…but I’m waiting with bated breath for SmokintheReiff’s and McNutt Butter’s takes. They have that outside the box take that you usually can’t find in the MSM.

I mean, KOK is still calling plays correct? Correct.
Defensively lets not forget that 1 of those touchdowns was courtesy of Stanziball for 75 yards, meaning The Iowa D only gave up 7 points for about 50 minutes of this game (against a not-too-shabby qb).
I’m not fretting about what happened on Saturday. Bulaga will be back to normal, we will get Wegher and Robinson running wild, and Clayborn and Klug will be eating small children all day as usual.

Journalism Gold there. That sentence made my day.

It seems as though regardless if we’re the better team or not, we’ve managed to raise/lower ourselves exactly to the level of play of the opposition. Granted, they’ve all been wins, but some consistency would keep a good portion of us from dying from heart attacks before we plan on dying from liver failure.

screen name btw.

I expected some sort of joke about the frontflip by Big Man who caught the Stanziball-6.

I was relegated to yelling at Willie Lowe via uberslow mobile twitter and was banned from enjoying the Swedish Goose all morning. That said, FUCK am I excited for Saturday.

Stanzi appears to be settling down, despite his second half meltdown. I just wish Ricky’s STANZIBALLs didn’t usually result in 6 points for the bad guys. I still think we handle Michigan, and cover the spread, but Wisconsin is starting to scare me a bit.

Also, I’m still bitter about the blackout.

if everyone is at the game wearing brown shirts that say “we love eating asshole”….if the Hawks are winning who gives a fuck what color the shirts are.

IMO I like the idea of the blackout at night as long as the temperature isnt 0 degrees causing the blaze orange to come out as stated earlier.

I’ve never felt that bad after a W. (unless you count political shit)

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What????

My idiot cousin decided to throw his bachelor party this Saturday, severely limiting my allotted tailgate time, and I’m usually way out in bumfuck Egypt Finkbine commuter lot, but I’m planning on swinging by some other tailgates if time permits. I will however be wearing my “WHO’S THE MANZI?” shirt with pride.

I think you’re undervaluing the rushing TD stat, for two reasons.

One, it correlates with our total scoring defense of about 10 ppg (points scored on the D not the offense). (83 defensive points allowed in the last 8.25 games, and that includes a couple of garbage time scores.) This is simply BCS-caliber D. If you give up 10 a game, you’re going to win 10 of 12. (That is, if you still have most of your toes and fingers; see below.)

Two, it means we’re not giving up ANY big plays on the ground. Zero rushing TDs is better, even, than zero red zone rushing TDs. It means we are accomplishing many of our goals on defense, which is to make teams prove they can execute the long drives. I think this is the biggest question in regard to the Michigan game, given UM’s depth, speed and scheme. If we do to UM what Rhoads did to the same offense for Pitt (13-9, 2007, v. WVU) it means we are for real. But Michigan has the playmakers. I thought Binns had an extremely quiet game against ASU, and if our DE’s don’t show up against Michigan it will be extremely unpleasant, and not just when the nattering triumphalist Michigan blogging notes rain down like confetti.

Watching the game I was stunned at the degree to which they gave us the vertical game. It was great to make McNutt a star for a day, but you know that if Fry had seen the ASU D shrugging and telling Stanzi, “You aren’t good enough to beat us, so good luck, and btw if you think you are good enough to beat us, it’s even money you’ll make 2-3 mistakes so you beat yourselves”, we would have thrown for 500 yards and 6 TDs. I don’t recall seeing a D-I game ever where a team just said, “Throw long, we don’t give a shit.” ASU showed contempt for our passing game. Of course, we did too, but I gather we were “working on something”, or whatever it is we do when we gameplan a team and it turns out that something we didn’t gameplan actually works, the OC goes into full-on autistic idiot savant cognitive dissonance mode, apparently watching a game no one else can see. Who among you thinks there is DC who will not make Stanzi carry the offense now? It’s like watching a child play with M-80s. Extremities are going to disappear, and we just hope no one loses an eye.

Question: is Stanzi’s mystery erraticism now infecting the receivers? It’s like we have a different group each week, doing different things. Meanwhile, more psychodrama with DJK, which has worn me out. Play, don’t play, but the DJK watch is now boring.

Lombardi quote that describes our issues on offense, where we may eventually run out of fingers and toes:

“Gentlemen you’re going to be on the field 75 plays. Two or three of those plays will determine the outcome of this game. Unfortunately I can’t tell you which ones they’re going to be. Therefore you’re going to have to play them all.” (Paraphrase by Sonny Jurgensen, discussing Zorn and the Skins this year.)

(Stanzi quote: “I’m 13-3 and you’re not. So STFU.”*)

We clearly are ‘playing’ 100% of the opponents’ rushing plays — that’s just in the results. But the difference between 8-4 and 12-0 is whether or not we waste 5-10 offensive plays per game the rest of the year.

I hear that Trent Dilfer** was seen in town this week. You remember Trent Dilfer: the most disrespected QB ever to win a Super Bowl (2001). And why did the Ravens get to, and win that game? They gave up about 10 ppg, and Trent didn’t screw up when they had the ball. It will be interesting to see if Ferentz runs out of patience with his Mercurial Manzi. I don’t think he will, but I think we can see now why Jake was appreciated by Ferentz over his OC’s objections: Jake coulda been Trent Dilfer, and we coulda been the 2000-2001 Ravens.

*Surprise. This quotation is fabricated.

**This is not true. But it could have been the lede for a satirical piece involving low-variance offenses, stifling defenses, and children playing with light ordinance, eh?

EDSBS (real or imagined, no clue), on MGOBLOG last Saturday:

“Iowa as a national title contender would be awesome.They’d win by two, and you’d feel filthy about what you just watched.”

Or, a verifiable EDSBS here (scan down to “C”):

Football as sludge

I think the point is that we are not a top-50 team in any offensive category, but you will not score, Klug will descend on you like a bad guy in a Thomas Harris novel, Sash will intercept your passes and steal your girlfriend, and, despite the handicap of playing with 7 toes and 8 fingers by the fourth quarter, our QB will probably do something remarkable.

Ricky Stanzi says, remember, “I’m 13-3, and you’re not.”*

Norm Parker says, “Hey, enough on the toe jokes.”

*NotRicky Stanzi, rather.