Oct 29: #4 NW Bearcats vs Missouri Southern Lions

(This weeks Opening Thoughts and Last Week Recap brought to you by Robert Rice)

A special hello to the Bearcat Report Nation from the Press-box side of Bearcat Stadium.  I greatly appreciate Reed allowing me to contribute to the Bearcat Report.  I hope you find the following dialog entertaining and informative.

First, I need everybody reading this report to minimize the screen, access your internet browser of choice, and log on to http://www.nwmissouri.edu/dept/music/ensembles/marching/songs.htm.

Then I need you to click on Wings of Victory (Fight Song).  I want all of you to stand up, turn up the speakers on your monitors, and sing as one because the Bearcats unleashed a woodshed whoopin’ on the Ichabods and that deserves a collective fight song chant.  Let’s go:

Come on Bearcats fight, (you Bearcats fight!)

on to victory.

Hail the Green and White,

best in history.

Come on Bearcats fight, (you Bearcats fight!)

Proud, brave and strong we will stand.

Our glorious colors raised up triumphantly,

across Missouri Land.

Yeah!

Over 10,000 were in attendance to watch a dominant performance by the Bearcats.  Did somebody say Quarterback controversy?  Blake Christopher said “Not so fast, my friends, this is my team” and proceeded to sacrifice his body to make plays.  There was no feet-first slide outta that stud as he lowered his head and fought for every yard available.  The Bearcats, playing hurt, missing a few key contributors, dominated in all phases of the game to a Washburn club that was definitely up for the fight.

One other note about the football game on Saturday:  Of all the years I have watched half-time shows at NWMSU, I cannot recall a more rockin' half-time performance by the BMB (Bearcat Marching Band).  I have to say:  I dig it when kids have fun, let down the hair, bustin their chops, jammin' to a catchy song.  There is a place for precision field marching and straight lines, but I dig a live concert in between my football halves, and the BMB had an epic performance.  I have never heard the student section chant, "BMB, BMB, BMB," ever so that corroborates my opinion that the half-time show was to the level of the Bearcat football dominance over Washburn.

This homecoming game had everything:  anticipation, drama, happiness, anger, intrigue, and a happy ending.  There have been big games against respected opponents where both teams fought hard and the best team that day came out on top.  You know what?  To heck with that, give me a game I want to win badly, against a team I hate, that leaves me emotionally spent after the game, and that’s the kinda ride I pay for when I buy my season tickets.  Let me give you an example:  USA hockey vs. Canada.  Canada is a great team, a border rival even, but you know what?  I may want to beat Canada but I hate Russia.  Bring it back to Northwest football:  I want to beat Pitt State, but I hate MoWest with every fiber of my being.  Now, transition that to the game between Northwest and Washburn:  a defenseless receiver, a late hit, and a lot of spearing by the Washburn defense and I was MAD.  This game had everything because it turned to the epic battle of good versus evil.  The stakes were raised.  It was not simply two universities battling for alumni pride:  it was us against a bunch of evil, cheap-shot, punks.  That’s why we watch football.  Give me a good versus evil match-up every time.

Northwest 52-28.  Go Cats Go.

Last Weeks Recap:

#3 Washburn (7-1, 5-1) vs. #6 NW Missouri State (7-1, 5-1) following a final score of NWMSU 52 – Washburn 28 on October 22, 2011 at Bearcat Stadium with an announced attendance of 10,073.

Scoring by Quarters were as follows:

	1	2	3	4	Final
Washburn	14	7	7	0	28
NWMSU	21	10	7	14	52

Team Totals	WU	NWMSU
First Downs	18	28
Rushing	70	180
Rushing TD	1	4
Passing	372	425
Comp/Att/Int	25-34-1	30-39-0
Passing TD	3	3
Total Offense	442	605
Fumbles/Lost	0-0	1-1
Penalties	9-75	2-20
Punts/Yards	6-263	2-64
Punt Return/Yd	0-0	1-6
KO Returns	7-160yards	5-83yards
Possession Time	22:16	37:44
3rd Down Conv	5 of 11	11 of 16
4th Down Conv	0 of 0	2 of 2
Red Zone Score	3-3	6-6
Sacks	1-4yards	3-11yards
Field Goals	0-0	1-1

Washburn’s rushing attacked was ineffective with Justin Cooper leading the team with 60 net yards.  For the Bearcats, Blake Christopher led the team with 79 net yards, 1 TD, and averaged 6.6 yards per carry.  James Franklin had 59 yards and 3 TD.  Jordan Simmons had 24 yards.  Billy Creason had 15 yards and Trevor Adams had 3 yards rushing.

Washburn’s Dane Simoneau completed 25 of 34 passes for 372 yards, 1 pick, 3 TDs, and was sacked 3 times.  For Northwest, Blake Christopher completed 29 passes of 37 attempts, 0 picks, for 406 yards, 3 TD, and was sacked 1 time.  Trevor Adams was 1 for 1 for 19 yards.

Washburn’s leading receiver with DeJuan Beard with 7 catches, 122 yards, 3 TD.  He made some fantastic catches despite tight coverage at times.  Northwest’s secondary had some mental breakdowns in the game where Beard also had some wide-open catches, too.  Northwest’s leading receiver was Jake Soy with 8 catches, 144 yards, 2 TDs.  Tyler Shaw had 5 catches for 68 yards and 1 TD.  James Franklin had 5 catches for 44 yards.  Jordan Simmons had 4 catches for 53 yards.  Taylor Pierce had 3 catches for 48 yards.  David Mosley had 2 catches for 18 yards.  Kyle Kilgore had 1 catch for 28 yards (a big one, too).  Jon Gregg probably had one of the biggest catches of the day on a 4th down conversion attempt for a total of 1 catch, 23 yards.  Jon was falling down backwards as he secured the ball in his hands.  A Terrific play.

Defensively, Washburn was led by (this is my opinion and only an opinion and therefore has no basis in fact or law) chief punk and evil-doer Casey Curran (#19) with 7 solo tackles, 10 assisted tackles, for a total of 17 tackles.  For Northwest, Chad Kilgore, as usual, led the team in tackles with 9, followed by Travis Manning with 8 tackles, Derrick Hightower had 6 tackles.  DJ Gnader had 5 tackles.  Clarke Snodgrass had 5 tackles.  Ricky Bailey had 4 tackles.  Big Josh Lorenson, Matt Massey, and Collin Debuysere had 3 tackles.  Caleb Decius, Bryce Enyard, Nate DeJong, and AT had 2 tackles each.  7 Bearcats each recorded 1 tackle in the game.

Go Cats!!

