Walking towards SDS yesterday afternoon, I saw something shiny on the sidewalk and recognized it as a penny. I walked past it, stopped, went back and picked it up. I'm not a superstitious person but I thought "what the heck" and put it in my pocket--thinking maybe this will bring us good luck. So there I am at the end of the third quarter, looking at a 13-3 score, and thinking that this penny isn't the lucky charm I had hoped it would be. But before long, it was 13-6, and then we got the ball back. And I'm starting to think maybe there is some luck in this penny. From there on out, almost everything went our way. So I'm hanging onto the penny.
So now for some observations:
What a game!
Before the season began, I had the Spartans penciled in as an ASU loss and was worried that we would have to beat SDSU to avoid being 1-3 in September. This victory ensures we'll be at least 2-2 with a very good shot at 3-1. Not a bad start to be possibly half way to bowl eligibility before the end of the first month of play.
Ray must be feeling pretty good about his decision to hire Herm. Maybe even lucky. I'm amazed...in a good way.
That was a very good team we beat last night. Not as good as Ohio State, Wisconsin and Penn State look, but they are very good. Good coaching; a good QB who ran and threw well; some huge OL and DL; and general toughness throughout the lineup. I was surprised by some very interesting plays they ran and the way their QB carried out his fakes. We were often just fooled as opposed to being beaten at the point of attack.
MSU is a lot like Stanford but maybe without the same level of skill at RB, WR and TE. I certainly wouldn't want to play them again. I don't think we'd sweep a series with them.
Nice win in front of dozens of recruits. Hopefully, we get some commits. Maybe we'll even be confronted with the possibility of having too many wanting offers and can be somewhat selective.
I have to give our OL coach and his players some props. Individually, they occasionally got mauled by the MSU DL but collectively they held up. They couldn't run block MSU but only gave up a couple of sacks and often gave Manny time to look around.
BTW, what's up with Manny and Darby? If those two had been on the same page, we might have been protecting a lead at the end instead of needing to score to win the game. Fortunately, Kyle and Ryan showed up.
If Manny had any kind of consistent touch on long throws, he might be a Sunday prospect. But I thought he did a credible job given the defense he was up against.
If we're going to run more fourth and ones from a spread look, put N'Keal back there. He might not be a 100% sure thing but he's as likely as Ballage was to make the first down.
Sleepy is blowing me away. This year he's performing like the guy I thought we'd recruited. I realize he had some injury issue last year but I'm still surprised at how well he is punting. He's been so instrumental in giving our defense long fields to protect.
Jay Jay Pipp is probably rueing the day his behavior (?) gave Merlin an opportunity at LB. Merlin might have seized it anyway but he's certainly not giving it up. And Butler must be the steal of the 2018 recruiting class. Reminds me of the Gregs (Battle and Hicks). Too small to play in the PAC--but just made tackles all over the place.
Nice to see Crump get some reps. Hopefully, more in the future.
Wren played like a monster. There's a Twitter video showing him knocking the MSU center on his butt. Good viewing. Even the MSU coach gave him some props.
Those freshmen added to last year's class after we hired AP are looking very special. No wonder we gave AP a new title and, hopefully, more money. I wonder how secure Yantis feels? Do we even need a TE coach? Do we even have a TE?
I don't know what the west side of SDS looked like but the east side had the feel of a bowl game with both schools being equally represented. MSU either travels very well or has a lot of avid fans living in the Valley. Everywhere I went I ran into green and/or white teeshirts. It's a shame that a community that has grown three or four times in size since I went to ASU, and has added tens of thousands more ASU grads since I graduated, would by themselves struggle to fill a 40,000 seat stadium against this type of opponent. This kind of game would have filled the old SDS years ago. Thankfully, a lot of MSU fans showed up. Maybe more ASU fans would have shown up for a Hurley versus Izzo contest.
I'm sure I'll edit this post a couple of times as some more thoughts come to me. But it was a great win yesterday. Go Devils!!!!!!!
Oh...and how about them Wildcats? And why wasn't ASUnutgirl at the game?
So now for some observations:
What a game!
Before the season began, I had the Spartans penciled in as an ASU loss and was worried that we would have to beat SDSU to avoid being 1-3 in September. This victory ensures we'll be at least 2-2 with a very good shot at 3-1. Not a bad start to be possibly half way to bowl eligibility before the end of the first month of play.
Ray must be feeling pretty good about his decision to hire Herm. Maybe even lucky. I'm amazed...in a good way.
That was a very good team we beat last night. Not as good as Ohio State, Wisconsin and Penn State look, but they are very good. Good coaching; a good QB who ran and threw well; some huge OL and DL; and general toughness throughout the lineup. I was surprised by some very interesting plays they ran and the way their QB carried out his fakes. We were often just fooled as opposed to being beaten at the point of attack.
MSU is a lot like Stanford but maybe without the same level of skill at RB, WR and TE. I certainly wouldn't want to play them again. I don't think we'd sweep a series with them.
Nice win in front of dozens of recruits. Hopefully, we get some commits. Maybe we'll even be confronted with the possibility of having too many wanting offers and can be somewhat selective.
I have to give our OL coach and his players some props. Individually, they occasionally got mauled by the MSU DL but collectively they held up. They couldn't run block MSU but only gave up a couple of sacks and often gave Manny time to look around.
BTW, what's up with Manny and Darby? If those two had been on the same page, we might have been protecting a lead at the end instead of needing to score to win the game. Fortunately, Kyle and Ryan showed up.
If Manny had any kind of consistent touch on long throws, he might be a Sunday prospect. But I thought he did a credible job given the defense he was up against.
If we're going to run more fourth and ones from a spread look, put N'Keal back there. He might not be a 100% sure thing but he's as likely as Ballage was to make the first down.
Sleepy is blowing me away. This year he's performing like the guy I thought we'd recruited. I realize he had some injury issue last year but I'm still surprised at how well he is punting. He's been so instrumental in giving our defense long fields to protect.
Jay Jay Pipp is probably rueing the day his behavior (?) gave Merlin an opportunity at LB. Merlin might have seized it anyway but he's certainly not giving it up. And Butler must be the steal of the 2018 recruiting class. Reminds me of the Gregs (Battle and Hicks). Too small to play in the PAC--but just made tackles all over the place.
Nice to see Crump get some reps. Hopefully, more in the future.
Wren played like a monster. There's a Twitter video showing him knocking the MSU center on his butt. Good viewing. Even the MSU coach gave him some props.
Those freshmen added to last year's class after we hired AP are looking very special. No wonder we gave AP a new title and, hopefully, more money. I wonder how secure Yantis feels? Do we even need a TE coach? Do we even have a TE?
I don't know what the west side of SDS looked like but the east side had the feel of a bowl game with both schools being equally represented. MSU either travels very well or has a lot of avid fans living in the Valley. Everywhere I went I ran into green and/or white teeshirts. It's a shame that a community that has grown three or four times in size since I went to ASU, and has added tens of thousands more ASU grads since I graduated, would by themselves struggle to fill a 40,000 seat stadium against this type of opponent. This kind of game would have filled the old SDS years ago. Thankfully, a lot of MSU fans showed up. Maybe more ASU fans would have shown up for a Hurley versus Izzo contest.
I'm sure I'll edit this post a couple of times as some more thoughts come to me. But it was a great win yesterday. Go Devils!!!!!!!
Oh...and how about them Wildcats? And why wasn't ASUnutgirl at the game?
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