NIU looked much better than I expected but there is no reason that we shouldn’t have been able to push them around. So, either we’re not nearly as talented as we think, or we just expected to show up and go through the motions.
My guess (or hope) is it’s more of the latter. I mean, would this be the first time you’ve seen a good Whitt coached team play down? I think we tried getting away with vanilla play calling against a good team that had everything to gain with a win and nothing to lose with a loss. They got some momentum early and ran with it.
One thing that I noticed that makes me think the players just didn’t want to be there was the lack of energy. After Moss scored his TD, everyone just kinda jogged off the field almost as if they had been stopped on 4th down. I didn’t see hardly any passion all night.
I still think there is a lot to work on before next Saturday but I’m not convinced we’re as bad as we showed last night. That game was the definition of a trap game and we nearly fell into it.
Who knows, maybe that poor performance will light a fire under their asses and make them realize there are no days off. Here’s to hoping.
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