What a crazy game. But what do you expect in the playoffs? Especially when that playoff game is between two rival teams! I’ve got to take my hat off to the Bearcat faithful. The attendance was 8,420 and I will guarantee you that over half of those were wearing green. For the first couple of minutes of the game I was on the home side because I had to meet someone at the gate. I’ll tell you one thing – the NW fans were LOUD. I spent the rest of the game on the visitors side at the 45 yardline, and the MoWest fans never came close to making the noise that I heard from the NW fans. It was truly awesome. I don’t expect there to be a whole lot of us in Wichita Falls next weekend, but I will make sure that we make as much noise as possible!
Last Weeks Recap:
Talk about taking a trip on the crazy train. The first couple of minutes of that game were absolutely nuts. Like I said earlier, I was standing by the gate for NW’s first possession, so I could only see about half of the field. I saw that Simmons missed the pass, but I couldn’t tell that it was a lateral pass – it just looked incomplete. – so I was a bit shocked when MoWest picked it up and ran down to the one yard line! Absolutely nuts! When I got to the stadium to start tailating, I noticed that unlike last time the wind was coming out of the southwest, therefore making a crosswind. I thought for sure that would hamper Zuerlein’s kicking ability, boy was I wrong!
Offensively NW was a quite a bit shaky in the first half. Coming out and turning over the ball on the first three possessions is not a good thing. I’m sure that and the wind got into Trevor Adams head in the first half, because they were not able to do much of anything for the first 30 minutes. But a lot of football is psychological – it’s a game all about momentum. Northwest got that momentum in the second half and used it to score 21 unanswered points. I am not a fan of trick plays, I’m glad that the little reverse pass by Shaw worked, but I don’t like those plays and think that one should probably be put back into the playbook and not pulled out again! Those are high risk high reward types of play, and more often than not they just aren’t worth it in my book. Trevor Adams came out in the second half and looked like a completely different quarterback. I’m glad that they allowed him to run a little bit – in highschool he was a great passer but also ran the ball a bit as well (like over 100 times his senior year averaging over 5 yards per carry.) How about a big tip of the hat to David Mosely and Taylor Pierce for coming up big in this game. They each had 89 yards of receiving this game. There are so many good receivers on this team, I would hate to be a defensive coordinator and try to prepare for the NW wide receiving corps! Not to mention the stable of backs that NW has. Franklin – OMG. I am so glad that he came to NW. I’ll tell you one thing, if Franklin had been on the team last year – NW would have won that game in Duluth in my opinion. He was an animal out there last week. No to mention Simmons! I would definitely put those two backs up against any other tandem of RB’s in the country. Being down so much so early in the game, a lot of offenses probably would have given up, but not the Bearcats. Way to go Cats!
Defense… one word: WOW. That was easily the best performance by the Bearcat D all year. I bet you that Scott B was lookin’ down and smiling at his boys on Saturday. A couple of years ago (2008 I believe it was) the NW D was rather shaky to start the year. Then about the 4th or 5th game – it was like somebody flipped a switch and they became a shut down D. After Saturdays performance, it sure looked like somebody flipped that switch. The Bearcats held the Griffons to only 93 yards rushing (and 38 of those were on the reverse that which was their only offensive TD that was on a drive more than 1 yard.) If that’s not impressive enough, they limited Jerry’s Kid to only 93 yards passing, and he actually had -16 yards rushing (a vast improvement from two weeks ago!) DJ Gnader had a real coming out party – totaling 11 tackles, 3 for losses, 1 sack, and 1 QB hurry. All year long he’s had the potential, but it always seemed like he wasn’t quite in the right position or something. Well it finally all came together for him, and I hope he is able to continue it the rest of the year.
Special Teams – they played a major role in this game. Believe it or not, I think that having an asset like Zuerlein actually hurt the coaching of MoWest. Because it seemed like as soon as the ball got across midfield, the play calling got real conservative – like they knew that they were at least going to get 3 points out of the deal. But as far as Zuerlein goes – all I can say is amazing: hitting a 52, 57, & 58 yarder in the first half with a wicked cross wind.
This Week’s Match up:
Is it possible to have a game with less than a 20mph wind? Geez, is that so much to ask? As of right now, the weather guys are predicting another windy day for the Bearcats. NW's last two playoff games have been played in 25+ mph winds, I'd rather not make it a 3rd! I keep thinking back to they quote that Tyler Seals told me a few weeks ago: the coaches do all the hard work for us - they create the game plan; all we have to do is execute it, if we do that - we win. My guess is that that is going to be the same thing this week. It all starts with the coaches to create the gameplan - and the players to execute it. We will see how well the latter part works.
Fact of the matter is that historically, the LSC doesn't have great running teams. Heck it wasn't too long ago that Eastern New Mexico was running over all of the LSC teams, yet couldn't win a game. The LSC is a pass happy conference - not saying that that is a bad thing, just stating a fact. When every team passes, that is what teams prepare for - and gear the defense for. So when you have a team that decides to run, then the vast majority of your defensive schemes go out the window. I'm not saying that MSU is the same as they were in 2006 - but there are a lot of similarities - #1 running team in the conference, #1 scoring offense, #1 total offense - but MSU came into Bearcat Stadium averaging 242 yards per game rushing, and walked out with 99. Now I'm not saying that the NW D is as good as the 06 team was - but if they play like they did last week. It could be a rehash of the first meeting. MSU has a whole stable full of backs that like to run - I think that there are like 5 that have 49 or more rushing attempts this year - they are led by their QB. This tells me that these are designed runs and not exactly the scrambling type of yards. NW fairs much better against QB's that run a route versus a QB that has the ability to scramble for 5-7 yards when a play breaks down. Unlike Jerry's Kid, the MSU QB (Brandon Kelsey) can actually throw the ball and does a good job. He is currently averaging 68.9% completion rate. They don't have any stand out WR's, but they have several that are consistently good. If NW can make MSU one dimensional and have to go to the air, I like their chances.
On offense, NW is going to have to have a better performance than they did last week. Their pass D is not good, in fact it is pretty poor. Statistically it ranks 135th out of 154 teams. Normally I would say that the NW would destroy a team like that, but looking at the forecast and seeing such a nasty crosswind, that doesn't help to inspire confidence. Pierce and Moseley will need to come up big again this week, Soy & Shaw have combined for a total of 6 receptions in the last two weeks. Soy came up with some amazing catches last week - including a broken up 2 point conversion that he managed to catch. I really hope that that is an indication that his ankle may actually be getting a little bit better. Statistically, the Mustangs have a really good rush D. They are currently ranked #10 in the nation - giving up only 101 yards per game - which sounds amazing. But like I said earlier, they are the only team in the LSC that likes to run. So when the rest of the conference averages 121 yards per game rushing, limiting them to 101 yards doesn't sound so hot. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that NW is going to be able to just roll over them, but I think that NW will have seen rushing D's that were just as tough and have had success against them.
I'm going to be willing to bet that there will not be any 50+ yard FG's made in this game. And that's a relief! I have total faith the the NW Coaching staff to put together a game plan to beat the Mustangs. If the Bearcats go out there and execute that game plan, they will win. My prediction: NW 42 MSU 35
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