This Week’s Match up:

            Well, for the second year in a row, NW gets the fun trip to Joplin. (Don’t worry, NW gets to go back in 2012 as well!) I have to admit, as a disaster junkie I would love to go to Joplin and spend some time driving around and seeing the recovery effort. I had a lot of friends from FEMA that worked the Joplin disaster earlier this year. If you’ve never been to Stadium, you’re really not missing much. The home side is descent (I believe that they were one of the first schools in the conference to redo their pressbox in the 90’s) but the visitors side is atrocious. The stands are literally half finished. And there is a major distance from the stands to field. In fact, I believe that last year it was determined that you could almost fit an entire football field sideways between the stands – I think it’s something like 94 yards across at the 50. But, there are big changes on the way in Joplin.  Fred Hughes Stadium is getting a major facelift. I think it is safe to say that most Bearcat fans won’t recognize it in 2014 – assuming that the current time table and schedule stand.

            Historically, even though the final score didn’t indicate it – Southern has given NW some difficulty the past couple of years. I think that that is primarily because of the Head Coach – Bart Tatum.  Bart knows the NW offense, and knows AD so can typically create some mismatches to inhibit NW. Unfortunately for Southern, they just don’t have the athletes that can hang with NW for the entire game. Believe it or not, Southern has led the conference the past few years in Defense. That’s not quite the case this year, but they do have the second best rush D in the conference (#19 in the nation) only behind Pitt State.  But we all saw what NW was able to do to Pitt State – put up 186 yards  (take out the sacks and NW put up over 200 yards on them.)  It will definitely be interesting to see how AD addresses MoSucks rush D. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Simmons and JF3 (James Franklin III) have a pretty good day. Last week, Blake Christopher was the second NW quarterback in as many weeks to put up over 400 yards in the air. That could happen again. MoSo is second to last in the conference in Pass Defense – giving up an average of 259 yards per game. I would not be surprised to see both BC & TA get a significant number of snaps, and put up a lot of yards. Last week Brian Miller did get to play more often, however didn’t get any throws. I did notice he is a pretty good blocker. It really does amaze me sometimes the number of different receivers that NW uses. Yes primarily Jake Soy is the #1 target, but there are a lot of other receivers out there. I think that the most underrated WR at this time is probably David Mosley. Mosley is a transfer from Wayne St (MI). He actually approached NW, and when Mel called the Wayne St coach said he didn’t think he was all that good and probably wouldn’t fit in at NW. I’m glad Mel took the chance. He hasn’t had a stellar career, but he always seems to be good for one or two really good catches per game this year. It was good to see Jon Gregg get more involved last week, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get more action in the coming weeks.

            Defensively, this is not going exactly be a walk in the park. MoSo has actually got an offense that can put up some numbers. They are actually averaging more offensive output than Central is. They are putting up 454 yards per game, and over 33 points per game. That’s pretty impressive. They have a pretty balanced offense – throwing for 1756 yards and running for 1426 yards so far this year. Their primary runner is their RB Steven Sumpter, who is averaging 4.7 yards per carry. The MoSo QB, Collin Howard, has a better completion record than Dane Simoneau. The Lions have 5 receivers with double digit receptions on the year, but their primary target is Landon Zerkel who is averaging almost 110 yards per game, and 14.8 yards per catch. Their #2 receiver Ne’Ronte Threat is actually more of a threat in the KO return game. He is averaging over 25 yards per return. And considering the struggles that NW has had in that area, that is a bit of a concern for me.

            Overall, I’m not sure what to think. I think NW will win this game, and win in handily – but at the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Lions put up a fight. It is a possible trap game – big win last week with a rival game next week. But I think that this Bearcat team is disciplined enough to not let that happen. My prediction is NW wins this one 77-28.

Interesting Facts/Statistics:

• For 2 weeks in a row, NW has had a QB throw for over 400 yards and be the MIAA Offensive
  Player of the Week – with 2 different Quarterbacks
• NW has outscored their opponents 450-150 this year 
• All of NW’s RB’s are averaging over 5 yards per carry
• The three top scorer in the MIAA are all Bearcats – Franklin (84) , Adolf (78), & Simmons (78)

Quotes:

• “Two more scores and I think we got ‘em”
• “He’s got a busted give a F&@K”

Oct 22: #7 NW Bearcats vs #4 Washburn Ichabods

Opening Thoughts:

Let me begin by getting a few things off of my chest. Students: Where is the support? The "Green House" was only half full at most and half of you didn't even stand at the beginning of the game. Pathetic. You are tarnishing the memory of all those Rickenbrode Rowdies. Heck, most of you only stand and yell when Bobby is throwing t-shirts! Its kind of sad that this old guy has to yell at you to make some noise when NW is on defense and it's 3rd down. Maybe you should go across the way and sit in the west stands and let the real fans sit at the 50 yard line. My other rant goes to all those defensive geniuses that were standing around me during this last game. You have to give the team time to adjust. They always do. Just because they don't make an adjustment in the first 5 minutes of a game, doesn't mean that they wont. And to the guy that was saying that NW had to get pressure on the QB right after he just completed a 3 step drop pass - unless you have some majic way of getting around the OL - you're not going to get pressure on a 3 step drop!    

Last Weeks Recap:

Ay Chiwawa - I thought this game was going to be a track meet the way it started out. Northwest scored in 3 of their first 12 plays of the game - and that 3rd drive took 8 plays and 80 yards. It took the first three drives for the NW D to adjust. In those first three drives ENMU put up 188 yards passing, they finished the day with 280. So they only got 92 more yards after the adjustment was made. That is pretty darn good!

Prior to the game, I thought that it was going to be a rehash of the the UCM game. Boy was I wrong! The greyhounds were bound and determined to stop the run. So they were puttinga bunch of people in the 'box'. Well, when you do that you open yourself up to the pass game. And Boy did NW walk thru that door. Even with a back up QB and the #1 WR being out of the game, the Bearcats put up a whopping 453 yards in the air. Trevor Adams completed 23 of 31 passes with 1 interception - putting up 444 yards and 5 touchdowns - that gave him a QB rating of 243! That is outstanding! Adams did have one interception - but that seemed to me at the time to look like a broken play, and he expected his receivers to do something that they didn't do. When I watched it later, it still looked that way, but he also had a WR open deep and if he was throwing to him, it was just an underthrown ball. And give some kudos to the DB who made a leap to pick it off!  So in short, I'm not sure if it was a broken play or he just underthrew his receiver. It was also great to see Miller finally get involved in the passing game! I find it interesting that he's only been thrown to once this year, and it resulted in an 80 yard TD. That is one heck of an average! :D  Hopefully he will continue to get touches. I know that he messed up at the beginning of the season, but I would think that he has served his sentence! With not running the ball so much, that gives a bit of a rest to Simmons & JF3, Simmons hurt his shoulder in the UCM game and Franklin was dinged up as well I believe.

