Game 15: NW vs LR

I don’t know about you guys, but our tailgate was awesome! The “TJ & Dude Sweatlodge” was standing room only again this week. It was quite literally hot inside the enclosed canopies.  I spent about an hour or so outside of the canopies before the game acclimating to the weather. I was much more prepared for the weather this week, than I was last week. After last week’s game I went out and got some new boots to keep my feet warm – and they worked! I was not cold at all this game, I have a feeling I was in the minority. But it’s only fitting that a semi-final game be good and cold!

Last Week’s Recap:

This game was a classic example of Piss Poor Preparation = Piss Poor Performance. Unfortunately, I think that the piss poor performance was probably subconscious in nature. I also think that the cause was probably the fact that the starting quarterback was not there the entire week to practice and game plan with. Trevor was in New York receiving the prestigious scholar athlete award from the National Football Foundation along with Coach T and President Jazz. Now don’t get me wrong, as far as I know Trevor Adams had no choice in deciding whether or not he was going, so we can’t blame him. I don’t know if there really is anyone to blame, other than maybe the NFF for planning an event while active seasons for every division except for the BC$ was still in play. But to think that having the primary signal caller not available doesn’t affect the rest of the team, is just silly. I think that it sent a message to the rest of the team that total focus wasn’t needed to prepare for Grand Valley.  I don’t think that anyone – players or coaches – would have said that it was happening at the time, but that’s the thing with subconscious behavior: you can’t quantify it, observe it, or really even stop it. The entire first half the offense was not crisp, and was killing themselves. It wasn’t like the UCM game where they were getting stopped,  NW was just killing themselves with turnovers.

On offense, it was the tail of two halves.  Northwest could not get their offense to ‘click’ in the first half. The unforced turnovers were killers. TA’s first pass that was a lateral pass was way behind Reuben Thomas. TA did a great job of getting over to the ball and tackling the ball carrier. I think that he probably saved a TD there. I had visions of the MoWest playoff game dancing in my head. But TA shook that one off but then fumbled a few series later on a QB sneak on like the 1 yard line. Korey Jackson did a great job of chasing down and tackling the GV player who had picked up the ball and was on his way to the endzone.  I think that the coaches did a great job of switching up QB’s when needed. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a 2 QB system work as well as it did this game: well, with the exception of the ACU playoff game in 2008 with Joel and Blake.  The second half was a different story. They scored on every possession except for one. NW punted on that possession despite being 4th and less than one on the GV 43. The offensive line looked very discouraged that they weren’t even allowed to line up and try or even have the QB do a pooch punt. I don’t know if I agree with AD’s choice on that one – but I understand it: GV had just scored and you don’t want to give them the chance of gaining even more momentum. The offensive line did a spectacular job of protecting the QB again this week. They also did great opening holes for the runners. Speaking of runners: Billy Creason had one of his best games ever – not in total yardage, but great plays at the right time. Phil Jackson had another good game. Bobby Burton seems to have disappeared the past couple of weeks. I don’t know if he is dinged up a little, or just REALLY doesn’t like the cold. Receivers: wow. Reuben Thomas just continues to impress, not to mention that Korey Jackson had one of his best games as a Bearcat. Bryce Young and JaJo both did a great job with their chances as well they both did a great job of down field blocking. If the offense had been clicking in the first half like they did the second half, the game would not have even been close.

