First, congratulations to the Jackets for a great victory! Both the coaches and the players showed real guts last night and deserve generous praise for their efforts. I was very encouraged by improvements on D and by how, as da U's D wore down, our O ran and passed the ball so well under miserable field conditions. Now on to impressions:
The Incomprehensible
• There were 48 seconds left in the game. Tech had no time outs left. Miami had a 3 point lead. And, for reasons known only to him and God, Christobal decides not to get in victory and take a knee three times. Instead, he lets a team that had already turned the ball over 3 times on a wet field with the rain still coming down risk handing the ball off in the center of the D where every Tech player was trying to rip to out. And sure enough that is exactly what happened and two great football plays later, Tech wins the game! Absolutely incomprehensible.
The Good (and there's a lot of it)
• Sheer old fashion GUTS. That game showed that this team has them. Full Stop. In the fourth quarter, with both Ds fagged out from the field conditions and being on on it, it was Tach's D that stood up and Tech's O that won the game when given a chance. That, sports fans, will DO!
• The D was again making me have a "Who are these guys?" moment. Good tacking in the open field, solid LB play, 3 picks by the DBs, only a couple of coverage slips (about what you expect; everybody has them), and, in the fourth quarter, a brick wall for Miami RBs to run into. I would not have thought that a change in DC would have made such a difference. Shows what I know.
• The O stood up as well. That drive to answer Miami's TD in the third quarter showed everybody that htis was going to be a FOOTBALL GAME! Then in the fourth, when they started to open holes for the RBs and gave King a pocket, the Tech OL delivered the game.
• Three cheers for King too. Hasselbach kept saying that King needed to step up into the pocket and be ready to run or throw. And in the second half he did just that. And he began to look like a QB who was ready to run. That TD of his was something I hope he feeds off os. Also the drive that ended the game was a thing of beauty that will live forever (well … at least for this season).
• The WRs performed extremely well. It is enough to say that they were every bit as good as Miami's. And that is praise indeed; da U's WRs are really good. Btw, Leary getting behind them so that when he caught the ball there was nobody within 8 yards of him was terrific!
• In my impressions last week I inferred that Haynes could not run with authority. After watching him drag two Miami defenders across the goal line last night, I corrected that opinion. One of the best runs of the year, that.
• As I said in another thread, the special teams kept us in the game. We were pinned in our own end for most of the game and our punter saved our bacon time and again by putting Miami in the same boat. The FG and KO units really delivered as well.
The Bad
Oh, to <the nether region> with it! There's no reason to gripe about a victory on the road against a nationally ranked team!