On the defensive side of the ball - like I said once NW made the necessary adjustments, ENMU wasn't able to do much of anything. NW started off rushing 4 and trying to pressure the QB. But thats not capable on those quick throws. So NW adjusted and only rushed 3 and dropped more into pass coverage. NW was able to disguise there blitzes nicely at times as were able to actually get to the QB and get some sacks I think some people see that NW doesn't have the sacks or TFL and think that the DL isn't pressuring the QB. That simply isn't true. How many times has the DL surrounded the QB only to have him pop out and run or get to the edge and throw it? A more accurate critique would be that the TE's haven't contained the QB to allow the sack or TFL - but NW is getting the pressure. It was nice to see Morales finally being productive in the game. I don't know if he will ever start, but it was nice to at least see him be in the game more often than he has been.

This Week’s Match up:

Here we go. This game is for a lot of marbles. If NW loses this one, they could end up not making the PO's for the first time in 6 years. If NW wins this one and wins out, they could possibly be sharing the conference title, and if everything works out right, they could still be in the hunt for a bye week the first week of the PO's. So as you can tell, there is definitely a lot riding on the line for this game.

Interesting Facts/Statistics:  

Quotes:

            “Noah, why do you always have to take the bleachers apart?”

Oct 15: #7 NW Bearcats vs Eastern New Mexico Greyhounds

Opening Thoughts:

            Great Googily Moogily the drive across South Dakota is BORING! Once you get into the western half, you can see the Badlands from time to time, and that’s kind of cool, and the Black Hills are nice – but overall South Dakota is a bore. I highly recommend driving at night, or taking the opportunity to sleep while someone else drives. We did take the opportunity to get a free glass of ice water at Wall Drug, and I just about purchased the world’s largest flask, but I didn’t have any pockets big enough for it. I heard that Warrensburg was kind of a SNAFU when it came to parking and tailgating. Glad I missed that, I don’t handle those situations well.

Last Weeks Recap:

            NW came. NW saw. NW conquered.

This Week’s Match up:

            Eastern New Mexico is kind of like UCM in that they love to throw the ball. They are currently ranked #11 in the nation in passing offense. They average throwing 311 yards per game. They have a very fast paced offense. This historically has been a weakness of NW.  Their offensive line is rather old school. They aren’t the quick strong guys, they are some big boys – but they don’t block so well. They kind of waterfall block. What I mean by that is that rather than fighting for their own ground, they backpeddle and surround the QB. The QB plays mostly in the pistol or shotgun formation, and throws quick. However, from what I’ve seen on film, the QB telegraphs his throws. So NW should be able to pick off one or two if they get there in time. Like I said, the Greyhounds are a very fast paced offense. NW has not had very many sacks or much of pass rush this year. Which is very frustrating. NW is actually dead last in the MIAA in sacks. It almost seems to me like a complete change in philosophy – dropping more into coverage rather than getting tackles for losses. That being said, the sack opportunities have been there and NW just didn’t get the job done. NW has done a good job of flushing the QB out of the pocket and making him throw on the run. The Dline has had some injuries this year that haven’t helped – Meinert went out in the Arrowhead game and didn’t play against UCM – and those are the two games that NW gave up the most yards in the air. Coincidence? I don’t think so – the best way to help out your secondary is to have a good pass rush. NW hasn’t had that the past week and a half. But I think NW can adapt and overcome. NW still held UCM to half of their normal points. Two weeks ago at this point, every Bearcat fan was convinced that NW had an amazing D. Now it seems like the sky is falling to most of them. I still have faith. There have been a lot of injuries, and I know that the flu has been going around the team. That takes a LOT out of a person. I know when I have the flu, or even are getting over having the flu – I barely want to stand up and watch a game, let alone play in one! I’m going to give the D the benefit of the doubt that they will still get it together.

            From an offensive point of view, I think that we will probably see a repeat of last week. As far as I know, Blake Christopher is still out this game, as well as Jake Soy. Considering that ENMU has a pretty poor rush defense, my guess is that this will be a lot like last game. But NW will need to have some of the other WR’s step up. Pierce seemed to be great in the first couple of games, but has kind of disappeared lately. Shaw is super fast, but they have CB that is just as fast and will be covering him all day. Without Soy to draw attention away, all of the WR’s will need to find that extra gear. I don’t know what the deal is with Miller not getting any attention. He was a highly touted transfer, I know that he got into some trouble before the season began with some wacky tabacky, but that ship has sailed. He was projected to be a starter at one time, I would love to see him step up and have a big game. Whenever I think of him, I can’t help but remember that game a few years ago where he ate the NW defense for breakfast. I’d like to see that kind of play making resume! I wouldn’t be surprised to see Simmons and JF3 have another big day.

            Overall, I think that NW blows this one out of the water. NW 66 ENMU 14

           

Interesting Facts/Statistics:  

·        A cubic foot of water weighs 62.43 pounds.

·        A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

Quotes:

           

o       “Sit down Douchbag”

o       “Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings.”

Oct 8: #7 NW Bearcats vs #14 UCM Mules

 Opening Thoughts:

I think Clark Griswold summed up my thoughts after the game best: “I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?”

I have said for a long time that this game should stay at Arrowhead as long as it’s a financial windfall for the university. It’s a great recruiting tool, and like I said the money is great. But I think that the money is going to be getting less and less. Last year there was 16,000 fans in attendance, and this year there was only 15,000 fans. I think that those numbers will continue to fall if the game continues to be televised and the game tickets continue to go up. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still go no matter what, but the casual fan probably won’t. This game has kind of taken the place of the Homecoming game, as it is the game where people meet up with old friends and reminisce. I’m sure that the business owners in both Maryville and Pittsburg would love to see this game return to being on campus. After the last two years, I’m starting to agree with them.

Last Weeks Recap:

            Talk about a tale of two halves. In the first half NW looked like they normally do. They came out, played the game that they wanted to, executed like they know how to do – and they went into the half up 28-6. On of Mel Tjeerdsma and Scott Bostwick’s greatest  strengths, was making teams play the game that NW wanted to play. AD did that for the first half – but after halftime that was a completely different story. The Legendary coach Dr Tom Osborn is famously quoted as saying that you can always tell how desperate a team is by how quickly they go to a ‘trick’ play. Well, the first time that NW kicked off to Pitt State – they did a reverse. I knew right then it was going to be a long day for the Bearcats. I never thought I would see the day when AD would go conservative and Tim Beck would pull out all the stops.

            .Football is a game that is all about momentum. This game reminded me a lot of the 2009 national championship game. NW had it in the first half, Pitt State in the second. Pitt came out in the second half, drove down the field and created momentum. That momentum was magnified when 6 plays later, BC threw a horribly under thrown ball (he had a man open deep) that was intercepted and ran back for a pick 6. So in a matter of 6 minutes, the game went from being 28-6 to 28-20. That is quite the swing. Each team then traded 3 & outs and then NW started their drive and drove all the way down the field – including a TD that was called back for a phantom penalty. In an unexpected turn of events – apparently The Goalpost was so distraught over not being even considered for the All-Decade team, he switched teams and deflected a chip shot by Adolf! Very uncool GP! NW went 0-3 on their next possession, but tied it up at 35 in their next/last possession.

