Undone

I think Ozigbo is special. We ran a screen pass to him in the second quarter against UCLA where he displayed the full package - Speed, agility, and a strong finish after contact. I think we can really look a lot better on first down runs with a healthy, Senior Terrell Newby and a Sophmore Ozigbo. It's pretty exciting. If we stick with Tommy (which is our best option, if we're all honest), our running backs could see even better results next year by having Tommy run more keepers. The bowl game showed this. I feel much better about next season after that game. We were due for that kind of a good vibe.

Great stats by Buster. Again - Better execution on the last offensive series (not even drive) against BYU, Illinois, and Wisconsin sees us at 8-4 instead of 5-7.

I agree. The play calling in each of those three games on those last offensive series were solid, in my opinion. I wish Tommy had just ducked and slid against Illinois and taken the loss...but it's water under the bridge now.

I think you're exactly right. As far as the play calling is concerned on our last offensive series against Wisconsin, it really was the most rational decision either way to try to run. Our offensive line just had no push, and on one of those three downs Imani didn't read his hole that well. Same basic thing happened against BYU also. Against BYU, Illinois, and Wisconsin, the other team shouldn't have gotten the ball back. The poor execution of our run game (and not just the perceived issue of "not calling enough running plays," but probably in conjunction with it) really stood in the way of us being an 8-4 team.

As a bit of a tangent though to the last offensive play in question against Illinois - That entire game was an offensive failure so bad, it's hard to know where to even begin dissecting it. In other words, you're right - A lot of people obsessed over that last play...but the entire game was an offensive embarrassment, from our coaching to our QB, for four quarters.

This short paragraph from Sam: doesn't quite go the whole way for me. We may indeed not wind up faulting the program structure, recruiting organization or mindset within the program, we but I suspect we will have a relatively good shot at faulting the quality of coordinators and assistants Riley has surrounded himself with. After a full season, I think Mike is a coach that's completely capable of coaching a team that starts and finishes in the Top 25 each season, and a coach who can get a team into the Top 10 sometimes. A coach who can seriously compete for a Big 10 title. His coordinators though...that's a completely different issue where the doubts seem to be swirling feverishly.

Good post. Regarding 'winning helps your perspective a lot,' I can honestly say though that had our defense shut them down on their comeback drive and we win 13-7...that's still a horrendous day by our offense, no matter whose fault it was (and I still say Langsdorf is largely at fault). So, it wouldn't honestly have changed my perspective in any way on the offensive failure that was that entire game.

It's a myth? So you're saying there wouldn't be any statistical correlation between teams who dominate time of possession and their win percentages, brophog?

Unfortunately for all of us, Riley clearly agrees with you.

I have to really disagree with that. Against Illinois, Langsdorf had Tommy bombing the ball downfield on first down multiple (failed) times that led us to eventually go 3 & out. Terrible offensive game plan and play calling when Ozigbo had such great stats when he was actually given the ball. That game was an embarrassing failure by our offensive coaching staff, and was really the first game where most of us started questioning Riley/Langsdorf's ability to see that running the ball was going to be pretty critical in this transition year, regardless of whether or not they wanted to admit it.

At any rate, I feel us winning by two touchdowns is likely. Go Big Red!

I agree that it's bad. But it's like, can't our own offensive coordinator try to help us out with that situation by at least *trying* to dominate time of possession? Purdue beat us in time of possession...Purdue.

It's unbelievable how bad Langsdorf has really been at drawing up game plans that feature the run *in certain games* for us to be worried about one receiver winning the game for Rutgers. It's like our biggest enemy is our own offensive coordinator. If we can run the ball well, I have zero worry about winning this game. If Langsdorf repeats the Illinois and Purdue game plans...all bets are off.

I've felt for some time that the real point of the four team playoff is simply to ensure that the two best teams get a chance to play for the title. For me, it's really not any more complicated than that.

You might buy tickets to a Husker game next summer-ish, you mean?

Wasn't it just 2 or 3 years ago that MSU was widely known for dirty play that centered around Golston? Am I remembering that wrong?

Chills, just amazing.

Iowa is going to be so damn embarrassed when they lose to us. It's going to be hilarious.

Agreed about our line. I think it was more of a 'raving over Imani' thing because of how much better he was reading his lanes and staying on his feet relative to numerous other personal performances.

Haha! Yes it would. Off topic: I just saw the.sock.puppet as logged in and viewing this thread.

I honestly thought the same thing, soup. Oh well.

Ha, obviously I agree we were terrible on defense against Purdue. But in no way should they have led in time of possession, when their rush defense was something like 100th in the country. We should have Imani Cross'd their a**, instead of letting Ryker play catch with the other team.

Totally agree. Depressing to look back on the season in that light, but still excited for what we can do these last two games with him. Please, Langsdorf...do it again!!!!!!!!!!!

Thought I'd post this here - Did you guys notice how hard Tommy lays into their dude on his run that put us at 27 points? This replay doesn't have the sideline angle...but he gives this badass glare back at the guy after they both get up that is just amazing. I'm waiting for the full game to get posted so that I can try to extract that as a moving .gif. Here's the highlight:

If Imani's hot in practice this week, give that man the damn ball.