The title just about sums it all up. Good teams find ways to execute in tough situations and when they have the chance to put points on the board - the capitalize on it. Today, the Cats did that and the Griz did not.
Congrats to the cats on a very hard fought win. They're positioned well to get into the playoffs with home field throughout now and they'll have a week off to rest up from a very hard-hitting game where it looked like they had a lineman get hurt and Kirk have some sort of shoulder injury. MSU's adjustments to our offense were excellent. The Grizzly offense early had it going, 6 for 7 at one point on 3rd down - but the cats adjusted and totally shut the offense out. At that point, with a stone cold offense, the cats didn't need to do much to get the win - and they really didn't, on offense. Defensively though they were excellent, I was very impressed with the way their corners play. I expected a tough game from their front 7, but their corners were great in coverage as well.
Some observations:
- Probably the best game I've seen all season out of the defense. Just one noticeable error on the MSU touchdown where Dennard and Bo Tully both followed the split-out WR and left the slot WR wide open in the corner. There were other break-downs but none as costly as that.
- 3 big ST errors, two missed kicks and Henderson not fair catching that punt which rolled for another 22 yards and eventually set up a short punt to give MSU the ball back in our territory, allowing them to kick a fieldgoal that made it a 2 score game.
- 19 tackles for Brock Coyle, 13 for Jordan Tripp. Our LBs played very well today. I'm glad all of the starters will be back. Coyle really came into his own this year and I believe ends the season as the #1 tackler on the team.
- UM was 6/7 on 3rd down after Nguyen's TD. After that? 3 for 14. It got REAL tough to get a first down when they never went down the field and the cats adjusted to jam up the running game.
- Speaking of jamming up the running game, it looked like Oiland got a concussion or something. I can't help but notice that was on the series right after the Nguyen TD. Hines isn't the powerful center that Oiland is, we lost some skillful interior work when Kjelby went out.
- Griz missed fieldgoals, 23 and 37 yards... inexcusable.
- I'm glad Pete got a final TD against the cats, that was a great run and excellent blocking for him.
- Of the two possible safeties I got clarification at halftime from someone more knowledgeable than me about the rules and that first one was clearly not a safety based on his understanding. Gotta have possession for that to be a safety, the MSU player never had possession. The 2nd one was borderline, #7 was about 12 yards away, not sure if that's really "in the area". However in the end it wouldn't have mattered.
- I didn't see how close the McGhee "incompletion" came to a fumble, those that saw it on TV, how close was it?
- I was pretty impressed with that Floekotter WR for MSU, good awareness on the field.
- I liked the power running from Canada, ran through a few guys today.
- It sucks Dan Moore had to lose a fumble like that on his last career Griz game. You could tell he was just a shell of himself. I hope he can heal up not and get ready for Pro Day.
- Considering the cats tried to attack Schmaing with Schreibeis most of the day I have to say John did pretty darn well for the most part.
- Another game just like the other losses, the offense starts good but then doesn't adjust and gets shut down. This year there's been just an overall issue with making adjustments at all. The cats did it, many other teams that beat the Griz did it this year as well. I just don't get it - the other coaching staffs we've seen here were all very good at making adjustments, this one seems to either make ineffective ones or none at all.
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Well this season has mercifully come to an end and just like two years ago another record falls at the hands of the cats, a playoff streak in 2010 and a winning record streak in 2012. Cat fans today were mostly pretty good peeps. I was expecting a ton of jerks but most were good to drink with before kickoff and were gracious winners after the game. Outside of the few jerk screaming at the footbridge for about 10 minutes at Griz fans to "eat sh*t" it really seemed to me that most cat fans showed good class in the win. Also props to all who donated cans and goods for the food drive, MSU raised something like 85,000 pounds to UM's 54,000, those that are without food these holidays were the real winners from that competition.
Thanks Grizzly seniors for the memories. I know this season didn't turn out at all like you expected and has finished with a resounding thud. As the pain and frustration from this season fades our outgoing seniors will be able to look back further than just this year and have a lot of great memories of their time as Grizzlies.
On to recruiting and then spring camp - which can't get here soon enough.
Proud to be a Griz
