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”