            You could really tell that the NW D had not had to play an entire 4 quarter game. They were hurting in the 4^th quarter. Yet they were still hanging in there. There were also a lot of injuries in the game. Enyard was out due to a concussion, Matt Meinert obtained some bruised ribs during the game and was out in the second half.  Prior to this game, if you had told me that the NW D was going to hold the Pitt State offense to less than 200 yards rushing – I would have guaranteed you a Bearcat victory. But alas that wasn’t the case. By everyone’s (including Pitt State fans) Zac Dickey played the best 30 minutes of football of his Gorilla career. He was making throws that nobody expected him to be able to make. The Dline was not able to put any kind of pass pressure on him made his life pretty easy too. The Pitt St receivers were able to get behind the NW secondary all day because the DB’s were so quick to come up and help on the rush defense. They need to learn to let the Dline and LB’s do that for them. But they didn’t, and ended up getting burnt in the second half for it. You can bet that Ken Gordon will be working with them on that in the upcoming week as NW faces a team that likes to throw!

            I said earlier that this game reminded me of the National Championship game- and I’m sticking by that. NW got straight up outcoached in the second half. Why do you go away from the rush? When you have Franlin that is averaging over 11 yards per carry, and Simmons who is over 5, yet they go away from it. Why not run until Pitt State is able to stop you from running? What is really frustrating is that I think that NW is the better team by far. When the NW O was on the same page, they were unstoppable. When the D was able to communicate, they shut down PSU. Urgh! So frustrating. Oh well. This is a learning experience – not only for the players, but for the coaching staff as well. The players seemed to come out at half time and not have the intensity that they had in the first half. I can see this going one of two ways – either the team gets down on themselves and this becomes a very bad thing, or the exact opposite. This becomes the fuel that has awoken the sleeping giant. I believe that this team has more overall talent than any other team at Northwest. My hope is that they team learns from this. Often times you can learn more from a loss, than you can from a win. I hope that the team uses this as a stepping stool and they go out and beat the snot out of the rest of their opponents. I said it after the almost loss to UCM last year – I’m not afraid of them and given the opportunity of playing them again, it will be a completely different outcome!

           

This Week’s Match up:

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for Saturday to come. I hate the taste of losing - and I'm sure that the players and coaches do as well. You can bet that they want to get that taste out as soon as possible. If I didn't loathe the Donkeys, I would feel sorry for them. Cuz you can bet that the Bearcats will be extracting their revenge on the Mooles.

            The Mooles are currently 4-1 with their loss coming two weeks ago to MoWorst. They have beaten the Wonder Boys of Arky Tech, Truman, MoSuck, and eeked out a win against Emporia. I have  heard that BC will not be playing, but I know that he got his bell rung pretty good at the end of the Pitt State fiasco and Trevor Adams came in and finished off the final drive. I do know that BC missed some practice time this week and is still having headaches. But I have full faith in Trevor Adams to fill his shoes. My guess is that the Bearcats will score early, and score often. The Mooles have given up over 200 yards rushing in 3 out of their 5 games, and given up over 300 yards of passing in 2 games. UCM has given up a total of 2135 all purpose yards in 5 games - that is approx 550 yards per game. I really don't think that the Bearcats will have a hard time scoring. JF3 had a great game last week, and I would not be surprised to see him have back to back big games. Historically the UCM game is when somebody has a breakout game. I don't know who that could be on this team but there are a lot of weapons on the field anytime NW is on offense, I would not be shocked to add another playmaker to the list after this game. Several players were not featured all that much last week, like Kilgore and Pierce, that I would like to see get the ball this week. AD admitted last year that his game plan going into the game was not right, and there was not good play calling during the game. I'm hoping that that doesn't happen again. Because there is no reason that NW shouldn't light up the scoreboard like that deaf dumb and blind kid did to the pinball machine!

            UCM definitely has a Jim Svoboda offense. What I mean by that is that they definitely favor the pass over running the ball. Last year the Donkeys had a legitimate running threat in Anthony Stewart. They don't have that this year. In fact, they don't have anyone that averages more than 34 yards per game. As a team they are averaging only 94 yards per game, and that stat is skewed by the fact that in one game they had 218 yards - you take that one game out and they are only averaging 63.25 per game. Prior to last week, I would have said that NW would have no troubles shutting down a passing offense. I still believe that, but question it a little bit. This week the DBs wont be breaking off of coverage to come up on run support. So it will be basically the NW secondary vs the UCM WR's. I like that match up. Bryce Enyard will be back in action which a good thing. If UCM had much of a run threat I would say that this game was going to be a shoot out, but I don’t think that they do. Granted I didn’t think Pitt Stank had much of a pass game going into last week, but we won’t go there.

            I’m going to go big on this one, I think NW returns to their dominating ways and wins this one 48 - 28.

Interesting Facts/Statistics:  

           

·        Three of the top 5 scorers in the MIAA are Bearcats: Simmons, Adolf, Franklin

·        Despite only going 3/10 on 3^rd Downs last week, the Bearcats are still #2 in the conference

·        NW still leads the conference in scoring offense and scoring defense

·        NW D has only allowed 24 out of 82 3^rd down conversions

Quotes:

           

            “Why’d we have to lose to those bastards! Anybody but them!” – Mark Kilgore

           

Oct 1: #1 NW Bearcats vs #16 Pitt State Gorillas

Opening Thoughts:

How about them Bearcats! What an awesome day in Maryville. The weather was perfect and there was a great crowd to celebrate family day / Scott Bostwick memorial. The black uniforms were great - Scott would have loved to see his players in them, as it was his idea. The giant banner on the stadium was very cool to see, and the naming of Scott Bostwick Dr in front of the stadium was a very nice touch. It seems like every game in Maryville, the tailgating experience just gets better and better. I think I counted like 3-4 big inflatable things for the kids to play on, as well as face painters and clowns and more. Maryville is rapidly becoming one of, if not THE best game day atmospheres in all of Division II football.

Last Weeks Recap:

What is there really to say? The Bearcats stomped the Tigers into a mud puddle. While these games are great experience for the younger team members, they are kind of boring to watch as a fan. I find myself looking up stats during the game just to see if there is anything exciting to think about. Don't get me wrong, I would much rather be beating the snot out of someone than losing, but usually the closer games are more fun to watch.  Going into this game, there were a lot of questions about Trevor Adams. I think that he answered a lot of those questions. I think that he is going to be an excellent QB for NW someday. At this time, he looked like it was his second game starting - which it was, and there is nothing wrong with that. He dominated the Hays defense and made excellent decisions. But all things being equal - I would take a healthy BC over Trevor Adams at this time. BC just seems to have those intangibles that TA doesn't yet - but I can see that they are there and will develop over time.

