Nice solid win over a good team, as we outgained them 349-297 and the season is back on track to some extent with 6 wins and a bowl now looking likely and 7 wins a decent possibility (I predicted 7-5, so I'd be happy with hitting that mark). A big part of the win was certainly being more healthy than we've been for weeks on defense, where we've just been bad the last 3 games, against WI, UCLA and USC. We finally had what appeared to be healthy versions of Longerbeam, Dixon, Lewis, and Powell who have all been either out or playing limited minutes for the most part in those games. And it showed, as we were good against the run and pretty good against the pass, against a pretty damn good MN offense, plus we turned it on in the 4Q when we absolutely had to with a couple of huge gamechanging plays in the fumble and the safety.
On offense, we continued to play pretty well - not amazing, but pretty well, with 349 total yards of balanced offense, with 240 passing and 109 rushing. Thought AK's passing was very good, apart from the bad INT (although the WR bears some responsibility for that one, not coming back to the ball and letting the DB step in front of him) and his stats would've been significantly better than his 17-33 for 240 if we hadn't had several drops (although our WRs did make some nice contested long catches too). And the rushing sounds much better when it only includes the RB's as Raymond/Benjamin were a combined 33 for 139 (4.2 ypc, which is respectable) - and while we obviously missed Kyle, the OL came up huge in the running game and probably moreso in giving AK time to pass.
Also, whenever a team wins, the coaching staff gets some credit and I thought we really came to play and didn't get down at all when we didn't score on that first possession when the ref swallowed his flag on an obvious DPI, and that was followed by a nice MN TD drive, where we missed some tackles. We came right back and drove for a TD and if we hadn't had that bad INT we likely would've been up more than 14-9. We also had very good game plans on offense and defense and we got decent play from our special teams (and finally ran back a punt!). I wonder if the fire Schiano crowd will recognize the excellent job Greg and his staff did in preparing the team and making adjustments within the game to help us win. And we'll never know, but it kills me to think about how much better our record might be if we hadn't been decimated by injuries.
Also, what a gorgeous day and while attendance was underwhelming (understandable after 4 straight losses), the crowd was decently loud at key moments.