On defense, the Bearcats did a pretty darn good job.  Grand Valley was the first team to score on their first possession since Saginaw Valley.  And that is because they started at the NW 17 – GV actually ended up with a net -3 yards on that drive, but still managed a FG.  Overall the D did a good job. You know you have a good defense when you are frustrated that they didn’t do better, but managed to stifle a very good offense and only allowed 13 points.  The Dline did a pretty good job of disrupting Parling. Longacre looked like a man among boys out there. The GV offense was able to get a pretty good push at times. Collin Bevins was able to play a couple of downs, but he didn’t look too comfortable out there. I think that he had hurt his ankle on one of the first plays. So when he was hobbling off the field, I am hoping that was because of his ankle, and not because he had hurt his knee any more. He will definitely be needed next week if he is able to play. The linebackers did a good job again. I’ve been watching Cody Matthewson a lot lately, and he continues to just get better all the time. For the most part, the secondary did a good job. The officials weren’t helping them out at all. They were allowing the receiver to do all kinds of pushoffs but if the defender even slightly touched the receiver, they were flagged.  The Dixons both had a really bad day. Brandon has not been at his best the past few weeks. It’s almost like ever since he got his invite to the NFLPA Senior Bowl he has lost a lot of focus. My guess the problem this game was from a combination of things: not wanting to get flagged, mental snowball, and the cold. I think that the cold really affected these Florida boys, I already mentioned the officials being flag happy, and when the troubles started, I think it became more of a mental thing than anything.  The GV quarterback was definitely going right after Brandon Dixon. The thing is, it wasn’t like he was getting burned or anything. He was all over the receiver, step for step, he was turning around in time and seeing the ball, but for some reason he wasn’t going up after the ball. It wasn’t like Parling was throwing bullets out there, he was literally throwing jump balls for his receivers. Like I said, Brandon was right there with the receiver, turned around and saw the ball, but just didn’t jump up and go after the ball. It was very frustrating because I know that Brandon is a better CB than what we saw on Saturday. But he is human and everyone has a bad game from time to time. In fact, he did a pretty good job for most of the game, but just had a couple of series that he didn't do well at all. I think it got in his head and just kind of snowballed on him. Bryce Enyard had one of the most amazing break ups that I've ever seen, saving a TD. Enyard came bareling across the field and literally knocked the ball out WR's hands. I don't know where he came from, but I think I heard a sonic boom when the play was over. The entire Bearcat defense was not good in their tackling. They weren’t arm tackling, which is a good thing, but they were tackling very high which was allowing GV to get extra yards after initial contact. That is going to need to change before next week!

Special Teams: What is going on with the NW kick off recovery coverage? It has been pretty bad lately. Teams are obviously seeing a weakness and exploiting it. At one point and time on Saturday I would have been in favor of just kicking the ball out of bounds and giving GV the ball at the 35 as that would have been better field position than what they had been getting.  Ever since the fake punts from UMD, NW has not been going after the punter much.

Next Week’s Game:

So I’ve watched several of Lenoir-Rhynes games so far. They are not as bad of a team as some people may be expecting. LR runs a triple option offense – the last three games that NW has faced a triple option offense: NW has outscored them 116-21. But LR is not MoSo or Harding. From what I’ve seen, they have much better skill players but their OL is not as good as Harding’s was. They also appear to have a better defense than either of those teams. The offense needs to come out hitting on all cylinders – rather than the sputtering that they did the first half last week. If the O can score on their first couple of drives and the D can prevent them from scoring – then the Bears will be in a world of hurt as a triple option offense is not designed to come from behind very well. I watched all three of the LR playoff games: against Carson Newman, UNA, and West Chester. Carson Newman runs an option offense as well, so their offense doesn’t compare well, and the West Chester game was a muddy mess, so that doesn’t compare well either. The UNA game the field was very wet to and was just starting to get muddy – so that definitely affected their playing, but their offense was the closest thing to the NW offense of the three games  I watched.  UNA was able to score 39 points on their D, despite the fact that their offense was hindered by the field conditions. UNA did a good job of bringing in a backup QB to use as a running QB – they had a lot of success doing that. Hopefully that carries over for NW as well.