Offensively, there isn’t much that NW didn’t do to the Tigers. The Bearcats averaged 10.2 yards per play. That is freaking amazing. The Bearcats amassed a total of 589 total yards – 232 on the ground and 357 in the air. In my book, I think that Kyle Kilgore was probably the offensive player of the game. He is definitely showing why he made that preseason all conference team and why he is a team captain. Trevor Adams completed an impressive 73.9% and threw 4 touchdown passes. Very nice! Looking at the stat sheet, I would have to say that this was a good game to be a second stringer – as it seems that most of the leaders were the traditional #2’s. Trevor Adams was great, Franklin (JF3) had 82 yards and 3 TD’s, and Kilgore & Shaw accounted for 226 yards & 4 TD’s. There was only one thing that I didn’t like about the offense – 3^rd down conversions – granted NW only had 6 all game. But they were 1-6. Well I guess one went for a TD, but still they were 2-6. But overall – an amazing performance by the Bearcat Offense.

Defensively, I think that they did pretty darn good. They held a team that had been averaging 245 ypg rushing to only 152. NW allowed a little more thru the air (187 yards), but considering how much playing time the #2’s got, combined with the fact that NW was primed to stop the run, there is naturally going to be yards given up there. The NW offense was not on the field very much since they scored so fast, which means that the D was on the field for the majority of the game. Almost a 2-1 ratio in fact! The D held Andre Smith to only 78 yards – he had been averaging over 128 yards per game. I want to take a second and talk about Bryce Enyard. He is a red-shirt freshman who has 12 tackles, 1 breakup, and 4 – yes I said FOUR – interceptions. This kid is really going to be something if this trend continues thru his career. And if it does – he has a great future ahead of him! I did see one thing that really pissed me off with the defense – and that came from Derrick Thomas. It was during half time and the entire team got together in a giant huddle in the center of the field – all the players were facing in towards the center except for Thomas who was facing the opposing team and making gestures towards his groin. That is typical LSC trash. I truly was ashamed to see him do that on Tjeerdsma Field wearing a Bearcat uniform. I hope that the coaches and fellow players saw that too and explain to him this week that Bearcats don’t do that kind of crap!

This Week’s Match up:

            This is one of my favorite weeks of the year. The week before the Fall Classic. The week before the Bearcats beat the Gorillas. The week before all those Pitt State fans get all disappointed and go crying to their monkey mommas. I could go on, but I think you get the point. This is the 10^th Anniversary of the game being played at Camarohead. And I can’t think of a better way of celebrating that anniversary than setting a record as to the butt whooping NW bestow upon Pitt Stink. Overall, I am not sold on Pitt State. They really haven't played anyone (other than a horrid MoWorst to start the year) and haven't really dominated anyone (other than Billy Jewell). This team had to come from behind to beat Truman in the last minute of the game.  I have a feeling this game is going to be a repeat of 2009 - PSU is coming in undefeated thinking they are a top tier team and will be run out of Arrowhead. If you can remember back to last year, NW was a shell of itself, came in and thought that they just needed to show up to win, played like absolute dog doodoo, and they still beat Pitt State. I’m willing to bet that that attitude will not reappear this year as there are a lot of young guys on the team that have never played Pitt State.

            Despite the fact that I’m not sold on them, the Gorillas will still be the most difficult team that Northwest has played to date. They have a good Dline that helps them stop the run (they are only giving up 92 ypg) and a good corps of linebackers. Their weakness appears to be their secondary – which happens to be one of the Bearcat strengths. At this time, I am not sure who the starting QB is going to be for NW. I know that Coach Dorrel has said that BC will play in the game – but he did not specify that he would start. Apparently the injury to Blake’s hand is not as bad as was originally diagnosed. He was throwing the ball before the game on Saturday and was suited up just in case of an emergency. Regardless of who the QB is, they are going to need to play well and think quick – PSU currently has 17 sacks this season (granted 7 of them came against William Jewell) The NW oline is young, but I don’t think that they are anywhere near as bad as the Jewell Cardinal’s. This game, like most games, will be won in ditches. I like the fact that NW has Rod “The Black Wall” Williams back, and the rest of the starting Oline appears to be healthy. If they can provide the QB some time, I think NW will win this game by a large margin. If they can’t, it will be close. I would not be surprised to see Franklin have a break out game.

            Being from Nebraska, I grew up on Husker football. Which means that I grew up on option football. I don’t know if there is a more perfect play in my mind than a beautifully executed option play. I still can vision Tommy Frazier or the late Brook Berringer (the best option QB in my mind) running that play to perfection. For that reason, I always enjoy watching Pitt St and formerly UNO. Option football, when ran correctly, is very difficult to defend. And PSU has been running the option long enough they know what they are doing. There are several basic strategies when trying to stop the option. The most common approach is to stack the box – basically putting 9-10 men inside the ‘box’ - within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. What generally works the best from my experience, is everyone on defense knowing their role. Their needs to be somebody assigned to take out the pitchman – thereby taking away the option for the QB and letting everyone key in on him. In the case of PSU, their QB – Zac Dickey is their leading rusher. Last year NW did a pretty decent job defending the option, but Dickey was able to get a lot of yards by running for his life out there. This is probably the quickest defense that NW has ever had. I think that this fact alone will be able to slow down the Pitt State offense. NW has always been able to stop the runs up the middle pretty well, what has been their weakness was the runs to the outside. The speed of the NW linebackers will definitely improve that weakness. Like I said with Oline, this will probably be the best offensive line that the NW Dline has seen to date. There has been some talk about how the Dline is small – which is kind of true, they are a bit smaller than previous lines – but I don’t know how much I trust the weights that are reported! But what the Dline loses from size, they more than make up for in their quickness. And I think I said it last week, but I’ll say it again – I’d rather have a slightly smaller strong quick defensive lineman, rather than some big tub o lard out there just taking up space. Coming in to this game, the NW D only has 6 sacks on the year and 5 QB hurries, that is going to need to improve as we are quickly approaching the meat of the conference schedule.

            Special Teams improved greatly in the last week, but Ft Hays was able to get some decent field position on a couple of kick offs. This is kind of troublesome, as Pitt State is currently ranked #1 in the nation in kickoff returns. As far as the kicking game goes, I have faith in Adolf & Goodburn – hopefully we aren’t using Goodburn all that much. Shaw has really improved this year in his KO return – in previous years he was so fast that he would quickly outrun his blockers. This year he has learned to hold back a little bit and allow his blockers to make the play. If he continues to do this, I foresee several returns for TD’s this year.

