Oct. 11, 2009

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By SKIP MYSLENSKI, NUsports.com Special Contributor

POINT: After their Saturday victory over Miami, the 'Cats enter the second half of their season a respectable 4-2.

COUNTERPOINT: They could be-maybe even should be-a perfect 6-0.

POINT: The 'Cats were never really threatened by Miami, which scored its only points of the day with 1:19 remaining.

COUNTERPOINT: Miami is winless and its previous five losses had come by an average of 29.2 ppg.

POINT: "It was great to find a way to get a win," 'Cat coach Pat Fitzgerald would say later.

COUNTERPOINT: This was not a win, to paraphrase an old favorite of many coaches, that will be hung in any museum.

POINT: On a cold and blustery afternoon, the 'Cats committed just a single turnover and finished with 319 yards of total offense.

COUNTERPOINT: That same offense managed to put up only two touchdowns and a field goal against a Miami defense that had, in its previous losses, surrendered an average of 40.8 points per-game. It had also been bloodied for an average of 396.6 yards per-game.

POINT: The 'Cats ended the day with 128 net rushing yards, which is not a great figure. But it is not abysmal either.

COUNTERPOINT: Their leading rusher was quarterback Mike Kafka, who netted 53 yards on 15 carries (3.5 ypc).

POINT: Running back Jeravin Matthews gained 16 yards on his only carry.

COUNTERPOINT: Running back Jacob Schmidt gained 29 yards on 10 carries (2.9 ypc) and his longest went for only eight. Running back Arby Fields gained 29 yards on 11 carries (2.5 ypc) and his longest went for only six. Running back Stephen Simmons gained three yards on two carries (1.5 ypc) and his longest went for only two. "Offensively, we've got to improve in a lot of areas. Number one, we've got to be able to run the football better," Fitzgerald would later say, surprising absolutely no one.

POINT: As they have done all season, and as they most-pointedly did during last week's practices, the 'Cats rotated their offensive linemen throughout the day in search of a group that could bust open some holes.

COUNTERPOINT: "I'll be able to answer that question better Monday in my press conference," Fitzgerald succinctly said when asked what he thought of that line's play. "But I would say, based on the stats, not very good."

Later, in response to another question, he added: "I just want to run the ball. Obviously we didn't have the success today we were hoping to have. We'll take a look at it. Again, as I said in my post-game radio (show), it's simple. It's the plays that we're calling aren't working in the situations; it's the execution of fundamentals and technique; and/or we got the wrong guy in there trying to do it. It's a combination of those three things and it's a 12-person operation. It's us as coaches and the young men in the locker room and all of us getting together and making sure we solve the problem. When we do that and we trust each, we'll be fine. That's what it comes down to. Trusting the call, trusting the plan, trusting yourself, then trusting your technique. When we do that, we're pretty good. We've proven that we can be. We've just got to get back to that. We went back to a lot of camp drills this week in practice and we'll continue to do that until we improve and get better."

POINT: The 'Cats' defense registered a season-high seven sacks after getting only 11 in its first five games.

COUNTERPOINT: End Corey Wootton, after a brief, two-play appearance, sat out the afternoon with an injured ankle. "His ankle didn't really respond," explained Fitzgerald. "He was out there for a few reps during the week in practice, but it never really got to the point where we were hoping it would. When they gave me the injury report on Thursday, I thought he was going to be at the point where he was going to be able to play on Saturday. But over the 48 hours, it just didn't get there."

POINT: The 'Cats got an interception each from linebacker Nate Williams, safety Brian Peters and corner Sherrick McManis.

COUNTERPOINT: Safety Brendan Smith sat out the second half with, according to the report, a hand injury.

POINT: The 'Cats' defense pitched a near shutout and, for the second week in a row, catalyzed them to their win.

COUNTERPOINT: "We haven't played to our potential yet. We still aren't," end Vince Browne would later say. "We're just looking to go out and keep getting better and maximize as much of our potential as we can."

Why haven't you done that yet?

"I think Coach Hank (defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz) said it the best last week during practice. It's not easy to go out and play with your best effort every play when you're tired and you can't breathe and coaches are yelling at you. Sometimes you get into bad habits. You don't choose to. It's just difficult and unfortunately I think, as a defense, we create some bad habits during practice and we just need to get back to playing our style of football."

What's the potential of this defense?

"The sky's the limit. We lost very few players from last year and there's no reason we shouldn't be even better than last year. How much better, I don't know. I think the sky's the limit."

POINT: Fitzgerald and his staff were, to use a polite word, particularly intense at practice last week and there was a reason for that. This was a trap game, a non-conference game against a winless foe, and they wanted no letdown. They got their wish with the 'Cats' win.

COUNTERPOINT: "That's why they call you coach," Fitzgerald said when asked about his approach last week. "We weren't going to sing 'Kumbaya,' you know, hang out. You ain't seen nothing yet. We've got a lot of room for improvement."

"It's the middle of the season. We've got to pick it up, we've got to pick it up a notch," Kafka said on the same subject. "Going through six games, we've got to raise our level of play to be even better. I think it's a great job the coaches are doing. As players, we've got to take it up another notch. Whatever kind of intensity they bring, we've got to bring it up to another level. That's on us to do that."

POINT: After their Saturday victory over Miami, the 'Cats enter the second half of their season a respectable 4-2.

COUNTERPOINT: "I'm very pleased, right now, to be where we're at," Fitzgerald would finally say. "I'm not pleased with the way we're playing. We can fix that and we can improve. But to get our fourth win, to put ourselves in a position to have this season be significant, is what you hope to have. But we can definitely play better and the challenge is going to be dramatic this week (while preparing for a visit to Michigan State).

"Last year, when we played Michigan State, I thought they out-physicalled us in all aspects of the game. We're going to really need to have to improve to be able to go up there and compete."

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