Great Googily Moogily the regional rankings are a mess. It is very possible that a 1 loss MIAA team will be missing the playoffs. There are a lot of Pitt St fans watching the scoreboards of other games to see if the right scenarios play out for them to make it into the PO’s. PSU is right on the verge and they need a little help from other teams to make sure that they are in. They had a much better chance of making it before last week ends games – MoWest losing to Emporia St really hurt their Strength of Schedule. As it stands right now, NW is almost guaranteed a place in the post season. If NW wins out, they should be seeded #1 in Super Region 3 and that would mean a first round bye as well as home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
Last Week’s Recap:
Wow – what an absolute great game by Trevor Adams. I think that this was probably his best game ever. His QB efficiency rating was 217 – which is crazy good. Not only did he have a good efficiency rating, he looked good doing it. There have been other times this year where he had really good stats – but his throws weren’t necessarily great. That wasn’t the case this game. There was one throw that wasn’t quite on target, but it was still catchable and the receiver still caught it. Adams was definitely not affected by getting pulled on designed QB runs. I’m not sure why the coaches are doing that type of play calling – it seems to me that it is pretty obvious when the QB gets pulled for one play there is a 95% chance that it’s going to be a QB run. But like I said, that obviously didn’t affect Trevor’s throwing. There were only four balls that weren’t caught – and I don’t think that any of those were the fault of the passer. This is the third week in a row that the WR’s had a case of the Reubens – what I mean by that is that the ball hits their hands and they still drop it. It’s getting better, but continues to need to improve. Both Billy Creason and Bobby Burton averaged over 5 yards per carry. Congrats to Billy Creason who proposed on the field to his girlfriend after the game. I really liked how the TE is getting involved more in the passing game. I really believe that Marcus Wright has the potential to be really good for NW. He’s done a good job blocking as well as catching the ball when it gets thrown his way. The Oline did a good job of giving TA all day to throw and opening up holes for the RB. There were a couple of times that they struggled against blitz’s which led to the QB getting sacked 4 times.
The defense did a great job again. They only allowed 69 yards on the ground and 244 in the air. Honestly, they probably could have limited those passing yards even more. It seemed to me like the secondary was more worried about getting an interception than just breaking up the pass. Granted they did manage to get 5 interceptions. But when they didn’t get the interception then the receivers were able to get some yards after the catch. I didn’t realize that Mitch Buhler was soo elusive. He managed to slip out of the pocket and elude getting sacked multiple times – NW ended up with 15 QB hurries and only 2 sacks.
Special Teams was interesting this game. The Great Dane, Simon Mathieson, did a remarkable job kicking. I don’t know how much experience he’s had kicking an American football, but being from Denmark I would imagine that he’s played his fair share of soccer. He appears to have a very strong leg, he doesn’t take much of an approach on the ball but he gets it up quick and high. Kicking with the wind he got some very good distance on kickoffs – but kicking into the wind the ball got hung up there. This allowed some very good returns. Kickoff coverage needs to get better.
Next Week’s Preview:
When talking about the Hornets it sounds a lot like what we discussed last week in regards to their previous schedule. Up until last week, there schedule is the variable who’s who of who’s not a good team: Fort Hays, UNK, UCO, NSU, Lincoln, SW Baptist, Lindenwood, and then MoWest last week. If it wasn’t for MoWest’s 6 turnovers – they probably would have won. MW snagged defeat out of the jaws of victory.
I really don’t think that NW is going to struggle to put up points and yards. The Hornets D has given up over 400 yards of total offense 5 times this year, two of those were over 500 yards: MoWest and UCO. I think that ESU’s secondary plays a lot like NW’s did last week. They get a lot of turnovers, but also give up a lot of yards. In fact, they are averaging giving up 248 yards per game. They usually do a pretty good job of stopping the run, but against both UCO and MW they gave up over 200 yards rushing to go with the 300 yards passing. I really don’t think that Emporia has seen an offense that can put up as many yards and points that NW can. The greatest thing about this team, is that – it truly is a TEAM. There isn’t any one player that really stands out – therefore you can’t shutdown the offense by trying to key into one particular player. If you shut down one player, one of the others will just step up and take their place. This game, like most will come down to the line play – if the NW Oline can open up holes for Billy and Bobby to run thru like they did against WU, its going to be a good day to be a Bearcat. If TA can repeat the performance that he put on against Washburn, I will be a happy camper.
Brent Wilson may be the best QB that NW has played against. I really do think that ESU is very similar to SVSU. They have a very good QB and some very good WR’s. Wilson is currently averaging 69.8% and has an efficiency rating of 184.5 on the season. Unlike Jennings, Wilson has two very good WR’s to throw to: Ray Ray Davis and Austin Willis. Both are averaging over 100 yards per game and have a combined 22 TD catches between them. The NW secondary is going to have their hands full with those two. But if the NW Dline plays like they did against Pitt St, that is definitely going to limit Wilson’s efficiency. Wilson is a scrambling QB – in fact he is the second leading rusher for the Hornets; so that is something that NW is going to have to factor into their coverage. I honestly don’t think that ESU has seen a defense nearly as good as NW’s.
I look forward to the Special Teams each week – but in big games the Special Teams has always come up big. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a blocked punt or two – as well as I think its time for Enyard to return a KO for a TD.
In the end, I have no doubt that ESU has improved since last year, but I don’t think that they are that much better – and I think that NW is a much better team than they were last year. My prediction: NW 45 ESU 24
No comments:
Post a Comment