MAC Week 4 Summations, Drive Charts

We'll try something new this week: combining the quickie recaps with the drive charts. They're basically the same things, plus it spaces out the enormous amount of Flashness with English words and Arabic numerals.

I've said enough. And true to form, AnnArbor.com writes that the defense "still has issues." You've got to be kidding me. One 71-yard touchdown, and two goalline scores on fourth down — one that was barely in (perhaps short), and another one that was a missed tackle away from a two-yard loss. These are the issues you wish your team had.

I've already said a lot. Purdue blog Hammer and Rails said even more, albeit with a much angrier tone.

Nice to see them hang for a half with a struggling UConn team, but at least Buffalo blog Bull Run is finally with SB Nation. So that's a positive.

Eight first downs, 112 yards of offense, and an average starting field position of the 22-yard line. Also, they won't go for it on fourth and short.

I haven't really touched on this game, but it went just about as planned. Northwestern gave CMU a few opportunities but it was a pass-happy, penalty-riddled outing for both sides. Keep an eye out for NW in the Big Ten. And don't rule out the Chips, provided they start coming up with some big plays and can limit the turnovers and yellow flags.

No joy to glean from this game, either. There were just so many blowouts, this one basically went under the radar, probably because it wasn't against a Big Ten team. (Although I guess technically if this game's played next year it's against a Big Ten opponent, amiright?)

Oh, what a chance. They did everything right in the first half ... maybe even the first three quarters. They held Penn State to five field goals. The problem was when Bernard Pierce painfully went down in the third quarter — looked like his ankle — and didn't come back. They didn't have a single drive that lasted longer than six plays. Yikes. That'll keep the other team's defense fresh.

So where do you want to begin: How did OSU score 73 or how did EMU score 20? Let's just let the mysteries offset.

I caught a fair amount of this game, and was really impressed with Jeremy LaFrance's two touchdowns. I'm going to take the Akron-o-meter and raise it from 0 to 1.

I think we've concluded that, yes, OHIO did the right thing by going for two.

The night capper! RABAttack loved everything about this game, and it's easy to see why. NIU took the lead and didn't look back. They kept scoring at will on the Gophers for 60 minutes, much like Toledo did against Purdue. But they only ran 45 plays — 33 fewer than Minnesota. The defense was on the field for 36:43, and they rightly took away the run (32 carries, 3.0 YPC). How excellent was this defense? I'd say they played better than Chad Spann, who had 15 carries for 223 yards and two scores.