Report Card.

[LOVEMYIRISH]

If you look at the LB corp, they only made 8 tackles the whole night, 4 by Crum, 4 by Travis Thomas, but none by Mitchell Thomas/Vernaglia. Zibby had 8 by himself. That tells a big story. The safties had to make the tackles that the LB's didn't make. This puts more pressure on the secondary to stop the run, when their first responsibility is to protect against the pass. We really need improvement at LB or power runnung teams, ala UM, will have a field day against us.

That's a great assessment. You are dead on. The front 4 did not impress me much until the second half...then they looked like they picked up steam.

Zibby was playing like a man possessed. God, he was just hitting people HARD.

 

[Irish52]

Our defensive backs will face their most challenging test next game against Penn St. Morelli is a great passer and you can bet the house he will throwing. Brady must have a great passing game to resurrect support for the Hiesman but that will happen if and only if the offensive line shows up to play..that is, be aggressive and stop their linebackers from pummeling Brady. Give him just a few seconds and he will hit our gifted receivers. In short, we don't have any chance to beat Penn St. unless we protect our quarterback. By the way, we don't need seniors pushing defenders in the back on punt returns and nullifyiing great run backs...you might expect that from rookies...but not seniors. And , of course, we need to change field goal kickers..it's time to give Burkhart a chance. After all, he could hardly do any worse than Giola. Having said all of the above, I congratulate the team on a great team effort and never giving up. Go Irish.

 

[scooper]

Our defensive backs will face their most challenging test next game against Penn St. Morelli is a great passer.

Based on what? His game against Akron? Or his spring game? Don't base it on his recruiting rankings. He was ranked high for having a strong arm. That does not a great passer make. Fact-Morelli was a less than 50% career passer in high school. In high school.

This will be a tough game, but it's not Morelli who scares me. If anything, I think we'll be fine with him. He's not the mobile type. I think our defense can get more pressure on the pure drop back guys.