Opening
Thoughts:
Let me first apologize for the late publication of
this blog. It has been a crazy week for me and honestly this wasn’t the highest
priority of things that needed to be done. What an amazing weekend for football
last week was! The weather was absolutely perfect for football – a little brisk
in the morning and then warmed up to be a rather nice day. As far as the
tailgating goes – it was amazing for our group. We had a southern themed
tailgate – complete with Alabama Chicken, Mr Brown’s pulled pork, baked beans,
two forms of southern bread pudding, Bearcat Sushi, bacon wrapped meatballs with
a special glaze, not to mention the jalapeno poppers, lemon bars, key lime
bars, and pecan pie. By far one of the best tailgates I’ve ever participated
in.
Last
Weeks Recap:
Well, the Northwest offense finally looked like it
is supposed to. But I don’t really know what to think about the performance.
It’s not like Ft Hays D is of the same caliber as UCM’s. But I do know that the
guys at least looked like they were having fun out there. I thought that the
play calling was MUCH improved – and a lot of that was due to the injuries on
the OL and having to maximize the strengths and diminish the weaknesses.
Regardless, I thought that both Tyler Seals and Brady Bolles looked better than
TA has all season. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I had heard a rumor
that TA looked great in the first few weeks of fall camp, and then all of a
sudden it was like a switch turned off, and he was like what we saw in the
first two games. If it’s true, obviously it is just something mental – maybe
the pressure of be THE MAN was too much for him. Whatever it is, if he is going
to be the #1 QB again, he is going to need to fix it. Looking at the QB’s – I
think it is obvious which of the current QB’s has the most potential, but
potential doesn’t win games. I think that the future of NW football is bright
seeing Bolles out there, but I actually thought that Seals performed better.
Seals was 12-19 (63%) with 0 interceptions, not too shabby. Bolles was 11-14
(78%) but had 1 interception and should have had another. But both are better
than Adams so far (40-76 [52%] and 5 interceptions.) I thought that Seals
looked the most confident of all the QB’s and obviously has been around the O
longer than Bolles so he knows the offense better. NW has a long history of
injury not causing a player to lose their position. I’m okay with that. But
with that being said – if there was a change right now I don’t think that it
would be because of the injury. I am not advocating replacing TA at this time,
but if one or both Seals and Bolles end up performing better than TA by the
time that the injury is healed, I think that the only responsible thing would
be for one of them to start before TA. I for one hope that TA comes back with a
vengeance and plays like we’ve all seen him play. But if he doesn’t, I hope
that the coaches have the cajones to make the call to replace him.
I think that the biggest improvement was on the OL.
Last week I said: “Unless the NW QB has all day to throw, and they open up
holes the size of Moe Dampeer to run thru I wouldn't consider it a win for the
OL.” Well, I would have to say that they won the day. The run game that had
been averaging 2.3 yards per attempt, was able to get 6.0 yards per attempt.
Obviously some of that had to do with the poor defense of Ft Hays, but the OL
also did their part as well. I thought that the replacement played very well,
and the original starters seemed to step up their game. I hope that they are
able to continue the level of play going forward. I thought that the RB’s did very well this
game. Both Simmons and Franklin averaged more than 8.5 yards per carry. A lot
of different WR’s got to touch the ball – 10 total counting catches out of the
backfield. One of the good things of having 2 QB’s is that that limits having
one WR that seems to get all of the attention of the QB. This makes the
defenses have to stay honest and fully cover everyone. In the first two games,
it seemed like the only two receivers out there were Shaw and Young, and
everyone else was just running decoy routes. Well it doesn’t take defenses long
to realize that those guys are never getting thrown the ball – kind of like
Brian Miller last year. One thing I did notice about the WR’s is that they did
a much better job of blocking downfield than they had previously – which helps
open up the ground game, which in turn helps them.
What can I say about the defense? Dominating is all
that I can say. Any time that you can hold your opponent to less than 225 total
yards that is pretty darn good. And only allowing 4 or14 3rd down
conversions never hurts. But trying to judge exactly how well the defensive
line did we are faced with the same problem as judging the OL. Ft Hays OL was
not that good. But the NW DL did exactly what they were supposed to do and
pushed them around all day. The Ft Hays had the craziest offense – they ran a
hurried up no huddle offense, but then ran the clock down to nothing before
they hiked the ball. The LB’s looked good again – the only thing I noticed was
that DJ Gnader’s hip must really be hurting him a lot. I’ve noticed that he is
not quite as fast has he has been in the past. I’m not sure exactly what is
wrong with it, but hopefully it heals as the season progresses. I’ve noticed a
trend that when a play breaks down, a lot of times teams have had success getting
to the outside. In the past, Gnader was always so darn fast that you never had
to worry about that – but not so much this year. For the third week in a row, a
Dixon brother has recorded an interception. This time it was Brian Dixon who
got the pick. He also got a TD on a botched punt. I noticed on at least one
play, both Dixon brothers were playing along with Tyshaan Alleyne out there. I
really liked that formation!
I think NW’s Special Teams played really well this
game. Todd Adolf was 2 for 2 on FG’s including a 48 yarder. And Goodburn
averaged 45 yards per punt.
This
Week’s Match up:
Between NW and UNK, they have used 6 QB’s so far
this year. We all know what has happened at NW, but at UNK it has not been
pretty. Their starter went down during the Emporia game, and last week both of
the back up QB’s were injured playing MoWest. That means that this week the
Lopers will be starting a WR who played quarterback in highschool. They
apparently have a good QB who is a true freshman, but they don’t want to have
to pull his red shirt. Needless to say, the injuries have piled up for them at
other places. Two of their DLinemen went down last week against MoWest. They
are more like the walking wounded at this point, and its only the 4th
game of the year. Talk about a welcome to the MIAA!
NW should be able to win this game easily – and I
hope that they do exactly that. But I don’t expect UNK to exactly roll over and
die. It is their homecoming after all. My guess is that Seals and Bolles will
once again be trading off on signal caller duty. Which I am fine with. NW has
proven that they can use a 2 QB system when they need too. I think that works
well for NW because the QB’s don’t see it as a competition, but rather that
they are both our there to do their job. UNK’s secondary is almost as weak as
Ft Hays, so I would expect to see a lot of passing again. I would love to see
Tyler Shaw get thrown the deep ball that was bread and butter last year.
Overall, I just want to see the offense continue to click and gel as a team.
This is kind of the lull in the season. It is important that the team takes
advantage of this time to heal up and learn the intricacies of eachother.
I expect the D to destroy the Lopers. Plain and
simple. I really got nothing more than that. With as banged up as UNK is, if
the D allows them to hang around, I will be quite upset. But I don’t expect
them to.
My prediction: NW 56 UNK 0
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