CMU folds in Las Vegas

I have to level with all of you.

I didn't watch the CMU game this previous Saturday. I did not see even one second of gameplay. I went back on my pledge to watch every game this season back in the previous posts and for that, I apologize. Sometimes other things, more important things, come up and must be addressed. This Saturday was one of those cases.

Ok, moving past that.

I did my homework on the game, however. I read about how the game went and it became obvious to me that this was, like the UNH game, a tale of two halves. Central went from completely dominating UNLV in the first half and racing to a 21-0 lead to completely collapsing in the second half and losing the game by a score of 31-21. Hell, I think the only team that committed a worse blunder is Wisconsin. After putting up 253 yards of offense in the first half, Central managed only 125 in the 2nd half, while also turning the ball over twice.

It's hard to say what caused such a stunning collapse. Some might say that it is karma coming back around, since we won last week off the same sort of collapse by UNH. Or perhaps it was that the ginger demi-god Cooper Rush finally showed some weakness with two straight drive killing interceptions.A quick look at the stats confirms that the Chippewas run game was shut down in the second half, forcing CMU to attack UNLV one dimensionally, and once that happened, it was too easy to expose their weaknesses.

I would attribute the loss to over-confidence, and the assumption that the game was in hand. I've seen a lot of teams come out completely different, both positively and negatively, from halftime, and if there is one simple truth in football it is that you cannot have that mindset in a game. By coming onto the field with a cruise control mentality, the team becomes complacent, they stop trying, stop hustling, stop making those big plays. If you ask me, that is exactly what happened here. Oh, and UNLV backup Caleb Herring, that happened too.


If you didn't bother to read the intro, I'll give you the Sparknotes version. I didn't watch this game. My deepest apologies. However, I WILL be watching the Chippewas next game against Toledo, and I will be hoping for a Chippewas win like the rest of you. Right? Ok. Tune in next week for quality content people. Au Revoir.