There were a lot of bright spots this weekend. Brink’s performance wasn’t as rosy as Millen’s “connections” say but it was good. The interception he threw right before halftime was STUPID. There were 3 defenders there and it was the definition of “ILL-ADVISED”. I don’t remember Hill dropping any passes (which doesn’t mean he didn’t) but I remember Brink over-throwing him a few times. I also would have loved to have seen Brink audible out of the 4th and 1 play. ASU was totally overloaded on that side and a bootleg (naked or w/ pass) would have scored let a lone made a yard. Having said that I thought Brink made some good reads and finally established a few drives instead of relying on the long ball. In fact I don’t remember him going to Hill much, if at all in the 1st half. Harvey played his heart out and is almost off my s-list. I’m still mad about last years Colorado game Trandon. It seemed like Brink checked into the right play for the right situations. Especially on 3rd and short.
Langley… that little guy has a leg. His 50 yard attempt into the wind hit the upright yes, but it hit about 8 feet shy of the top of the upright. And it wasn’t really like it was quickly dropping out of the sky at that point.
I couldn’t tell what our defense was keying on but the linebackers weren’t lining up until right before the ball was snapped. This occasionally put Dildine in the middle and gave Trent the opportunity to rush from the outside which he did pretty well.
On the other hand, is the WSU defense ever going to learn how to cover a big tight end. I’m scared what Day is going to do to us this coming weekend. Remember how bad he killed us last year.
I don’t think much needs to be said about the O-line and Harrison. Or is it Har. Persell? Harrison probably got 50 yards at the end of runs just by darting into small areas of daylight and falling forward for a couple extra. So good! I think every ASU player made the effort to go shake his hand at the end of the game. They had MUCH respect for #1.
Another thing that has probably been beaten to death, and I talked about Brink’s role in it above, is Doba took points off the board. That sucked but I don’t know what decision I would have made. The momentum at that time was going our way and Harrison was on fire. I just think they could have got more creative with the play call. It was the only point in the game where we came out with a 2 back set, Collins was lined up to the right of Brink and it was obvious what was coming. ASU played it perfectly. The unfortunate part of all that was that the off-sides was within the 10 so it is a half the distance to the goal penalty. If it would have been 5 yards like normal, we would have had the first down. Instead, 4th and 5 on the 8 left us with 4th and 1 on the 4. Brandon and I were scratching our heads about that one until some one listening to Walden let us in on the call. What a bummer!
You know what else was a bummer was the hanky happy referee in the first half. I was seriously wondering if that was Carpenter’s dad out there calling all the roughing the passers. It was only the guy with the white cap throwing the flags too. Damn that is getting me riled up again just thinking about it.
Speaking of calls, did any of you guys see a replay of Johnson’s facemask? I didn’t think anyone even had their hands on that guy and it happened right in front of me. We had them stopped on 3rd and a few and then the flag came. That was the play where the Cougs lost their chance at winning the game.
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