All About the Defense

We had kind of lousy seats yesterday; literally the first ND fan seats to the right of where the MSU families sit in section 12. The MSU fans were very nice and classy. Glad we were winning most of the game as that cut down on the noise from the MSU fans and band. There was a lot of fruitless standing in our area so not a really great place to watch the game and much of the action ended up in the North end. The ND band got a good view of the big plays in the game, we did not. So I feel a little under informed on specifics yesterday; hope to see a replay on TV in the next couple days.

It is apparent that our defense accomplished two big things yesterday. They completely shut down the MSU run game and they avoided the big game changer plays. The intermediate passing game hurt us a bit, but hey 13 points is a heck of a day. We have some stud freshman making contributions already. The offense was solid if not great. Balanced run/pass attack, a couple long drives and game buster kickoff return. The mistakes are still too great. We were fortunate that that turnover battle was close but again 3 is too many. Lots of penalties again but the good news on both fronts is that the mistakes were not always at critical moments. Of course that statement excludes the muffed punt by Goodman which could have been a big problem.

Anyway, a beautiful day in South Bend and the ND band got to perform TWO halftime shows as they brought out the USF halftime show after the game. Very nice to see the entire student body and a fair number of other fans stick around to watch the long post-game and enjoy another performance.

We knew this team had the talent to beat just about anybody. Good to see it finally happen. I am not going to wallow in the "if only" game about the first two losses and instead focus on the future. We have several beatable opponents coming up and can turn this season around with a string of victories. Let's do it! We will be in Pittsburgh next Saturday to watch that one.

Go Irish! Beat Panthers!