Onward to More Victories

It’s always fun to cover a 29-point spread, isn’t it, Godfather? Bet you weren’t thinking we would around half way through the second period, huh?

After last week, I’m back on the bandwagon. Sorry I doubted, but oh well. At the beginning of the season I would have said 4-0. But after the injuries on offense, I didn’t think we had the chops to outscore Ga Tech. Bless me Father, for I have sinned…

The boys definitely got it done today, and a lot of them contributed. Four different freshmen scored TDs, and another one was 8 for 9 on extra points. Should have been 9 for 9, though.

Given Clemson has had two-plus weeks to prepare, I’m glad we got a lot of people involved and that the first team got some rest. Since we never throw to the tight end this year, you probably missed that Tyler Luatua didn’t play today. He had a concussion, not sure when he suffered it.

As I texted to Don during the game, it’s hard to believe that C.J. Prosise isn’t a “true” running back. He sees openings extremely well, moves to and through them quickly and can burn. And Josh Adams is providing some great freshman push as well. When’s the last time we had two RBs over 100 yards? JA went for 133, CJ for 149.

Yes, it was UMass, so probably our one patsy. But we executed very well on offense.

Our defense has its pluses and minuses. We don’t miss tackles if we get hands on people or a clean look in the open field. Our effort against Ga Tech’s standard offense last week was stellar. But we can definitely be beat passing downfield and if their runners get to the second level. We will need to work on those things if possible this week. One of my main thoughts coming out of last week was that the players stayed in their lanes, trusted the coaches’ game plan and excelled. And I’m guessing that will stick with them through the season. They trust the coaches and the coaches trust them. Big, very big.

And we scored a special team TD!! Did a YouTube search and the last punt return TD I saw was Golden Tate against Pittsburgh several years ago. Not sure if that’s the last one or not.

I’ve seen a little bit of Clemson this season; I haven’t been awed, for sure. I’m guessing we might be a 1-2 point underdog for this game, given their time to prepare and it being in their version of Death Valley. But after what we’ve been through, injury-wise, and seen how we’ve performed in spite of that, I’m feeling good. This team has a “Band of Brothers” feel to it, and I think that will be enough to see us through next week.

One side note: I hope you got to watch BK’s pregame exhortation from last week that the University put out on Facebook. It was killer.

Just deleted some sentences that projected way too far into the season. I liked BK’s comments after the game. Use the 24-hour rule, enjoy the victory, then on to Clemson.

On to Clemson, indeed.

GO IRISH!! BEAT TIGERS!!!

The Colonel