Below, in my post last Thursday, I predicted the Irish would beat the Wolverines by the score of 38 to 14. I was wrong. The Irish only won 35-17, so obviously my credibility is now shot. Read the pregame preview below, pretty interesting to read it after the fact. Here is a recap of my predictions:
Prediction 1 >> Michigan would have 150 yards rushing, 75 yards passing. Not bad, Michigan had 159 yards rushing. But, they had 229 yards passing.
Prediction 2 >> Michigan's QBs will have at least 2 turnovers. Try like 4 or 5. Michigan's QB was intercepted 2 times, fumbled a snap once, and was involved in another two fumbles (one on a handoff, one on a backwards pass). The Michigan QB play was a big reason the Irish won.
Prediction 3 >> The Irish will rush for 75 yards and throw for 250. The Irish rushed for 113 yards, and passed for 150. Granted, in the second half, all we did was run the ball to preserve the lead and due to the rain. We could have passed for 200 easily, but didn't need to.
Prediction 4 >> Michigan's defense will recover 1 Irish fumble, have 1 interception, and have 1 sack of Clausen. Pretty good by the Irish considering the rain. ND fumbled 3 times but lost Zero of them, Clausen had 2 interceptions, and for the 2nd straight week, the OLine gave up 0 sacks. Through 2 games, 0 sacks. UNREAL!! Last season's 5 sack average per game is going to be beaten this year.
Prediction 5 >> The Irish will run 4 screen passes for a total of 50 yards. The Irish ran 1, maybe 2, and they were completely blown up and unsuccessful. I still say the offense cannot be complete until we can effectively use the screen pass.
Prediction 6 >> Predicted score, Irish 38 Michigan 14. Not bad, 35-17 was your final.
Hard to measure all these predictions, but I would say I did a pretty good job considering the score. The Irish offense was better on passing that I thought they would be, even though passing yards were explainably low (weather and 2nd half lead). The new found ability for the Irish to have a quick strike to Golden Tate or Michael Floyd is the single biggest surprise and success of this new season. Defenses will have to worry about the deep ball, which always opens more options across the middle, short, and in the running game.
What a fantastic gameplan by Weis!! The defensive front 7 of Michigan were stout, as I and everyone else knew. Weis didn't try to run the ball into that - but instead planned to take a lot of play action deep pass chances early in the game, in hopes of getting a lead and creating pressure for a young Michigan team. It worked, with deep balls galore to Golden Tate and true freshman Michael Floyd.
Tough game this week - and don't think I'm done posting about this win. I will definitely have some upcoming thoughts for all of you out there that think the Irish were "given" the game. We were served the game, but the Irish still had to finish the Wolverines, which we did. More on that later.
No comments:
Post a Comment