Indiana Snowflakes: General Observations

a bit unlucky to have lost the battle at Iowa, and have earned the right to control our destiny for the remainder of the season.  Get well soon Wilton.

Don't recall him getting any carries today, and not many vs. Iowa.  Did he end up in the doghouse?  In a game like today I'd like to see him have some carries and see what he could do.

Please come back Speight.

At this point in the season and in this current landscape, style points are out the window.  It's all about winning and moving on.  It was ugly but we started our backup who obviously was rusty and the winds were howling.  I'll take it.  Two more wins and we're in the CFP.

BTW, some of JOK's decisions when scrambling were questionable.  Running backward is rarely a good thing.  But the receivers weren't exactly creating separation and helping him out.  All around poor performance on offense aside from Smith.  OL needs to wake up at some point.

Speight's status is second to second. He has almost 600,000 chances to be available for next week.

Of course, by the time you read this that number will be much less.

on DVR. Time-warp the anguish. In honor of the snow (none to be seen here in AZ) and to soothe my shattered nerves, I am now having an XO cognac. But Kirkland brand....

he was tighter than a drum. They need to let him loose. At Houston as a freshman he was free wheeling and very effective. If taking care of the ball means scoring only two touchdown, we cannot beat OSU.

It seems to me that all officiating is completely arbitrary these days.  There is no predicting what will be called or not called and those penalties or non-penalties make a huge difference.  On the radio broadcast, Karsch said that there hasn't been a holding penalty on an opponent's offensive lineman since Michigan St. (which is also funny because every play in the 4th quarter of that game had MSU holding that wasn't called).

A big reason Michigan's defensive line is not as dominant as it seemed earlier in the season is that opponents are taking their chances with holding and it's paying off.  It drives me absolutely nuts.  Any game that isn't a blowout can turn on this stuff.  I am so tired of it, but there is no way to change it.

Offensive line has been poopy for 2 weeks now. O'Korn made it worse, but neither QB wins next week if they aren't much better.

1. M had some early success running power at IU early in the game and the screen to Issac was really well set up and it was actually a nice throw by JOK.  

2. It was nice to see continued success with Power when M came back to it

3. great to see JOK's make a play with the scramble for 30 yds when M absolutely needed it

4. the last pass JOK demonstated good poise when he completed the hitch to Darboh. and Darboh did a great job of making a dude miss to get the 1st.

5. The receivers did a real nice job of blocking downfield 

Bad things:

1. with the exception of the Darboh play and the scramble, once JOK got any hint of pressure he would bug-out and run backwards.  this just killed the passing game 

2. There were some busts in blitz pickup - I know at least one was on Hill   

3.  you can start to tell play-calling tendencies by personel - for example, if Chris Evans is in the game especially on 3rd down, its either a screen or a draw.  got to get away from tendancies next week.