DESTINY IN OUR OWN HANDS

That's the position you want to be in when it comes to the conference race.

Nebraska with a L. MSU with a L. AND they still have to play each other, so you can book at least one of those teams finishing with a minimum of two conference losses (HUUUUUUGE) -- (I think Nebraska wins that matchup if it were played today).

We've got to get through both of those teams with W's. If we do (assuming we win all our other B1G games leading up to the finale), we can 'afford' a loss to Ohio and still go to Indy.

Of course, we should just kick EVERYONE'S ass and leave nothing to chance.

Get the 'easy' W this Saturday and find a way to end the streak against MSU in two weeks and I think we're pretty much golden. Nebraska's defense is so bad, I fully expect them to lose another game somewhere along the line.

Admin wrote:

...Get the 'easy' W this Saturday and find a way to end the streak against MSU in two weeks and I think we're pretty much golden. Nebraska's defense is so bad, I fully expect them to lose another game somewhere along the line...

Yep exactly. Use this weekend to tighten up some of the loose ends. Head into the Sparty game with a two game W streak. TCB with lil' bro and that should give us all that we need to head into Lincoln with every bit of confidence to steal that game and take FULL control of the Legends Div.

Sparty has Iowa this week (who is actually a lot closer to being 5-0 than they get credit for) so hopefully Iowa can wear them down a bit and take a little bit out of them before our match up.

Nebraska has a bye then they face a feisty Northwestern team that might use their loss at Penn St as a wake up call for the rest of the season. I'm going to be watching that game with a lot of interest to see where Nebraska's mind set is the week before M rolls into Lincoln.

I thought that Iowa was horrible this year?

I want spartina at full strength when we slap their whiney little asses all over the Big House!

I think that their full-strength is limited so how can they be at full-strength? All we'll hear is how if the still had Captain Kirk, or Denard's not a real QB...

Expect some comments at how dumbtonio is such a good recruiter he stole Burbridge from Hoke...

Fortunately, we don't have that crap here.

Besides, who would even say anything so stupid?

hate to say it but the best team in the conf, or the one that looks the best is not elligable, still to many teams that have not shown much yet. Can NW score enough points. We know MSU can't but can they stop enough points, NEB defense gave up 60 to O$U. Minny whats their story. Iowa got beat by a D-II school so what does that leave , I would have felt alot better had Michigan defeated ND, which theyshould have had we not turned the ball over at key time, so to me it depends on how the Offense and DR handle things. The other item is what skeem is Narduzzi gonna come up with for the one big game MSU plays.

Artist, I'll only say that ohio APPEARS to be the best team NOT named MICHIGAN. lol

I'm not impressed with their defense to be honest with you. Our game will end up as a shootout I fear.

I say that because I feel that we'd lose a shootout.

With that said I'll play devil's advocate on myself and say I'd rather have a 3 yr SR starter than a 2nd year Soph starter at QB but Miller scares the shit outta me.

SHould be between Michigan and Ohio as always.

It's nice to be in the drivers seat BUT we still have a long ways to go. Purdue was a nice win BUT it left me concerned for the future. I felt like Borges was afraid to to have Denard throw. There were several occasions where Purdue would get a stop on first down and Borges would call run on second down. The problem with this is you run the risk in getting stuck in 3rd and long situations and you become predictable. We did have several third and longs as a result. We can get away with that against Purdue. I am not so sure that will work on MSU, Nebraska or Ohio. Purdue was a bad defense. We ran 70 plays on offense and 54 of them were runs. We were almost 60% on third down conversions.

I am sure we will be fine against the likes of Illinois but I worry against the better teams in the B1G. Fortunately our defense is showing signs of life.

My thinking was that Borges knew UM didn't have to throw to beat Purdue, so he didn't throw.

I thought that too but I am not so sure because of the scenarios I listed in my previous post. I think getting into 3rd and manageable should be the goal of any offense. This was Bill Parcell's theory and it makes a lot of sense. If you run for little or no gain on 1st and 2nd then you leave yourself with a predictable passing play for 3rd. Last thing we need is Denard to be in predictable passing situations.

Also the fact that the runs to passes were soooo lopsided.