive or a Crist toss to Rudolph; both of which are not always working. We also need a package that can get 2 -3 first downs when we need to give the defense a rest. Our 30 second 3-outs don't help anybody. And then we need to stop the run more effectively. At times our D-line looked very good stuffing the run up the middle but we were dismal at the edges.

On the plus side, Crist looked fantastic for most of the game. Spread the ball around much more including helping Riddick to have a breakout performance which bodes well for the future. Floyd caught several key passes but I still feel he is in a bit of a funk given his sloppy ball handling and occasionally displays of frustration. Grow up and get it together man! Statistically the defense was terrible (MSU averaged about 5 yards per rush and 8 yards per pass) but they did have several big stops that helped shift momentum at key points in the game. Unfortunately our offense gave it right back a couple times.

So now we face a Stanford team that has Mt. Rushmore on the offensive line and is averaging 242 yards per game on the ground (and 233 in the air!). We are in for a real fight and while the trajectory is down now we can turn it around quickly with an upset (Stanford is bound to be favored heavily). If we lose again, the Irish may not be able to turn it around anytime soon.

GO IRISH! BEAT CARDINAL!