The Bears defense is not very big, but they are fast and tough. They do a really good job of tackling. From what I saw, nobody was able to consistently stuff the ball down their throats.  But when they D was spread out protecting the pass, then the QB was able to get yards running. They also seemed susceptible to the play action pass. If the coaches play it right, it could be a quite fun game to watch – but if they don’t, the LR defense is good enough to frustrate the NW offense.  A lot will depend on how TA plays; if TA has a good game, and we can mix things up with Bolles – it will be a good day to be a Bearcat. The Bears defense can get very aggressive at times, and can get burned doing it. If NW is able to pick up the blitzes, NW can get some good yards off of short passes and runs. I am anxious to see how Bobby Burton plays. I know that he has been battling turf toe for a large part of the season. The past few weeks since it has gotten really cold, RB3 has not been playing a whole lot.  I don’t know if it is his foot that is bothering him, or just the cold; or maybe the cold is really affecting the turf toe. I don’t know, but it looks like it is going to be a lot warmer in Florence than it has been the past few weeks.  Billy Creason had a great performance last week, and Phil Jackson is looking to continue to build a name for himself. Clint Utter is expected to return this week. He probably could have played if needed last week, but the GV secondary wasn’t scary enough to require him to play. I expect to see him have some big plays from Utter as well as Reuben Thomas will be as dangerous as ever. I’ve said it multiple times, but the NW receivers corps is super talented and deep. You never know who is going to be the hot target: Thomas, Utter, Young, Jackson, JaJo, etc? I would really really like to see the TE get more involved in the pass game – Marcus Wright seems to do a dang good job whenever he is thrown to. Hopefully he will get involved early and often!  Ultimately its going to come down to the play of the Offensive Line.  They have done a great job all year of protecting the QB and opening up holes. They have one more game, let’s hope that they can continue their performance.

Well, they say that defense wins Championships: this is a perfect opportunity to prove that right. This game is all about playing sound gap assignment football. Northwest is very good at that. They may be one of the best in the nation at doing that.  The LB’s and the DL is going to have their hands full. As long as everyone does their job,  they should be able to limit LR’s offense. I have a feeling this game is going to be a lot like the Harding game. NW gave up a ton of yards, but no points. I would not be surprised to see LR be able to get some drives going, but they will eventually stall before they get to the endzone. I will gladly trade TD’s with FG’s. My guess is that since LR doesn’t throw the ball (they literally have only thrown the ball 94 times this season, current QB has only thrown it 6 times) the CB’s and Safeties will be used a lot to stop the run. The entire DL is going to have to play very good. Like I said earlier, the LR skill players are VERY good, but their OL is not the best. That will help the NW line be able to disrupt their option game.  I don’t know if the Bears have seen a defense any where close to as good as NW’s.  I don’t’ know what the status of Bevins is, but I really hope that he can play. He does an excellent job blowing up these types of offenses. I am sure that he will give it his all, as he knows that he has all offseason to heal up.

Special Teams: NW has got to do something about their kickoff coverage. The last couple of weeks it has just been bad. Also, I would like to see the Bearcats be aggressive again on punt blocks. They have hardly gone after them like they did earlier.

Overall, I think that the NW D is going to be too much for the LR Bears. I think that the Bears will be able to slow down the NW offense – but not a whole lot. NW wins this one big 38-10.

Game 14: NW vs GVSU

Brrrr….. that was nipply! It wasn’t nearly as miserable as Duluth, but definitely cold. Thank God there was no wind, because that would have been terrible. As it was it was just cold. Our tailgate set up was awesome. We had enough heaters and powerful enough heaters that it was actually quite warm in the tent. As for the game itself, it wasn’t all that bad – but we were really packed in. I didn’t wear my coat in the first half, but did have tons of layers on. There was a slight breeze on my back which made me put my coat back on at half. My feet on the other hand, did get pretty darn cold just standing there. I didn’t realize how much the little heaters in my shoes were keeping my toes warm until they stopped working. Great Googily Moogily I didn’t realize how much cold my boots let in. Needless to say, I hit up Cabelas on Sunday and invested in a new pair. Should be much better this week! I’ll let you know next week how my toes come out! Hopefully I still have 10!

Last Week’s Recap:

Well, I was wrong again. Not the first time, won’t be the last time. I was scared of the Huskies offense, but they apparently were more scared of the Bearcat defense. From the get go, the Huskies body language said that they did not want to be in Maryville Mo playing football. But regardless of whether or not they wanted to play, the Bearcats definitely showed up and put a whoopin’ on the Huskies.

