SMU's win last night will look alot like ISU's

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Istate

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Jul 15, 2008
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in a couple of days. ISU fans and players are thrilled to be in the Insight bowl. Minnesota fans couldn't care less, and their team is just about as interested plus they're beat-up and losing players for other reasons. ISU, like SMU, is still adjusting to a new system albeit a year behind SMU. You could see how much progress SMU made as the season went along and especially in bowl preparation. I expect the same from ISU. The offense's timing will be much better, especially with team health at season high. Additionally, Minnesota has no offense without Decker. That is the only area where ISU could be exploited against a decent team. Fortunately, Minnesota isn't decent on offense. I originally thought ISU by 12. I'm not thinking we're looking at a 31-10 type game for the clones.
 

cstrunk

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Mar 21, 2006
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I hope you are right, but I still think it will be a game within 10 points either way.

Next year I'm hoping for much improvement.
 

Istate

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I'll take the ten point victory, but I think we're going to see more than that.
 

Sloup

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Nov 14, 2009
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I'm pretty confident we can score some points on the Gophers, I'm more interested to see if we can stop them.
 

CyBobby

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Oct 18, 2006
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I'll take the ten point victory, but I think we're going to see more than that.

I'm with you bro...I'll take a 3 point victory and go home happy....


This game like all games...Will go down in the record book as either a W or an L....


Winning is all that matters...sez gene smith former ad at ISU!!!!


Lets Win and have a great holiday season...sez CyBob
 

Bipolarcy

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Oct 27, 2008
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I'm pretty confident we can score some points on the Gophers, I'm more interested to see if we can stop them.


This is pretty much opposite how our season went. When we struggled, most of our troubles were on offense. Our defense played unexpectedly well this year. We made vast improvement on defense not only on the eyeball test (perception of the play on the field) but also statistically, where we were 43rd in the NCAA in scoring defense, which is a far cry from where we were the year before (110th).

We were a bend but don't break defense. We were 99th in total defense, 112th the year before. We were 89th in rushing defense, 95th in 2008. We were 95th in pass defense, 116th in 2008.

Where we were most amazing on defense is in red zone defense, where we ranked fourth in the country, behind only Penn State, Alabama and Nebraska. We were 88th in red zone defense in 2008.

We tied for 27th in turnover margin, at plus 6. We recovered 16 fumbles and had 14 INTs.

Minnesota has a very impotent offense, so I don't see why you would be wondering if we could stop them. The more important question, IMO, is whether we can move the ball on them.