01-05-2014, 01:13 PM
This question boils down to whether we can win one or two more games a year than we are winning now. With what we have right now, we came very close to 13-0. If we had won vs. Utah and the Figueroans, we probably would be in the NCG. (We might've done it with one loss.) In that sense we are at the summit right now. But for the random events that happen in every close football game, we are in the NCG.
I agree, however, we could be a lot better. We are too predictable on offense. The last 4th and 1 was exactly what MSU expected. That play wasn't the first time this season our elephants got stuffed, either. Last year, the same thing happened at Not.re Dam.e.Â
History shows that an attack will usually fail unless the attacker first throws the defender off balance. (Somebody analogized to Pickett's Charge the other day, another painful episode I have to deal with. Lee, however, was at least aiming for the part of the Union line he believed to be weak. On most occasions he was very good at finding it.)
I don't know if our straight-ahead approach is based on looking for a weak point in the defense as opposed to relying on sheer mass and strength. When I hear Coach Shaw talk about failures in the running game, and the straight-ahead attack in particular, I hear him say things like, "This is who we are. This is what we do." I hope he doesn't mean "We're going to run straight ahead because we can out-muscle any opponent." Nobody can do that. We need more intellectual to go with the brutality.
On the defensive side, this is just an impression, but our pass defense has looked weak against athletic receivers. MSU's receivers seemed to get open pretty often. The reason, as some have commented, could be that MSU was holding our pass rushers and the refs weren't calling it. But it wasn't just the RB. $C's receivers got open too. I think we are playing soft coverages to avoid giving up the big play. Whatever the reason good teams seem to pass against us pretty well. Maybe the misses stand out, but our tackling did not seem as good as MSU's.
I agree, however, we could be a lot better. We are too predictable on offense. The last 4th and 1 was exactly what MSU expected. That play wasn't the first time this season our elephants got stuffed, either. Last year, the same thing happened at Not.re Dam.e.Â
History shows that an attack will usually fail unless the attacker first throws the defender off balance. (Somebody analogized to Pickett's Charge the other day, another painful episode I have to deal with. Lee, however, was at least aiming for the part of the Union line he believed to be weak. On most occasions he was very good at finding it.)
I don't know if our straight-ahead approach is based on looking for a weak point in the defense as opposed to relying on sheer mass and strength. When I hear Coach Shaw talk about failures in the running game, and the straight-ahead attack in particular, I hear him say things like, "This is who we are. This is what we do." I hope he doesn't mean "We're going to run straight ahead because we can out-muscle any opponent." Nobody can do that. We need more intellectual to go with the brutality.
On the defensive side, this is just an impression, but our pass defense has looked weak against athletic receivers. MSU's receivers seemed to get open pretty often. The reason, as some have commented, could be that MSU was holding our pass rushers and the refs weren't calling it. But it wasn't just the RB. $C's receivers got open too. I think we are playing soft coverages to avoid giving up the big play. Whatever the reason good teams seem to pass against us pretty well. Maybe the misses stand out, but our tackling did not seem as good as MSU's.