Friday Q, meet Sunday Q

The transformation from the hopeful, Friday version of Quixotehan and the Sunday realist version of Quixotehan occurred sometime in the third quarter of last night's game against Penn State. The flashes of opportunity by the defense mired in a constant string of three and outs by the offense. The catalyst for the conversion - the offensive line. When they weren't getting penalized for false starts or holding, they failed to establish any control of the offensive line in either drive blocking or pass protection. There are very few defenders being driven out of holes and the linebackers are making plays untouched. When in pass protection, the offensive tackles (especially Duncan) are diving at the ankles of the defensive ends in a futile attempt to chop block. This provides Clausen roughly 1-2 seconds for the end to step over the tackle and pressure the QB. And the penalties . . . oh, the horror.

Friday Quixotehan, Sunday Quixotehan

The hopeful Friday Q would like to remind Sunday Q that this OL is very young. With the exception of Sullivan we are playing 2 juniors and 2 sophomores. These are true years - most other universities would report them as 2 sophomores and 2 freshmen because they would redshirt linemen as a matter of course. This line is very young, but are also gaining valuable experience.

More to come from Sunday Quixotehan as a rewatch the game and give my thoughts on all of the Irish units performance. My quick take was that this could have been a much different game with even marginal OL play: the defense was stout before they tired late, the special teams provided good field position (and a PSU score), and the team intensity was improved over the first game. Clausen made good decisions and showed potential to direct the offense - if only we could have avoided all of the costly mistakes and gotten some offensive momentum from time to time.