The Day After

24 hours later and it still feels pretty dang good. . . A lot of the game remains a blur, but having just read over the live blog of the game from the AOL FanHouse, I'm reminded of really what a great game it was. I'm sure the first half, or at least the first quarter, was somewhat painful to watch for anyone without a real rooting interest in the game, but the second half was compelling football.

I wish I could go back through the game and sort of make comments on specific things as I go, but unfortunately I don't have a copy of the game to do that with. There are a few things I want to talk about anyway, almost all of them positive.

Officiating: Was pretty dang bad. I still haven't seen the call on the punt from the first half, which it sounds like they may have gotten more or less correct, but even if they did it was terrible mess. I know there has been some complaining about the block in the back call on the punt return in the 3rd quarter, but from where I was standing it looked like the right call. Like I said, though, I haven't seen the replay so I guess I don't know for sure. I realize it was probably a tough game to call just because of how sloppy it tended to be, but it didn't really seem like the refs had good control of the game.

Riley Skinner: Played pretty dang well. The interception in the 3rd quarter was absolutely a bad throw that probably shouldn't have been made in the first place, and I'm guessing Riley wouldn't argue too much about that. The other interception in the 4th was floated a little bit, but I'd say that was more of a good play by the safety than a bad throw by Riley. He threw Tereshinski several good balls, and the throw to Kenny for the touchdown was a thing of beauty. Great performance overall

Josh Adams/Micah Andrews: Proved to be a pretty versatile combo. Josh ran hard at the beginning of the game, and his touchdown run was incredible. I didn't think he'd be able to outrun both of those guys, but he proved me wrong. The fumble was definitely a bad mistake, but since we won I think I can forget about that. I don't know exactly what the game plan was as to when Josh or Micah would get carries, as it looked like Josh got most of the first half carries and then Micah all of a sudden got most of them in the 2nd half. Micah looked pretty good, though, and I think the combo is going to be pretty special to watch for the rest of this year.

Alphonso Smith: Looked great for the entire game minus one drive and one penalty. Looked like he could have had another pick-six in the 4th quarter on FSU's last TD drive, but he did have a big INT in the endzone, and other than the one drive when Carr made him look pretty bad twice and the block in the back, he had a pretty solid game. Definitely our defensive leader.

Offensive Line: Good enough. I still don't quite know what to make of our line. Our run blocking looked pretty poor for most of the first half, but every once in awhile they would open a good looking hole. Can't complain about the pass blocking. One sack is forgivable against a pretty good FSU defensive line, but that run blocking could look better.

I'm sure there are some other players/units that I could mention but those are the ones most on my mind right now. I guess I should give Sam Swank some credit for the huge field goal to essentially lock it up, and Demir Boldin for really locking it up. If I left someone out, go ahead and leave a comment.