o man.... it was shaping up to be a great college football day. Oregon rolled, Clemson lost, LSU looked like they could choke, things were just falling into place. I am still really struggling to make of this game. Some have said it was a great game, hard hits, good defense, tough offenses. Others have said it was boring and unwatchable and both teams are highly over rated. I really think these are 2 very good teams and if they play 10 times, it may be a 5/5 split, they have different strengths, but are pretty evenly matched, which isn't something that you can always say about ND teams. ND choked at the end, plain and simple, but I can come back to that. Just to get it out of the way, I know Day was probably caught up in the moment, but felt like his attack on Lou Holtz was unnecessary and a little weird. Look, i am no Holtz lover, i think hes a good coach, who had a good team, but I also think he is an as$hole. The idea that all ND coaches should model themselves off of him is ridiculous. I know he is old and has trouble speaking, but trying to be completely unbiased and neutral, i don't think anything he said was that bad. If Day wanted to address it fine, but to make it your main comment after winning a game like that... was puzzling. Ill call it the Deon effect where everything is a personal attack and we field the need to defend ourselves on every little comments. It was just weird that he felt the need to defend that in that moment.
But anyway, back to the game. Ill speak more about ND because i feel like i can evaluate them better. But i thought they generally played well. Both teams had 4th down plays stopped, few penalties, stats were pretty close. Generally, i thought the refs did a poor job. Not sure how a holding got switched to a PI during a review? A lot of missed calls, but i feel like they were missed on both teams. I always say you miss 80% of the penalties your team commits but see 150% of the ones the other team commits. Wasn't a game that came down to kickers or a stupid penalty, etc. It was just a hard fought game down to the end. ND was not overmatched and if they played again, i don't think they would be in that match up either. Without watching tOSU play all season, i didn't see much that indicated that ND didn't get there best shot. There weren't drops or things like that. They played ND with everything and won. I say this cautiously, but feel like ND left a little bit in the locker room that they could have shown. They were a little to cautious and I've seen them do some things better than they did on Saturday. Which is why i would feel good with a rematch.
But anyway, down to the last 5 min. I was losing it when ND stopped the sweep on the 4th and 1. I can only imagine that you all were losing it as well and potentially slamming Day for calling such a play. I really felt like ND had a chance to win the game, and by all account, they should have. I did not have a problem with the screen pass, if he throws that 6" higher, ND wins the game. Its a high percentage play and other than 1 player, seemed like it may have caught tOSU off guard. That DE made a great play though. Yes it stopped the clock, yes it was risky, but you can't win games like this being safe. All the talk about saving the time out and the 10 sec. runoff and all that, no one has any idea how the game would have played out with a different play being called. Every play after that could have been different if ND just handed it off. May Hartman fumbles it and someone dives for the ball and breaks his leg, who knows. I know thats extreme, but my point is, you can debate if that was a good or bad call, but you can't really assume that every play after that would have been the same if ND rushed it, got 2 yards and forced you to use a timeout. Every play that you guys ran would have been different, who knows.
But when they punted, i started to feel really bad. The dropped interception killed me and i really felt like tOSU was going to find a way to win at that point, just felt it. I don't know if you guys saw that there were 10 on the field, or would have ran something different if there were 11, but that was a terrible moment for ND. Im not sure if i believe that freeman saw it or not. A penalty and moving the ball 6" closer seems like it would have been far better than 10 guys on the field, it may have just been a moment of panic. Hes a young coach and somewhere, he messed up.
But nice job to the buckeyes, good luck the rest of the year, despite the loss, i feel better about this team moving forward and think that a 10-2 record is completely reasonable, and 11-1 is not out of the question.