            Overall, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this be a shellacking on Pitt St or a close game. My gut tells me that this will be a big win for the Bearcats. The Gorillas will be able to score, but the Bearcats will score more and more often. NW wins this one 45-28

Interesting Facts/Statistics:  

• NW is going for their 50^th consecutive conference win
• I have never seen NW lose to Pitt State
• NW has only given up 300 yards rushing to PSU once in the past 11 pairings, Scott Ellis has placed a wager that if NW gives up more than 300 rushing yards, then he will be sporting a Pitt State avatar on the D2 messageboard for the remainder of the year.
• NW is currently ranked #1 in the country in scoring offense
• Bryce Enyard is currently tied for #2 in the nation for number of interceptions
• Jake Soy only has 1 TD so far this year

Quotes:

            “I don’t know if it’s the weather or what, but this is a fun game to watch”

            “I want to see you buy a magnetic koozie.”

Sept 24: #1 NW Bearcats vs Ft Hays Tigers

Opening Thoughts:

            What a wonderful weekend of excellent football. And what an amazing facility! No – I’m not talking about Dwight T Reed Stadium in Jeffferson City; I was actually talking about the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. Jerry Jones didn’t spare any expense – with a cost of $1.2 Billion, there isn’t much that isn’t top of the line. The LSC put on a “Football Festival” that included 3 games. What an experience! I would definitely recommend going next year if you have the capability, best $25 I spent in a long time! Oh yeah – the Bearcats beat the snot out of the black and blue tigers in a miserable game.

Last Weeks Recap:

            What an ugly miserable game. I’m kinda glad I missed it. Lets start off with the elephant in the room – Blake Christopher’s hand injury. The rumor on the street is that he broke it when it got slammed in a car door. This is not an injury that heals real quick. From what I’ve heard, Christopher is probably out for at least 6 weeks, if not longer. The university is saying its week to week, but in order for this injury to heal enough to be able to throw a ball, it’s going to be a while!

            Since I wasn’t at the game, I am going to have to rely on the box score and information that I have gathered from individuals that were at the game. From what I’ve gathered, it seems like the offense was very good in 3 out of 4 quarters. It sounds like Trevor Adams kind of took a mental vacation during the second quarter, but was able to come back after the half and regain control of his offense. Adams finished the day 16-27, but in the second quarter he was 4-10 and had 2 interceptions and had three sacks/tackles for loss. It looks like there were several starters that didn’t play that were resting injuries. Despite the starters being out and Adams not having the best 2^nd quarter, NW still managed to put up almost 500 yards of total offense.

            On the defensive side of the ball, what is there to say? They were dominant. They allowed less than 150 yards of total offense. Some stats that stick out to me: Lincoln first downs – 10, net yards rushing – 52, average per rush – 1.5, 3^rd down conversion: 4/20. I don’t know how much more can be said. They absolutely demolished the Lincoln Blue Tigers.

            Well, I said before the game that Ken Gordon was going to have to do something with the special teams – especially the kick off coverage. Its kind of a slap in the face of the Bearcats that the Black & Blue Tigers were able to return a kick off for a TD. I will guarantee you that special teams will get some definite practice this week!

This Week’s Match up:

Let me start off by saying that I like Blake Christopher. In the two games that he played in, he was completely dominating. There is a reason why he was the starting - because he was the best quarterback that NW had. That being said, if Blake is out for 6 weeks (which is only speculation at this time - he could come back sooner or later for all we know) will he return to being the starter? I don't know. Trevor Adams has the pedigree to be a really good QB. If he plays for 6 games - which is the majority of the season including games against Pitt, UCM and Washburn, and (this is an important caveat) he performs well - how do you pull him to have Blake start against MoSuck, MoWorst, & Emporia? I really don't see it. That being said - there are a lot of ifs in that statement - and they would all have to align just right for Trevor Adams to continue to be the quarterback the entire season. I myself hope that BC comes back at full strength - but what I'm saying is that I'm not scared if he doesn't; I think that Adams can do the job if needed.

The past few years, Ft Hays has had a very potent offense, that was able to score on anybody - including NW. This has meant that NW had to score a lot. Up to this point this season - that hasn't seemed to be a problem. Last week Jake Soy sat out the game to let his hamstring rest, which was probably a good idea. I could tell in the first two games that he wasn't at 100%, a weeks rest can help a lot! This is not the same Ft Hays of the past several years. Like a lot of teams in the MIAA, Ft Hays lost their QB and several very very good WR's to graduation. They also have a new head coach. Like Coach Dorrel, Hays coach (Chris Brown) will be in his 4th game as a head coach. Prior to this year, he had been the Defensive Coordinator for Washburn. And we all know how well Washburn has played NW in the past. I don't see that playing out this year - but look for it in the future. Ft Hays is in the rebuilding stage, and look to be doing it the right way. This will also be a bit of a pay back game for Coach Dorrel. Last year he was up for the Head Coach position, but ultimately didn't get the job. But my guess is that he is much happier where he ended up!

            On offense, I think that NW should be able to move the ball on the Tigers. They are currently averaging giving up over 550 yards in all purpose yardage per game. And its not like they have good rush D and bad pass D or vise versa - they overall are rather week. Both SW Baptist & Emporia put up over 220 yards rushing against them, and ESU & Truman both threw for 270+ yards against their D. Needless to say, I think that Trevor Adams will be able to move the ball. I believe that we may see a quite improved Adams - not that last week was d (other than the 2nd quarter.) He will now have had a complete game under his belt, and a week of practice playing with the #1's and getting into his own rhythm. I myself am looking forward to seeing Brian Miller in a Bearcat uniform. I remember the last time I saw him play on Tjeerdsma field, he was a beast and NW couldn't stop him! Overall, I look forward to an awesome output by the Northwest offense. They are currently the #1 scoring offense in the nation - averaging over 63 points per game. I look for this trend to continue and the Cats to hang a lot of points on the Tigers D!

            On the defensive side of the ball, the Dline is going to see a more running attack than they have in the past. You can tell that Coach Brown was a player at PSU (during the same time as AD) – because he prefers a rush heavy attack. They are currently second in the conference in yards per game (245.3) and first in the conference in yards per attempt (5.6). For the second week in a row, the NW D will face the #1 rusher in the conference. [BTW – after last weeks game, the former #1 is now #10] There has been some talk recently about the size of the defensive line. I have repeatedly called them small but mighty – and I’m sticking to it. I think this game will finally put some of those concerns to rest. I’m not a defensive mastermind by any means, but I would prefer to have a slightly smaller individual that is strong and agile over some 300+ lbs guy who can’t move. Moe Dampeer was probably the best example of this (and he was remarkably agile for his size) yet he really wasn’t that effective – other than as a fan favorite. 

            Prior to last week, I would have said that NW’s kick off coverage needed some work. After last game, and allowing Lincoln to run a KO back for a TD, I will say that they DEFINITELY need some work. I’m guessing that Ken Gordon has been working on some new coverage or something, because they have been giving up way too much yardage on KO’s. This has to end – or it could really come back to bite NW in the butt. That is a huge motivation killer – going from scoring a TD to giving up big yardage. Hopefully this will be addressed this week. Granted it doesn’t help that NW scores so much that teams have a lot film on their coverage.

