Recap, or the last of today's footblogging
What have we learned from the Hoosiers today?
All in all, it was a rather uninspiring game. Illinois at least held off Iowa long enough for me to get my hopes up, and really only had one bad quarter. The IU game, on the other hand, was just pretty "eh." Not much excitement other than Porter's bouts of awesomeness and Thigpen's touchdown-scoring kickoff return, and (for the UConn fans) the multiple interceptions and such that UConn managed to pick up.
I'm excited for the Wisconsin-IU game next week, but mostly because our families will be here and we'll get to hang out with them. Wisconsin usually brings their A-game to Indiana, probably because they were one of the three teams we managed to beat in 2002 in a rather spectacular upset. While we'll have Coach Hep back, i'm not too confident about our chances against Wisconsin (or the rest of the Big Ten, honestly).
- Tracy Porter is a Very Bad Man™ and should be thrown in the other team's way as often as possible.
- He's no James Hardy, but Marcus Thigpen has his moments and shouldn't be counted out.
- Blake Powers has a pretty good arm, but not much else. He doesn't carry the ball very well (or, more importantly, when he needs to), he's not nearly as accurate as i'd like him to be, and--my biggest pet peeve--he doesn't do well under pressure. Almost every time he's threatened with getting sacked, he throws the ball away, usually tossing it out of bounds to the right. I don't think i saw him handle pressure well once this game.
- Kellen Lewis, on the other hand, not only is pretty good at throwing the ball, he's incredibly good at knowing when to put his head down and run with the ball instead of tossing it (away). I know their whole strategy during the last, desperate run at tying the game was for Powers to go in and bomb the hell out of the end zone hoping to get a hit, but i think Lewis would have been a better choice. He's not quite as strong of a tosser, but getting the ball up the field a little closer in those last 44 seconds couldn't have hurt.
- With all that said, however, it doesn't say much about UConn that they only won 14-7. I mean, at the half, they were leading us in rushing by 166 yards, despite the fact that they'd only posted 150 yards at that point. (In other words, we had negative sixteen yards rushing.) UConn did a good job of moving the ball, and an even better job of getting our offense off the field after four plays, but they didn't do a very good job of, well, scoring.
All in all, it was a rather uninspiring game. Illinois at least held off Iowa long enough for me to get my hopes up, and really only had one bad quarter. The IU game, on the other hand, was just pretty "eh." Not much excitement other than Porter's bouts of awesomeness and Thigpen's touchdown-scoring kickoff return, and (for the UConn fans) the multiple interceptions and such that UConn managed to pick up.
I'm excited for the Wisconsin-IU game next week, but mostly because our families will be here and we'll get to hang out with them. Wisconsin usually brings their A-game to Indiana, probably because they were one of the three teams we managed to beat in 2002 in a rather spectacular upset. While we'll have Coach Hep back, i'm not too confident about our chances against Wisconsin (or the rest of the Big Ten, honestly).