Staff Blog

St. Olaf Review

In many ways it was a typical first game Saturday for the Luther College Norse. Some good, some bad, a lot to work on after a 23-14 loss to St. Olaf.

We'll start with the good. Defense was good but not great. It was on the field way too much. Your opponents having 38:21 in time of possession will not lead to success at any level. While a lot of that can go on the offense's inconsistency, the defense itself needs to take its share of the blame. Making key plays at key times is something the defense needs to do better. While 5-19 on the third downs is good, 5-5 on fourth downs is unacceptable. On the good side, holding a normally high powered offense in St. Olaf to 262 yards and 3.3 yards per play is very, very acceptable. Coach Durnin talks a lot about explosive plays, getting them on offense and preventing them on defense. The defense did it's job not allowing a play longer than 14 yards.

Turnovers and field position normally lead to success. Luther won both categories on Saturday. Field position wise, Luther averaged their own 41 yard line and St. Olaf averaged their own 37. The Norse were also plus two on the turnover ratio. Offensive inconsistency led to these stats not leading to victory, but if the Norse keep winning these two stats good things will come down the road.

I know some may think it's trite, but Luther showed some grit and character late in the ballgame. While everyone on the sideline was frustrated being down 23-0, but the frustration was channeled into something positive. The offense had drives of 55 and 59 yards to scores late in the ballgame and made things more interesting at the end of the game than they were in the beginning of the fourth quarter. A little bit of moxy and swagger were shown as well, and not in a bad way. It would have been easy to roll over and play dead down 23-0. They didn't. It may be trite but it's true.

What will saw out of the offense on Saturday was growing pains. A freshman quarterback. A new full time running back. New pieces on the offensive line. Chris Reynolds ended the day 10-23 for 90 yards. Those numbers will get better. Reynolds really struggled in the first half. The reasons are likely multiple. Nerves from his first college start. A new system that everyone needs to get used to. Some new parts. While Norse fans hoped for better, what happended Saturday probably wasn't surprising in retrospect. Most importantly, many coaches will tell you getting an offensive line to gel as a single collective unit is one of the most difficult things to get done. All in all, the start was Saturday. The offense is still in crawl before they can walk mode. Hopefully, we'll see the full steps in two weeks.

Now a week off. Most coaches think teams make their most improvements between games one and two. For the second straight year, the Norse have two weeks to have those improvements. Get ready for speed, speed and more speed against Dubuque in two weeks. Dubuque defeated Rockford 49-7 Saturday night in the college's new stadium debut. The Spartans will be at Redlands College next week.

Published Monday, September 8, 2008 at 7:47 AM by Darin Svenson

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