rogue3542

Big Ten East is the first division to get three separate teams into the playoff in OSU, MSU, and UM, and PSU is a team that is vying pretty much every year as well. It's not like Maryland and Rutgers are pushovers anymore, either. We play in the toughest division in college football. The season went off the rails at the end due to all our injuries and lack of momentum through the season, but we were a couple turnovers and a targeting penalty away from 6 wins and a bowl season. The entire season wasn't as bad as it seemed at the end.

Are Ole Miss fans even aware that defense is part of the game?

Nebraska didn't play nearly this badly vs IU.

Some people just aren't happy unless they're in constant misery.

When Georgia brings linebacker blitzes, Alabama can't do anything. When they don't, Alabama just destroys them.

Turnovers, and Syracuse played a LOT better in the first half than they have all year

Win or lose at this point, I'm happy with the fortitude and grit the team has shown

The moving screens were about the most egregious I've ever seen

Bohannon and end of game threes

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me

I ended up spending way too much time putting this together, so I hope everyone can appreciate it. ToP can be a flawed metric. Here's IU's drives from the Rutgers game followed by Rutgers starting position (for the first half). This is only one game, sure, but it clearly illustrates the offense setting the defense up for failure: 1 play - fumble, Rutgers starts next drive at IU 21, scores TD 10 plays - Missed fg, Rutgers 21 3 plays - punt, Rutgers 30, scores TD 3 plays - punt, Rutgers 28 1 play - interception, IU 24, scores Field goal 10 plays - interception, Rutgers 2 3 plays - punt, Rutgers 3 6 plays - fumble, Rutgers 45 7 plays - FG (only points of game) Halftime: Despite 3 three-and-outs and FOUR turnovers, the halftime score is 17-3 Rutgers. For those keeping score, that's 2 drives out of 9 where IU didn't either give the ball right back after three plays or turn it over, and only 4 of 9 drives lasted longer than three plays. 2 of 9 drives were literally only one play. Of it's three scoring drives, Rutgers started two essentially in the red zone. 3 plays - punt 5 plays - punt 6 plays - TOD 3 plays - punt 3 plays - punt 12 plays - TOD 3 plays - Fumble Rutgers' three touchdowns in the second half came on a muffed punt that saw them starting at the IU 10, a TD drive that started at the IU 39, and a TD drive that started at the Rutgers 47. Again, for those keeping score, Rutgers scored on drives starting at: IU 21 Rutgers 30 IU 24 IU 10 IU 39 Rutgers 47 4 of 6 scoring drives started on IU's side of the field. Literally HALF of Rutgers scoring drives started, for all intents and purposes, in the red zone, and only 7 points came on a drive longer than 53 yards. Show me a defense outside of Georgia that's going to come out of that game looking "good."

Looks like Lincoln Riley is headed to USC. I think that OK job may be a tough sell to a higher profile coach. Could OK look like Nebraska in ten years? Losing Riley right before heading to the SEC could be a tough road ahead.

As much as I don't think Cincy is CFP good, I don't know how you put ND in over Cincy when Cincy owns the head to head.

Points IU gave up off turnovers: 95 Points IU scored this year: 207 I'm not going to do every game, but I'll use Purdue as a michrocosm: Purdue touchdown drive lengths: 75, 42, 51, 69, 65, 46 Or take MSU touchdown drive lengths: 6, 30 yard td interception Literally half of Purdue's scoring drives started at center field or better, and I'd argue the defense legitimately only gave up 2 field goals to MSU but yeah, the DC is our biggest problem and should be our "statement firing"...

I'd like to see Cincinnati make it for 2 reasons: 1) It'll shut up a lot of people crowing about the G5 getting "shafted" every year 2) I want to see them play an actually great team, for the Schadenfreude of it

We fired Sheridan in what, 12-14 hours after the last snap of the season, on a Sunday? And it "doesn't move the needle?" The defense was "bad" in the latter half of the season because half our 2 deep was injured at one point or another and the offense continually threw pick sixes, turned it over in the red zone, and went three-and-out at the 20 yard line, giving the other team starting position on our side of the 50 half the time. Hard to have a good defense all year when you're put in that situation on nearly every drive. Most of the defenses "problems" actually stem from how utterly inept we were on offense all year. Also, if Allen goes the "head coach of the offense" route again, which, IMO, is likely, he'll probably give that person some latitude in bringing in his own position coaches (with the likely exception of McCullough). Give it more than an hour to play out...

I want an OSU/Cincy 2/3 game. I think there's a good chance it happens.

If IU had only scored two points in the second half, they would have won. This might be the best defense I've personally seen IU play.

Academy award performance right there! Might have been some contact, might have been.

Do you mean 0-4, 301 in KenPom Lafayette? Edit: now 1-4

No only that, they dropped an even 100 on them.

I had a sliver of hope when we stopped them and went up 7-0. Our offense is just an unmitigated disaster. Forget Sheridan's play calling for a second; I think he needs to go from a QB coach perspective. When you have three qb's making the same terrible turnovers every single game, it's a coaching problem.

This entire penalty call on McFadden is BS. He hit him a fraction of a second after releasing the ball. No way that's roughing.

Why aren't we playing mcculley?

Honestly, I don't think any of the plays they highlighted should be fouls at all, and the one where the official says the player "extends the arm bar," I'm not seeing it at all. I know I went off on it in my first post, but I think this rule emphasis is trash. If a guy posts you and starts backing you down, it's kind of an instinctive move to put your arm between you and him. I'm interested to see what else they bring out as emphasis as the season goes on. Every rule change they make/emphasize seems to benefit the offense; it's pretty clear they are trying to "maximize" the entertainment value.