I'm surprised to hear how negative some people are after 3 double digit, multi-touchdown victories. I appreciate that the redzone offense has been poor. But there are a ton of positives I think you can hang your hat on.
1) Holy smokes, how good is Quinn Nordin? Have you ever felt this good about the prospects of our kicking game for the next 4 years? The downside of a lot of field goals is no touchdowns, but a big upside, particularly when we get into Big Ten season and the scores get tighter, is we have a kicker with a ton of confidence and a massive leg. Huge asset.
2) The coaches are definitely holding back some plays on the playcalling right now. Harbaugh has done this every year. Think back to how plain vanilla we were against Oregon St with Rudock at the helm back in 2015. Its been the exact same (look at the statline if you like - 400 yards in each game, some turnovers, penalties and sloppy play, etc.). I dont have a personal line inside Harbaugh's head, but it seems obvious to me that we aren't dealing with a full deck right now (e.g. no wildcat wrinkles, absolutely zero screen game, minimal off-the-run creative plays, etc.). I'm interested to see if he respects Purdue enough to open it up a bit this week.
3) In each game, we have been a play or two or three from meaningfully more points. In my view, the refs have taken 4 points from us in Florida (phantom ineligible WR downfield) and this past week (the WR holding call to me didnt look like a hold to me the guy got pancaked). Officials aside, the half-step out of bounds by Isaac, the missed pass to Crawford down the sideline against Cincy, etc. The points are out there, its just a matter of a young team coming together and cleaning up the execution. I'm confident the coaches will get them there.
4) Offense aside, boy this defense looks strong. What a luxury to feel like an offense that scores 25-35 could win by 2 scores consistently. If you can win two phases of the game, you typically win the game. And I can count the number of teams I'd trade defenses with on one hand (it might be Bama and Clemson and thats it). Feels damn good to have the best defense of any team remaining on our schedule.
5) The bye feels like its perfectly timed this year. I think we are going to put some pieces together this week and hand Purdue a 2 TD+ loss at home. And then we get two weeks to get some stuff cleaned up before we start in on the meat of the schedule.
A couple other thoughts.
- Would love to see McDoom get some more touches, he has more shake than anyone on our team. Feels like he should be returning kicks to me. Crawford has left a bit to be desired on that end.
- Curious to see who does our punting in the next 5 games. The 25 yard shanks, blocks and near-blocks are coming with too regular of a frequency.
Enjoy your week everyone. The team is 3-0, be happy about being 3-0. There are many teams in this country that are not 3-0.
1) Holy smokes, how good is Quinn Nordin? Have you ever felt this good about the prospects of our kicking game for the next 4 years? The downside of a lot of field goals is no touchdowns, but a big upside, particularly when we get into Big Ten season and the scores get tighter, is we have a kicker with a ton of confidence and a massive leg. Huge asset.
2) The coaches are definitely holding back some plays on the playcalling right now. Harbaugh has done this every year. Think back to how plain vanilla we were against Oregon St with Rudock at the helm back in 2015. Its been the exact same (look at the statline if you like - 400 yards in each game, some turnovers, penalties and sloppy play, etc.). I dont have a personal line inside Harbaugh's head, but it seems obvious to me that we aren't dealing with a full deck right now (e.g. no wildcat wrinkles, absolutely zero screen game, minimal off-the-run creative plays, etc.). I'm interested to see if he respects Purdue enough to open it up a bit this week.
3) In each game, we have been a play or two or three from meaningfully more points. In my view, the refs have taken 4 points from us in Florida (phantom ineligible WR downfield) and this past week (the WR holding call to me didnt look like a hold to me the guy got pancaked). Officials aside, the half-step out of bounds by Isaac, the missed pass to Crawford down the sideline against Cincy, etc. The points are out there, its just a matter of a young team coming together and cleaning up the execution. I'm confident the coaches will get them there.
4) Offense aside, boy this defense looks strong. What a luxury to feel like an offense that scores 25-35 could win by 2 scores consistently. If you can win two phases of the game, you typically win the game. And I can count the number of teams I'd trade defenses with on one hand (it might be Bama and Clemson and thats it). Feels damn good to have the best defense of any team remaining on our schedule.
5) The bye feels like its perfectly timed this year. I think we are going to put some pieces together this week and hand Purdue a 2 TD+ loss at home. And then we get two weeks to get some stuff cleaned up before we start in on the meat of the schedule.
A couple other thoughts.
- Would love to see McDoom get some more touches, he has more shake than anyone on our team. Feels like he should be returning kicks to me. Crawford has left a bit to be desired on that end.
- Curious to see who does our punting in the next 5 games. The 25 yard shanks, blocks and near-blocks are coming with too regular of a frequency.
Enjoy your week everyone. The team is 3-0, be happy about being 3-0. There are many teams in this country that are not 3-0.
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