            Overall, I expect a good old fashioned butt whoopin! NW wins this one 66-21

Interesting Facts/Statistics:  

• NW continues their streak of 48 consecutive conference wins
• Northwest is #1 in a bunch of categories in the MIAA including: scoring offense, scoring defense, total offense,  total defense, passing efficiency, & 3^rd down conversions
• Bryce Enyard is ranked #2 in the country averaging 1 interception per game
•  Jordan Simmons is tied for #2 in the county in scoring – averaging 16 ppg

Sept 17: #3 NW Bearcats vs Lincoln Blue Tigers

Opening Thoughts:

           

            What an absolutely wonderful day for a football game. And I don’t know about you, but I know that I had an excellent tailgate experience. Even though I was barely 24 hours out of surgery on my foot, and I was on some pretty good pain drugs – I’m sure that everyone in our group had a great time as well. If they didn’t, it was their own fault! It was also very cool to see so many people wearing Red Hats in honor of Coach Bostwick. The way that the BMB incorporated the red hats was very impressive. The only complaint I had was that sections EE & GG were erroneously marked as ‘Student Section.’ But those are actually reserved seating sections. And there are a lot of Season Ticket holders in those sections. Apparently the tickets that they give to students just say: Student Section. Needless to say, the students didn't want to give up their prime seats. But season ticket holders wanted the seats that they paid good money for. It ended up taking a Campus Safety officer coming up and telling the students that they had to move. Good thing that they have a couple of weeks to get things straightened out before the next game! I’ve been told that those signs have already been removed. But something definitely needs to be done to remedy this. Students should definitely be given a ticket with an assigned seat. What ends up happening is that students end up squeezing in between season ticket holders and making everyone uncomfortable. How hard would it really be to give students a ticket to an assigned seat?

Last Weeks Recap:

            It is amazing what Vicoden does to a body. I know that I was at the game, and I remember some specifics about the game - but my normal total game recall is kinda fuzzy. I guess that I am going to have to use the box score to help me remember some things. I do remember a few things that stick out to me about the game - first and foremost NW Kick Off coverage needs some work. In the first two games, opponents are averaging over 20 yards per return. That is not a good statistic. That definitely needs to be addressed.

The offense on the other hand, looks darn good. Blake Christopher in particular is looking better and better all the time. He did have a couple of throws at the beginning of the game that weren't perfect - but they got that way quickly. I know that there has been some people that have complained about BC as quarterback - but I really don't see what there is to complain about. Yeah his first throws in the first couple of games of his collegiate career weren't perfect - but the guy has quarterback rating of 212.14. That is ridiculously good. And after those first couple of throws (many of which were still completed) he was right on the money with the rest of them - hence the rating. I don't think that there is anything to worry about when it comes to Blake Christopher - the kid is a winner and has shown good decision making skills so far. I would still like to see Adams get rotated in every third or fourth series - just so he has the experience next year. But that isn't absolutely necessary. The rest of the offense looks exceptional as well. Jake Soy is back to his typical numbers - he had 5 catches for 131 yards and 1 TD. He almost had another TD, but his arms just weren't quite long enough.  There are so many good WR's on this team, that the ball gets spread around so much that no one really stands out. That is a good thing! It was great seeing Kyle Kilgore get into the mix this week. He broke a bunch of tackles on his way to the endzone. Its for that that reason that he was listed as a pre-season All Conference Tight End! Jordan Simmons and JF3 split RB duties most of the first half, and each ended up with over 75 yards. Denver Loehns got to play during mop up duty and managed to average 4.8 yards per carry. Overall - there is not much bad to say about the #2 scoring offense in the nation!

The Defense has been pretty impressive as well. So far the NW D is currently the #7 scoring D in the nation, allowing only 10 points per game average - granted the competition has not been offensive juggernauts. Going into this game, I expected (and I think the Coaches did too) the Cougers to be much more pass oriented. It looked to me like the linebackers were playing back a ways trying to help out the secondary. The Coo took advantage of this by utilizing the run more. Once the D adjusted, it took that out of the playbook for Sioux Falls and they were done. But I've got to say that I'm not really excited the way that they were able to pound the rock down the D's throats. That doesn't bode well. Let me preface this by saying that I believe that the reason they were able to do run on NW is because the Bearcats had game planned for more passing, and once they adjusted the run wasn't that effective. The secondary play was awesome - and Derrick Thomas has my vote for DB of the year so far. The guy is quite a play maker! You can tell that there is a lot of competition for spots on the D as there are a lot of young guys on the team that have quite the motor and just don't quit!

            Special Teams this year has been rather frustrating. Some things are vastly improved - ie Adolf's confidence level makes me feel like FG's are not just a hope and a prayer. Other things, like kickoff coverage, definitely need to be worked on. Kyle Goodburn is a nice replacement for Stadler in the punting. It appears he has just as good of a leg, with a noticeably quicker release!

This Week’s Match up:

            Well, this week Northwest travels to Jeff City to beat the snot out of the Black & Blue Tigers of Lincoln. No game is ever an automatic win, but this is as close as is possible. I expect this to be so uneventful that I’m not even going to go to this game. This is the first game in 4 years that I am going to miss because I don’t want to go. There have been  handful of games that I haven’t been able to go do to having to work or because somebody scheduled a wedding or a move, etc. But never fear, I will be in Dallas watching the LSC football festival, but I will probably end up watching a replay on the internet in order to give a full rundown next week.

            Offensively I expect Northwest to do basically the same thing that Washburn did last week. They played their starters for only the first couple of series of the game, and then from that point it is all back ups. This will be a good opportunity to see what the Bearcats of tomorrow will look like. My guess is that Trevor Adams will be QB during the majority of the game. Miller will be back from suspension, so it will be interesting to see exactly how much playing time he will receive, and what he does with it. I think that we will see a lot of the younger WR’s playing.

            Defensively I don’t expect to see a whole lot different than we have seen the past few weeks. Lincoln has a lot of good individual players, but from what I saw last week – they don’t know how to play as a team. Their QB is a freshman, and he has a lot of talent. He did a good job last week of scrambling away from Washburns D. If he had receivers that knew how to catch, they could have a potent offense. I saw a lot of passes last week bounce off of receivers hands. LU also has a pretty good RB in Deon Brock. As of right now, he is currently in the top spots statistically in a lot of categories in the MIAA. But you know what they say about statistics! I am anxious to see what Jordan Sklba has to offer at Safety – that is assuming that he is traveling.

            Overall, I think this game has the potential to get out of hand pretty quickly. My guess is that NW scores early and often, NW wins 77-6.