Offensively, the Bearcats couldn’t do much wrong. There were only three possessions that they didn’t score on. The first drive they stripped the ball from Robert Burton. Two drives later the Husky defense forced a pooch punt from Adams, and All American Kyle Goodburn didn’t see the field until the very last drive for NW. Huge shout out to Trevor Adams for completing over 85% of his passes this game. There weren’t any deep balls this game, but they weren’t needed. Plus I don’t think it would have been a very good idea to try and throw that frozen rock vertically. Huge props to Clint Utter. He got rocked on some of those catches, and continued to play. I am pretty sure that he got a concussion in there somewhere as he didn’t play in the second half. JaJo (Jason Jozaites) continues to impress. If indeed Utter does have a concussion and can’t play next week, JaJo will have to step up and fill the role of the big WR to go up and get balls. I’m thinking AD or Flohr read my report last week talking about Phil Jackson :D Talk about a coming out party! He tied XO and LC’s record for 4 rushing TD’s in a PO game, and was only the second rusher all season to have broken the 100 yard mark. The future looks bright with a backfield consisting of RB3 and Phil “Action” Jackson! The offensive line did an amazing job this week giving TA plenty of time and opening giant holes for the Billy, Bobby, and Phil to run thru. Overall, it was a great day to be a Bearcat!

Defensively – this group continues to impress me. At halftime, SCSU’s numbers were pathetic. If I remember right, it was something like 76 yards of total offense. It wasn’t until the majority of the starters had been pulled that the Huskies had much success at all. Despite being dinged up, the DL did a great job of disrupting Klaphake’s game. Cas Weitl did a good job filling in for Collin Bevins. This was also one of the best performances by the secondary I’ve seen in a while. They were all over their receivers like stink on poop. Klaphake didn’t have any options and the DL finally ate him up. The LB’s did a great job once again - I could go on and on singing this groups praises, but I would just be reiterating what I’ve said for the past 13 weeks! It is a lot of fun seeing what Wright, Bostwick, and Gordon have done on defense!

Next Week's Game:

I am worried. I am worried because I am not worried. I have thought all season that GV was not a very good team. We are talking about a team who eeked out a win over Truman 31-15 in the second week of the season, and GV fans at that time were trying to convince me that Truman was actually a really good team. That was when I knew that GV was not. Then a few weeks later they got curbstomped by 43 points by ODU, then two weeks later they got beat by Ferris. Then two weeks ago they came from behind to beat Pueblo – PUEBLO. And last week they came from behind again to beat West Texas A&M. This all being said, my head knows that they are in the semifinals and can’t be taken lightly – after all they curbstomped SVSU in the first round of the PO’s 40-7. But if you listen to the Grand Valley fans, the team is nothing more than smoke, mirrors, and duct tape from losing so many players to injury.

Offensively, I think that the key is going to be running the ball. If NW can run the ball on GV, its going to be a great day to be a Bearcat. In both of GV’s losses, they have been pretty susceptible to the run. If Billy, Bobby, and now Action can run – watch out. Because once NW is able to establish the run game, then the pass game will be that much more effective. In the last four games GV has given up 306, 156, 297, 397 in the passing game. So you can say that that is probably the weakest part of their defense. If NW can establish the run game, they can then exploit the secondary. TA has been throwing dimes lately – if the OL continues to give TA time, I think that he will be able to pick apart the Laker secondary.

