More Marshall Thoughts

It should be noted that Paul Chryst is a tremendous asset for the program. You know that terrible feeling you had after the Badgers' first two drives on Saturday? That miserable anger? It comes from those years of watching your Badgers getting stuffed on slow developing running plays until the game ended. But friends, let those worries go.  Chrsyt is a great game planner and is able to adapt to what the defense was giving him. Badger coaches expected Marshall to over play the run. But Marshall not only had 8 and 9 in the box, those 8 and 9 were leaning forward on the snap and barreling forward. Very Aggressive. No worries. Chryst runs vertical routes with the TEs and deep outs with the WR. From my seats at the Camp everybody was open. Enjoy Mr. Chryst, and his stress relieving abilities, while he is here. He is among the best at his profession.

Coaches are very high on Lance Kendricks and expect to use him as they use TravB. Kendricks may have lost a little top-end speed bulking up to play TE in the BigTen, but still presents terrible matchup problems for LBs and even Safeties.

I thought the secondary played only marginally better against Marshall than they did against Akron despite the 3 picks. Marshall WRs were getting open and the QB was hitting them easily in the beginning. (Plus that unbelievably perfectly timed roll-left throw back right to the TE when we uncharacteristically decided to blitz all of our linebackers. Unreal.) What altered the game was our consistent pass rush. Our D Line dominated the last 3 quarters. We knocked down their QB on pretty much every passing play during that time, and the starter got so sick of that he started winging it around so he wouldn't get hit. Then they brought in the backup and we gave him the rag doll treatment as well. Then the starter comes back in and really starts throwing it wherever just don't hit me again!

Very good to get consistent D Line pressure. It got our secondary some interception opportunities and they delivered, except on that one play that Carter will keep thinking about. I know from post-game interviews that the secondary gained a lot of confidence from their performance. Niles Brinkley is feeling the good vibes. We all know about DBs and their need of confidence and bravado. Hopefully this helps us cope with the Valley kids.

I am obligated to talk about Johnny Clay. Damn Johnny Clay actually did mishandle his first hand-off after almost fumbling last week's first hand-off. He needs to get over those first play jitters. But good golly when he gets four steps of steam look out! Let's hope for their sake that Marshall defenders were just tired, because the Racine Freight Train was running express. Johnny Clay ran threw arm tackles like he didn't feel them and delivered incredible blows to approaching Safeties and CBs. On his TD, there was a defender at the goal line who is still wondering what the hell happened. Johnny Clay! looked really good on Saturday.