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I apologize for missing the blog last week. My bad. No excuses. No alibi. But a lot to talk about this week.

Saturday was one of the most entertaining 6-3 games you'll ever see. The momentum swung back and forth like a musical metronome. Both teams with many opportunities. Both teams rose to the occassion many times. Fortunately, the Norse won and now they're tied for first place in the league.

Defense wins championships. The Luther defense held Buena Vista to 1-3 in the red zone, with the only score being a field goal. The Beavers came into the game scoring 78 percent of the time in the red zone. That doesn't include a stop on the last play of the game with Buena Vista when Josh Patterson knocked down a pass to Eric Bertelsen in the end zone. A lot of heroes on defense. Alex Mierau was the Iowa conference male athlete of the week with 19 tackles, 15 solo and two passes defensed. Sean Hood had ten tackles. Will Bothe with nine tackles and one for a loss. Cody Webb with three tackles for a loss. Paul Pierson with a sack. Interceptions by Trevor Theobald and Jeremy Klein. Needless to say it was a fine effort by the entire defense. Many felt going into the season Luther had a good enough defense to be competitive in every game they play. With the exception of the Simpson game that has been the case.

Another game ball to Nate Neblung, who was the Norse punter Saturday as regular punter Andrew Burkle was taking a test to get into graduate school. Neblung averaged 37.6 per punt with a long of 51 yards. Yes, he did have a strong wind at his back for a lot of the game, but did a good job of keeping the ball away from the Beavers returners. He even had a 40 yarder against the wind with a roll. Every time a Norse player has gone down this year, the backup has stepped up. As coach Durnin always says, the expectation is if you get on the field, you're to perform. That was the case on special teams with Neblung.

Things were difficult for the offense Saturday, but they did take advantage of a short field in the first quarter and scored. Try Scheetz caught his first collegiate touchdown pass from Chris Reynolds and Reynolds showed some nice improvisation on the play. Also after an interception in the third quarter the Norse had a 62 yard, 14 play drive that unfortunately led to a missed field goal. Despite the inconsitency on offense, there were many situations the offense helped in the victory, other than the ones listed above. In the second half, in four of six drives by Luther they earned a first down. A first down here and there made the clock run that much more and allowed the field position battle to sway in the Norse's favor. Without some key plays at key times, the Norse would not have been victorious Saturday. That said, the consistency on offense needs to get a lot better for continued success.

So, Luther has played themselves into a spot that they control their own destiny with four games to go. But all of the focus needs to be on Coe. Need to be 1-0 today, tomorrow, the next day, Saturday. Luther is good enough to beat any team remaining on the schedule. But, the margin of error is small enough for any team to beat them. Consistency needs to get better on all sides of the ball. If that happens, Happy feelings could continue.

Published Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 7:07 AM by Darin Svenson

2 Comments:

Anonymous on October 22, 2008 1:32 PM

Really disappointed there was no blog from the Waldorf game. It was a very exciting game to listen to on the radio as I am sure the blog would have been to read.

Darin Svenson on October 23, 2008 11:32 AM

my bad. No excuse. No alibi

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