I'll preface this with the fact that I'm bummed, sad, and a little angry. My thoughts below are just my opinions and certainly not a basis for fact. Those who are still upset...and imbibing as it appeared by some posts last night and early this morning...feel free to continue to bash the coaches, schemes, players, weather, officials, zombie apocalypse and shout, scream, rampage, and throw a bottle of Jamison through your TV screen (but please don't really do that; it'd be a terrible waste of good whiskey). That is your prerogative and right on here.
We are good. We are really good. Our defense has grown and developed so much over the past year. We have depth like I haven't seen since I was a kid and didn't really understand what depth was. We've got NFL talent that is on par with the rest of the top 10-15 schools in the country. In short, this is awesome. I remember not too long ago hoping for a win by waiting for the other team to make a series of unrecoverable mistakes because we were just outmatched. No longer do we have that. We can legitimately win every game we play now. That's a tall order of course since our team is still full of 18-22 year old human beings, as every other school has as well, whom are prone to making 18-22 year old mistakes and are prone to 18-22 year old emotions and testosterone waves of psychosis (ahh the good old days). Our kids will make those mistakes, our coaches will make those mistakes and every team is prone to it.
Yes, I have my own issues with play calling, schemes, O-Line splits especially (why are they 1 1/2 feet splits if you want to run inside zone and stretch plays????? Still can't figure this out). Luckily the same can be said of the decisions and tactics put together by Saban, Meyer, Dantonio, and every other coach too because they have had their moments of "is-this-really-what-the-coach-decided-to-do-here?" But all in all...we were "there" last night. We will continue to be "there" throughout the year, next year, the year after that. The opportunities are there. God help me, I love watching these kids, even in the worst moments because we are finally there. It isn't over yet. 11-1 is possible. Let's let the year shake out and see where we end up because there isn't a team in the top 25 we can't compete with and it feels damn good to be able to finally say that. Go Irish.
We are good. We are really good. Our defense has grown and developed so much over the past year. We have depth like I haven't seen since I was a kid and didn't really understand what depth was. We've got NFL talent that is on par with the rest of the top 10-15 schools in the country. In short, this is awesome. I remember not too long ago hoping for a win by waiting for the other team to make a series of unrecoverable mistakes because we were just outmatched. No longer do we have that. We can legitimately win every game we play now. That's a tall order of course since our team is still full of 18-22 year old human beings, as every other school has as well, whom are prone to making 18-22 year old mistakes and are prone to 18-22 year old emotions and testosterone waves of psychosis (ahh the good old days). Our kids will make those mistakes, our coaches will make those mistakes and every team is prone to it.
Yes, I have my own issues with play calling, schemes, O-Line splits especially (why are they 1 1/2 feet splits if you want to run inside zone and stretch plays????? Still can't figure this out). Luckily the same can be said of the decisions and tactics put together by Saban, Meyer, Dantonio, and every other coach too because they have had their moments of "is-this-really-what-the-coach-decided-to-do-here?" But all in all...we were "there" last night. We will continue to be "there" throughout the year, next year, the year after that. The opportunities are there. God help me, I love watching these kids, even in the worst moments because we are finally there. It isn't over yet. 11-1 is possible. Let's let the year shake out and see where we end up because there isn't a team in the top 25 we can't compete with and it feels damn good to be able to finally say that. Go Irish.