Defensively, just continue to eat. I’ve heard a rumor that there is the possibility that Bevins may be able to play in this game. I don’t know if that is true or not – or if he will even be needed. IMO, if he isn’t absolutely needed, I would say let him rest for another week. The Lakers primary RB went down a couple of weeks ago, so from what I’ve seen they don’t really attack the middle very much. During the WT game, they went wide a lot. I think that that really plays into the speed of NW’s linebackers strength. So if the DL can bottle up the middle, and the LB’s can take out the sides, that leaves the secondary. I put NW’s secondary against Parling’s arm any day. From the WT game, it didn’t seem that Parling threaded the needle a whole lot – more like he threw a jump ball and made his receivers go up and get it. I have a feeling that the Dixons are going to have a field day with that type of strategy. As long as they stay focused and don’t get overly physical, the Bearcat secondary will stifle Parling. But if they get physical and the refs throw a lot of flags, that could make the game closer than it should be.

Special Teams: I feel a blocked punt or two coming on. GV punter is not a rugby style punter, so they could very well get to him. GV did fake a punt against WT, so NW is going to have to be prepared for that option as well.

Overall, NW has a field day with the Lakers. NW wins this one 55-21

Game 13: NW vs SCSU

What a great day for a football game. It was a bit chilly early in the morning during tailgating, but by game time, the weather was perfect. And despite there not being a full crowd in the stands, the area where I sit (stand) was packed in like sardines. It was great. A lot of the people around me were old school Rickenbrode Rowdies and it felt like the good ole days. The UMD fans were very respectful and we weren’t able to get into any good shouting matches. They did however do some team cheers during injury timeouts for NW. Well, that didn’t stand in my book, so we had to return the favor on one of their injury timeouts. Overall, it was a great game day experience.

Last Week’s Recap:

I believe that the technical term for what the UMD Bulldogs received is called a ‘whoopin’. I had told some people before the game that the game was either going to be extremely close, or it could end up being a lot like the Washburn game. It ended up being closer to the Washburn game than being extremely close. I think that there were essentially two game changing plays: the first was the goal line stand in the second quarter. I think that this really deflated a lot of the Bulldog sails, NW went on to score in their next two possessions before the end of the first half. The other was the pass interference call when UMD was on 3-24. The play prior that the Bulldogs were really dragging – and looked like they definitely did not want to be out on the field any more. The QB had just gotten sacked for the second time in a row and was very slow getting up. He looked very disgusted. The OLine was dragging their butt back to the line to get into position for the next play. Then the penalty happened – first and foremost there was some light contact between the two, it would have been pretty ticky-tacky to call – but the ball was not catchable at all. The injured guy sitting on the UMD bench had a better chance of catching that ball than the WR. Well, needless to say that was all it took to invigorate the UMD offense.

Offensively, I thought that NW came out rather flat. Part of that I think came from having a bye week, but the majority of it came from the play calling. The first couple of series are usually pretty scripted by the coaches ahead of time, and I’m sorry – they wrote the wrong script. It seemed to me that they were trying to go at UMD horizontally and try to get the edge. We saw the return of that stupid jet sweep – which worked about as well as it has all year: not at all. It wasn’t until Brady Bolles got in there and started passing the ball down field mixed with some QB runs, that the offense started to get going.  I think coaches out think themselves some times; luckily they came to their senses and started running the offense like they have all year. TA looked good and bad all in the same game. He made some great throws – he also made some really terrible throws. The WR’s did a great job this week. Reuben Thomas has a career day – 8 catches, 154 yards, and 1 TD. He looked like he did in his highlight reel from JuCo. You can see why he was on the D1 route at one point and time. Utter continues to just make plays. He did have one time in the end zone where the turf monster got him, but he more than made up for it a couple of plays later when he made a great TD catch. The way NW is able to spread the ball around is a great asset. I keep getting more and more impressed with Marcus Wright at TE. NW did not have a lot of success early running the ball – which is not surprising going against the UMD rush D. I expect to see them increase their production this week. The OL did a great job of protecting the QB and giving them time to throw.

