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Easily the toughest game left on the schedule. Sorry, Stanford minus Love is useless and we have an excellent run defense.
I have a bunch of random thoughts in no particular order:
I'm not as concerned about the Wake game as many others are. We could have scored at will and it seems Kelly downshifted in the second half (even though most of the starting D was still in) and Wake kept playing for posterity while other teams we've played waved the white flag (e.g., USC, NC State). It's clear when we wanted to stop Wake, we did (see the first drive of the second half which is usually where we struggle to adjust to the opponents halftime adjustments.
As long as we were answering with scores of our own they seemed content to play prevent. My bigger concern is that they were doing this to conserve bodies. It seems injuries are starting to catch up. Watkins is hurt which could be an issue next week. Of a bigger concern is Khalid Kareem. He's been an invaluable reserve and one of our best pass rushers. He had to be helped off twice. I'd hate to lose him. On offense obviously we hope Adams Jones and McIntosh are healthy we will need to get back to our road grader offense. Williams should be done for the year IMO. The one run he broke he looked like he was running in quicksand. At 100% he would have gone to the house. Then he limped off the field after that play.
As far as Miami is concerned, I watched the Va. Tech game last night and this Miami team is very athletic, they play with a lot of emotion, but they're dumb as shit. Theyre undisciplined and it showed in the last few minutes when VaTech was going for late posterity points and UM fouled virtually every play. They also turned the ball over 4 times and Va Tech didn't make them pay for that. If they turn it over to us 4 times I expect we'll convert into points like we've done all year.
Their DL is small but fast. They live and die on shooting gaps and relying on quick LB play which is their best unit by far. As dominant as their DL looked though Va Tech was without its starting LT. #99 had a lot of free runs at the qb. He's not going to beat McGlinchey like that. Miami's run defense is not great and that's against opponents far worse than us. Stick to our winning formula if we want to win this one. If Kelly wants to force the deep ball he better be accurate because miamis secondary is tall and fast. They can easily fight for those jump balls.
Last it seems that this town is back on the bandwagon. The stadium actually looked full for once and the crowd was hyped. With all the media attention prime time and Ganda, etc this one might be a sellout. We will need to silence the crowd early or show up en made like GA did to us. My only worry is if the environment keeps Miami engaged and we are not 100% focused and make too many mistakes we can easily give this game away.
Honestly I want them to win if only to shut these douchebag poser fans who decided all of the sudden they love the Canes again. One of the worst front running fan bases ever which drives 90% of my hatred for this team.
Win and I think the worst will be behind us. Go Irish!
I have a bunch of random thoughts in no particular order:
I'm not as concerned about the Wake game as many others are. We could have scored at will and it seems Kelly downshifted in the second half (even though most of the starting D was still in) and Wake kept playing for posterity while other teams we've played waved the white flag (e.g., USC, NC State). It's clear when we wanted to stop Wake, we did (see the first drive of the second half which is usually where we struggle to adjust to the opponents halftime adjustments.
As long as we were answering with scores of our own they seemed content to play prevent. My bigger concern is that they were doing this to conserve bodies. It seems injuries are starting to catch up. Watkins is hurt which could be an issue next week. Of a bigger concern is Khalid Kareem. He's been an invaluable reserve and one of our best pass rushers. He had to be helped off twice. I'd hate to lose him. On offense obviously we hope Adams Jones and McIntosh are healthy we will need to get back to our road grader offense. Williams should be done for the year IMO. The one run he broke he looked like he was running in quicksand. At 100% he would have gone to the house. Then he limped off the field after that play.
As far as Miami is concerned, I watched the Va. Tech game last night and this Miami team is very athletic, they play with a lot of emotion, but they're dumb as shit. Theyre undisciplined and it showed in the last few minutes when VaTech was going for late posterity points and UM fouled virtually every play. They also turned the ball over 4 times and Va Tech didn't make them pay for that. If they turn it over to us 4 times I expect we'll convert into points like we've done all year.
Their DL is small but fast. They live and die on shooting gaps and relying on quick LB play which is their best unit by far. As dominant as their DL looked though Va Tech was without its starting LT. #99 had a lot of free runs at the qb. He's not going to beat McGlinchey like that. Miami's run defense is not great and that's against opponents far worse than us. Stick to our winning formula if we want to win this one. If Kelly wants to force the deep ball he better be accurate because miamis secondary is tall and fast. They can easily fight for those jump balls.
Last it seems that this town is back on the bandwagon. The stadium actually looked full for once and the crowd was hyped. With all the media attention prime time and Ganda, etc this one might be a sellout. We will need to silence the crowd early or show up en made like GA did to us. My only worry is if the environment keeps Miami engaged and we are not 100% focused and make too many mistakes we can easily give this game away.
Honestly I want them to win if only to shut these douchebag poser fans who decided all of the sudden they love the Canes again. One of the worst front running fan bases ever which drives 90% of my hatred for this team.
Win and I think the worst will be behind us. Go Irish!