Let's Go Two-and-O!

30-27, Irish.

Yes, I know, I save my score prediction for the end, but as I was driving home on the 405 tonight, that score came to me, so I figured I should share it up front. I don’t always know at the beginning of my typing what score I will predict. I tend to look things up (ND home page, SB Trib, ESPN, etc) while I’m typing, and the things I find do impact my prediction.

But not this week.

Now, of course, this score appeared before my eyes before I knew of the rain forecast for tomorrow. So if it’s 20-17 Irish, that will be my weather-adjusted prediction.

But, barring weather-induced turnovers, I think offense will be king, on both sidelines.

I’m hoping Don’s right in that our simplified defense will continue to “keep things in front of us”. But I still worry a bit based on the one drive where Purdue brought in their running QB, and broke off several 10+ yard runs. That being said, we’ve had all week to prepare for Denard Robinson. We’ll see.

I remember the down-to-the-wire nature of last year’s game, and I believe we’ll have similar nail biting to do this week. The big difference could be if DC and Michael Floyd are in better rhythm. Floyd’s our game changer, but he didn’t do much positive game changing last week. His fumble changed things in the wrong way. If they’re rhythm is on, then we might see a two touchdown romp like Don predicts. But with the weather and no evidence we’re able to go down the field on big strikes last week, I’m thinking we’ll be living in “Closeville” again.

We’ll need continued solid special teams play (we were really good in all aspects of that last week) and we’ll need to continue to keep penalty totals low.

It’s an hour to game time so I’ll wrap things up. I obviously started this last night and am finishing now. And, lo and behold, the weather looks less foreboding, with just 10% chance of precip, temps in the low 60s. So I’m sticking by my score:

IRISH 30, WOLVERINES 27

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

The Colonel