Defensively what can I say? Stifling. That would be a good word for it. The Bearcat D held the Bulldogs to their lowest rushing production all year – by quite a bit. Going into the game, the Bulldogs were averaging over 300 yards rushing per game: the Bearcats only allowed 98 yards. That is amazing. The LB’s performed amazingly. DJ Gnader and Eric Reimer continue to impress. The Dline did a great job overall. But it was an expensive win. Both Collin Bevins and Brandon Yost got hurt on the same play. Yost came back later in the game but Bevins never did. He was seen running  along the sidelines but was later on crutches on the sideline. Rumor has it that he has a torn MCL and is probably done for the season. It looked like Yost sprained his ankle – he came back but wasn’t nearly as effective as he had been earlier in the game. The second half of the game, after NW had shut down their run game – UMD had to go to the pass. And like I said in the report last week, UMD passing versus the Bearcat secondary – NW is going to win that battle. NW secondary did a pretty good job, but did get burned a couple of times. Several teams have gone after Manning. It appears that he provides the softest coverage all the secondary. He got burned multiple times on the same little curl route.  Don’t get me wrong, I think Manning is darn good defensive back. That is more of kudos to the entire secondary than a rub against Travis. Hats off to Bauer he did make a couple of good throws – one in particular was a great throw and an even better catch. Brandon Dixon did his best at knocking the ball down, as that was his only chance at defending the pass, but the WR made an amazing one handed catch – I think the ball was probably out of bounds when it came down and he was able to snag it. As a football fan - it was truly a thing of beauty.
Special Teams: The punt game was perfect. Two of UMD’s drives started within their own 5 yard line. They didn’t get a blocked punt, but those are hard to come by with a rugby punter. Hats off to UMD for executing two fake punts. NW is usually very aggressive, and it cost them on those plays.

This Week’s Game:

So I will be completely honest with you – St Cloud scares the crap out of me. They have an amazing QB in Phillip Klaphake (pronounced ClapHockey) is the real deal. Easily the best QB that NW has faced all year. I would say that he is a mixture of SVSU’s Jonathan Jennings and MSU’s Jon Wolf. He’s got a great arm, fast runner, can scramble, and hard to bring down. On top of that, he’s got receivers that can catch the ball. This game will be the biggest test for the NW secondary to date. I’m kinda worried that the NW secondary has lost some focus lately. They seem to be playing much more physical rather than smart football the past couple of weeks. The Huskies don’t seem to have much of a primary receiver, they do a very good job of spreading the ball around evenly. The secondary is going to be as focused and prepared as ever for this game. The DL is going to need to be able to stop the run as well as provide some pressure on Klaphake. Klaphake is the Huskies leading rusher, he does  a lot of designed runs but can scramble too. When Klaphake isn’t the ball carrier, he usually hands it off to Michael Walker, who is averaging 4.7 yards per carry on 169 carries this season and has 19 touchdowns. This offense scares me.

St Cloud defense on the other hand does not scare me. They have given up a ton of points and yards the past couple of weeks. They like to blitz a lot – a LOT actually. And it burns them a lot. But their defense does seem to be very fast. I watched parts of the Mankato game, and St Cloud defense seemed to be very quick. They chased down Jon Wolf, and we all know how elusive he can be. Mankato did not seem to have a lot of success when trying to run on the edges (ie don’t try the jet sweep) but had more success going up the middle. They gave up almost 500 yards on the ground to UMD in their one loss – granted that game was played in crappy weather and neither teams passed hardly at all. I seriously doubt we see him, but I would love to see Phil Jackson given the opportunity to carry the ball more. If NW can have success pounding the rock, I think that they can exploit the St Cloud secondary. The Huskies #1 DB broke his collarbone in the last game of the regular season, so he is out, and their #2 DB has been suspended for this game after getting arrested Saturday night. With the number of blitzes that they like to run, that will make them more susceptible to the intermediate routes. I think Marcus Wright could have a really good day if given the opportunity.

I have a feeling that Special Teams are going to play a big role in this game. I expect to see at LEAST one blocked punt. I hope we can keep Goodburn on the sideline, but if called upon – I’m sure that he will deliver another great showing. The Great Dane seems to be getting better and better every week.

Overall, I think that the NW defense is better than the Husky defense and NW wins this one 55 – 35.