Which seems a touch unfair.

I effing love their site. For the fan who was never a player, learning the intricacies of zone blocking and smash routes is football porn.

…wait, aren’t you supposed to be dead?

What that’s about is someone with more than a pea-sized brain, who knows shit about football, saying that the Hawks aren’t just lucky (wihtout using those words). He’s saying that the final play was the result of a well designed play that was run to perfection, which is the result of a football team knowing how to read a defense that hasn’t adjusted to stop them.
It wasn’t that McNutt was “lucky” to be open enough to catch that pass, it’s that the play was executed properly. If the D doesn’t man up we throw to a different receiver. Maybe we catch it, and maybe we don’t, but that catch was the result of Smart Football.

It was a very “Scottie Pippen is pissed that Phil gave the game-winning shot to Toni Kukoc” type of moment.

Obviously, he’s not with the program.

I was afraid KOK might be calling some crazy reverse or trick play that never works in the endzone.

It was interesting to watch again. It seemed like a much better game than I remembered it being, which I chalk up to being so nervous about being there in person and being able to see plays from better angles.

A few things stood out to me:

1) The left side of the line was very, very good at run blocking for a good chunk of that game. The MSU fans around me were derisively commenting that we didn’t have many plays on offense beside “run left,” but fuck – when it gets you 4-6 yards a pop the way it was at times last weekend, why stop until MSU proves they can stop it? But Bulaga and Reiff may be developing into the left side of the line that we all fancied Bulaga and Dace might become earlier in the season. Reiff’s emergence this season has to be one of the most pleasant surprises of the season.

2) Greg Jones was a fucking beast. That dude seemed like he was EVERYWHERE making tackles. He reminded me of Abdul Hodge in that regard. I will have no beef with him getting a nod for 1st team All-Big Ten.

3) Wegher ran pretty well. I know we talked earlier this week about how he’s struggled more the past few weeks and he didn’t get a ton of carries in the game, but I thought he looked better (aside from one or two plays where he just got blown up in the backfield — not sure that was really his fault)… running more confidently and with a pretty good burst.

4) That goalline stand by the Iowa defense isn’t getting as much love as it deserves. While you could argue that Iowa got a little too cute with its goalline playcalling, Sparty definitely didn’t — there’s nothing cute about nutting up and trying to pound it in from a yard or two out. The stop Angerer and Edds made on 2nd down (I think that was the down) was outstanding: they got great leverage and managed to push the MSU RB back, even though he was inches away from the endzone.

5) It seems like sometimes there’s a switch Clayborn turns on to go from “good defensive end” to “holy god unstoppable man-bear killing machine.” Which is not to imply that he doesn’t give his all every play or anything like that — I just think that maybe he figures out something about the guy(s) trying to block him, changes something in his own approach, and then just goes on a tear. His two sacks were great – Cousins almost looked like he went down immediately upon seeing Clayborn barreling at him on the first one to avoid getting hammered and on the second one Clayborn got him from the blindside and WAS able to hammer him.

And, on a related note, Binns’ ability to get his freakishly long arms up to deflect passes is a great boon to the defense — I think he deflected a couple passes in that game, to add to the 5-6 he already has this season; I looked at the stats and he’s the only defensive lineman to rank in the Top 10 in the Big 10 in pass break-ups. And that doesn’t even account for the passes that have to be altered by the QB to avoid getting deflected.

6) Man oh man, those two near-turnovers by MSU on either side of halftime (Hunter’s near-interception and Clayborn’s how-did-he-not-recover-that-fumble) were huge missed opportunities. Hunter had a clear line to the endzone and Clayborn would have set us up inside the MSU 20. Ifs and buts…

but because they motioned Moeaki, Ricky immediately turned his attention to the short side of the field where there was a lone DB in one-on-one coverage. The fact that Stross and DJK were open is sort of obsolete, due to the fact that the read/call was to throw the ball to McNutt in the case that the defense was in a man coverage scheme. But, I will agree with you, I also initially pointed out how open Stross was as well.

…and also just say that Stross was the second option on a play that’s not designed to have checkdowns—you just get the ball off ASAP. I’d be defending the pass even if McNutt had dropped it or if it were batted down at the line. That’s a 1-step drop play and Stanzi did it perfectly.

Seems in casual watching that it only works about 1 out of 3 or 4×. At least, it only seems to work better when you’ve got a Godlike secondary…

(I kid, I kid, of course.)

Rest assured that we hold the Hlog and the rest of the Gazoo writers in much higher esteem than as common thieves, and our readers ought to as well.