Interesting Facts/Statistics:  

• NW is going for their 48 straight conference win
• NW is going for their 500th program win
• Jake Soy has now the MIAA leader in career TD receptions with 41
• NW has outscored their opponents 63-6 in the second quarter
• NW D is only allowing 26% of third down conversions (only MW & LU are better in the MIAA)
• Only Lincoln's Deon Brock has scored more points (38) than Jordan Simmons (36) in the MIAA

Sept 10: #4 NW Bearcats vs Sioux Falls Cougars

Opening Thoughts:

            I saw something on Thursday night that I’ve never seen before, as long as I’ve been watching Bearcat football. Prior to this game, I had never seen them win a season opener. Well, that’s done now – one less thing to worry about. This was probably the best tailgating experience that I have had in Kirksville. Campus Safety had designated an area in the parking lot for the NW fans. I was there super early, and had a lot of Truman fans come up and talk to me and thank me for coming over. I was a great way to start off the football season!

            When it was announced that Scott Bostwick was going to be the new coach – I started an event on Facebook to get people to wear a Red Hat at his first home game to show our support for him. When Coach passed, the meaning behind the even changed – but it is now all the more important. There are currently over 2,100 people who have RSVP’ed on Facebook that they were going to wear a Red Hat at this game. I know that Jocks Nitch is making them like crazy. If you don’t have yours yet, make sure to get down there and pick yourself up one! What a tribute to see a sea of Green all wearing a red hat in tribute to coach Bostwick.

Last Weeks Recap:

            Well, the Hickory Stick is staying green for a couple more years – since with the new scheduling and the conference expansion, NW won’t meet again until 2014. Thanks Powers that Be!! Oh well – that’s a rant for a different time. Back to last weeks game. NW beat the snot out of the Bulldogs 65-3. But what does that mean? Is Northwest that good? Is Truman that bad? I wish I could say that I knew the answer for sure. But I would venture a guess that both have some truth to it. I can tell you that the Bulldogs did not look nearly as bad as they did a few years ago.

            Well, what is there to say about the NW offense? It appears that they are in mid-season form. I would venture a guess that Coach Dorrel’s strategy of starting out with a simplified play book is paying off.  My fear going into the season opener was Blake Christopher’s arm. What I had seen in the spring game and in the scrimmage the week before, made his arm look weak and like he was throwing ducks out there. In the actual game, he did not look very good passing the ball. He honestly reminded me a lot of Joel Osborn. Well, I’m not afraid to say that I was wrong. He still doesn’t have the arm strength of Bolles (but who does) but he is a smart qb. At the beginning of the game, his throws were a little off – maybe a half step behind where the receivers would really like them to be. This allowed them to be batted down by the defender. But it didn’t take long for Christopher to be hitting his receivers in stride. And boy did he! He ended the night completing 12 out of 17 for 247 yards. There had been some worries about Shaw not being able to catch those deep balls – since he dropped several last year, but he was able to haul them all in that were thrown to him – the longest was a 49 yard TD pass. He ended the night with 3 catches, 1 TD and 114 yards.  I think going into this game, there was a lot of anticipation to see what the backfield would do. And they didn’t disappoint. Simmons and Franklin joined to have just 65 yards, but 4 TD’s. There is no need to pound the ball, when you a having so much success in the air!

            On the defensive side of the ball I think the Bearcats look pretty darn good and fast. They were able to stop the run pretty good – with the exception of one long 49 yard run. Even with that run, NW was able to catch the runner and prevent them from being able to score. From the secondary, I think that once again the flats is the weakness. It seemed like if the Bulldogs got yardage thru the air, it came from throwing it out to the flats. NW’s cornerback Caleb Decius got lined up against Trumans returning stud Anthony Brown – and for the first series or two, kind of got eaten alive. But after a few adjustments were made, Brown became no more effective than anyone else. Northwest’s Dline is small but mighty. They were putting tons of pressure on Truman’s QB all night. They only got 2 sacks, but there were a ton of hurries. I think the stat that impressed me most by the Bearcats, was that they only allowed 3 out of 16 third down conversions. That is huge!

            As far as the special teams go, there was some good, bad, and ugly. Shaw had one return that almost went for a TD – I think that the kicker finally brought him down. I was not really impressed with NW”s kickoffs, I thought that Truman was getting way yards on returns – they averaged over 18 yards per return. But I do want to give a shout out to Todd Adolf. He hit a 48 yard field goal and split the uprights. For the first time in several years, it looks like the Bearcats actually have a FG threat on the field.

This Week’s Match up:

            So how much do you know about the Sioux Falls Cougars? As for me, I don’t know a whole lot about them. Other than the fact that they have been an NAIA powerhouse for several years and they are in the process of converting to D2, and Washburn beat them last week 33-17. Which sounds like a lot, but when you realize that WU got up 27-0 in the first 1 ½ quarters, that is quite impressive.  I know that this has all the potential of being a trap game. Coming off of a big emotional game last week, playing a ‘lesser’ NAIA opponent, etc. But I do know that Coach Dorrel has said that this team reminds him a lot of UMD. They are a tough, disciplined team that won’t be intimidated by walking onto Tjeerdsma Field. 

            I know that the Cou like to throw the ball – almost twice as much as they run. Sioux Falls quarterback, Carrington Hanna, will definitely test the secondary more than Truman did.  Northwest’s cornerbacks will have to do a better job covering the flats than they did last week, otherwise the Cou will be able to drive on the Bearcats. Last week, Hanna was able to connect with his receivers on a couple of deep passes, including one pass that went for 48 yards. The secondary is going to need the help of the defensive line to put some pressure on the QB. Last week Hanna was sacked three times, and I for one would like to see the Bearcats plant him on his butt all night long! I think that Dline is up to the challenge – they are small, but they are mighty!

            I for one can’t wait to see the Bearcat offense take the field again. Last week Dane Simoneau was able to put up big numbers – like over 450 yards in the air. I have no doubt that with the stable of receivers that NW has, that Blake Christopher will be able to put up some big numbers as well. Historically, the Cougars have had a pretty good rush defense. But last week, Washburns top rusher was able to average 5.7 yards per carry on 15 attempts. I’m hoping that Simmons and Franklin will have as much success.  There were some names that didn’t get called last week that I expect to see get more action this week – such as Kilgore. None of the TE’s got much action last week, I am thinking that that is going to change this week. From what I understand, Miller is still suspended for this game, and I don’t know if Creason is going to be back yet or not. I know that Rod Williams is back to practicing, not sure if he will be cleared to play in the game.

            Overall, I am looking forward to this game. I foresee this game being close for most of the game, with the defense coming up big on a couple of series and wouldn’t be surprised to see them score once or twice again in this game. Bearcats win this one 38-17.

           

Quotes:

“Mrs Kilgore, do you want to see my lucky boxers?”

“T... R… U…    C..K..S!”