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Not Murphy's Law

There must be some other name for the football law that says, pretty simply, the team with the fewest turnovers wins. The Irish were able to escape that situation against SDSU this year, but otherwise, you can pretty much be assured that if you turn the ball over five times in a game (while not taking it away the same amount), you're going to lose. Which is what happened Saturday, as the normally extremely accurate Clausen made a couple of common mistakes and threw some ill-advised passes. The most devastating was the first pass of the second half, and out route that should never have been thrown unless the lane was completely clear, because it's far too easy for an LB or safety to step right in the lane and return it straight back for a touchdown, which is what happened. That ended up being the difference in the final score. Argh!!

One offensive note this week. Even with the interceptions, Clausen had yet another career passing day, with 383 yards and a pair of beautiful touchdown passes. Among the regular completions were a 47-yard completion to Tate. I know rushing is absolutely essential for a team to be successful over the long term (especially given what it says about the offensive line's effectiveness), but an effective passing game is so much fun to watch. It did lead to a solid halftime lead on the road in this case, before the turnovers did the Irish in in the second half - though even then, Clausen was cool enough to direct one last long drive down the field in the final 1:45 before coming up short in the (crazy) finish.

For the record, on the crazy finish, I thought Floyd was trying to flip the ball up to the refs so it could be spotted, my husband thought Floyd fumbled, and lots of other people, including the players, thought Floyd was trying to lateral to a teammate to keep the play going. If it was that unclear to all of us, there's no way this was an indisputable call! The refs may have blown it in how they handled the replay because of when the whistle blew, whether the Irish had snapped the next play, etc., but in the end - you just don't win with four turnovers in the second half, so no sour grapes here. The Irish just need to go out and beat Washington 50-0. I'm pretty sure we have a good chance of that.

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Full post as published by Irish Law on October 15, 2008 (boomark / email).