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
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