It seems like years ago.....

[DKSchrute]

the 35-0 win over Nevada.

Nevada was talked up all winter long. We crush them.

We assume we have a stout defense with an already impressive offense.

Its looking like the springboard for a run at a BCS game or even more.

Now were looking at another coaching search and the Hawaii Bowl would be a welcome surprise. Wow.

 

[phork]

I don't think the defense was considered "stout". 0 points was more from Nevada miscues. I posted my reservations about some of those chunks of yardage they could gather at a time. I even said I was worried about the UM game that week.

 

[Aerosmith777]

Yeah, I was thinking this same thing the other day. If you had told me that Saturday night that this team would finish (likely) 6-6, I'd of said you were the most blind hater in history. Boy, what a mirage that game was...

 

[BGIF]

the 35-0 win over Nevada.

Nevada was talked up all winter long. We crush them.

We assume we have a stout defense with an already impressive offense.

Its looking like the springboard for a run at a BCS game or even more.

Now were looking at another coaching search and the Hawaii Bowl would be a welcome surprise. Wow.

Does seem like a long long time ago. But I don't recall anyone assuming we had a "stout" defense. On the contrary there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth along with some foul language over the porous rush defense being gashed for big chunks of yardage between the 20's. Many, many posters raised concerns about both the rush and passing defense in that game. Despite the lamentations/protestations I doubt few realized t the time that they had seen the collective best performance of the D that day.

The first key injury of the season occurred when Aldridge went down although few if any realized the impact. Then we went through Floyd, Allen, Clausen, Rudolph, and Robinson, Tausch and a number of others that weren't mentioned or only in passing. Those injuries keep the offense from being as impressive as it was on opening game as defenses could key on the fewer weapons on the field and a less mobile QB.

 

[Aerosmith777]

I wouldn't of called the defense stout yet, but I definitely thought it was better than its turned out to be. I thought it was at least good enough that, if the offense was as good as I thought it'd be as well (and I'd say more or less it has been), they could at least compete for a BCS bid this year. They didn't even come close to that.

 

[IHateMarkMay]

What is really impressive is that Nevada now has three 1000 yard rushers. Never been done by any team before Nevada did it this season.

 

[phork]

So what have we learned? Nevada improved, ND regressed.