I'm chillin' at home right now with my family and friends and I'm having such a great time. Everyone has been making me feel so welcome and appreciated. I'm cherishing these moments because I feel so blessed and I know that things won't always be like this so I'm living it up. On Friday, my first night home, I attended the basketball game at my high school, Concordia Lutheran. In addition to many close friends, I saw so many people who I hadn't seen in a while, some I graduated with and some I didn't. After the game there was a small get together for us former students. We laughed and talked about the good 'ol days, what we're doing now, and what our plans were for the future. It all made for such a great time.
I'm so excited to leave for Tempe,AZ this week, though it's always nice to be home for Christmas. Our football staff has set up the perfect schedule for us players to put in hard work and have fun at the same time. I've never spent a Christmas away from home and I'm truly thankful that this won't be the first.
There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that we will go to Tempe and have a great time and play to our best ability against Oklahoma State. They're a great team and will make a great challenge for us Hoosiers, but it's a game we know we can win. We are prepared.
I want to wish everyone a Merry and Blessed Christmas. May you all receive all of the love and joy that this time of year brings. I'll talk to you again in Tempe!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Home For Christmas
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7 comments:
A very Merry Christmas to you, your family and our GREAT IU Football Team. Look for us to have our "Mini-ROCK poster" during the Tempe WALK!
Merry Christmas and have a Blessed New Year!!
Merry Christmas to you and your family too! I don't know if you're on Facebook or not, but I thought that you might be interested in this new group that was started on there "Come on IU, win the Insight Bowl for Coach Hep": http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7753656875&ref=mf. It might help inspire the team to see how much of Hoosier Nation is behind the team while you're in Arizona.
Bryan,
Rex and I send our love and wish you all the best! Sorry we couldn't make the trip with your mom and dad but you understand why. Heard from Britt you had a great time with the old Concordia crowd; sure it was great to see everyone.We love you as always!
GO IU!!!
Hope you liked what Santa brought!
The good, the bad, and the ugly
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Well.....that sucked. IU looked happy to be here and completely unprepared for a football game. The emotional season after losing Hep is now passed, and I am still convinced - now more than ever - that IU hired the right guy for an emotional decision, but the wrong guy for football reasons. I certainly won't say "I told you so" just yet, but I would have some pretty good evidence if that's a route I wanted to take. Failing that, my observations from this afternoon :
The good : IU was very, VERY well represented, and we should be proud of ourselves. This bodes well for the future assuming we get another opportunity.
If Austin Starr isn't both academic and "football" All-America next season, I want to see the kid who is. The passing play aside; that kid's a bad ass for a kicker.
Andrew Means is a football player. If baseball's his thing and he goes that direction, I wish him well. But he's got some of the best hands and some of the best toughness I've seen in a WR at any level.
The seniors played hard and played well. Josiah Sears is someone I wish we could clone. IU has a classy team and great kids.
We never quit; even though many shoulders were slumped in the first half. There were - finally - signs of life in the 3rd quarter, and we got a couple of turnovers. Our defense is young and getting obviously better as years pass.
The bad : Play calling, as it's been all season, was predeictable and attrocious. Was anyone surprised we called the "decide" play first? Kellen Lewis "decides" the right option about once every 4 tries. If he can't "decide" the right thing, we need to scrap it and start over. That play's bad, but we have zero running game without it right now.
Our offensive line looks weak, slow, and soft. They'll get better, but it'll take lots of time and lots of reps against good players. I hope they go against the #1 defense all spring.
Kellen Lewis' passes were off all night. He looked scared and he looked unprepared. He'll probably learn from this; and he needs to. He ran well on occasion, but didn't go through his check downs well at all; and missed several open receivers because of it.
Our defense practices against a mobile QB every day. Yet we were completely unprepared to play against that type of kid. I don't get it.
The ugly : My fear came true tonight. Bill Lynch had a game plan that wasn't working, and he had no clue how to deviate and change it. We didn't make a single adjustment or change anything all night long. Nice guy; but like I've said all along, I'm just not sure he's the right football man. Nice emotional hire in the right place at the right time. Mike Davis was the same way. I hope I'm wrong; I really do. But my mind and gut are telling me otherwise. Ugh.
No passion, no sense of urgency, no "kick ass" attitude, and no fire. Football is a game of emotion, especially when you're physically overmatched. IU looked happy to be there; and that's sad. We didn't accomplish a goal getting to "Play 13," we started a journey...or I hope we did. I hope we're not sitting here 4 years from now wondering who our next coach will be; but watching that, I sure wouldn't bet against it. This team looks to be taking on the personality of its coach. Just happy go lucky and doesn't want to hurt anyone or piss anyone off.
What happened to James Hardy?? This kid had a chance to show off for several NFL people, and played like a mediocre freshman.
It was obvious to me that OSU had athletes and we don't. The size and speed differential was incredible; and I hope those who watched on TV could see it as well. We didn't have enough horses tonight, and to compete at that level, our recruiting needs to improve dramatically....and I'm not sure it can.
from the scout board and completely agree.
That was dissapionting but it seemed harder to watch as we were down by a couple of touchdowns and still didnt go into a no huddle offense there was no sense of urgency and it killed me to watch. I think you played your heart out and i could sense the effort and dtermination from you and big play ray especially. Brian your still my favorite player to watch and i hope you can transfer your heart to some of the others on the team this up coming year.
Go Cadets!!!
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