What an amazing day for football for November 10th. You can’t ask for better temps than 75° this late in the year. I could have gone without the wind, but that comes with the territory this time of the year. It was great seeing so many former players and players families enjoying the tailgating festivities. Speaking of tailgating – my hat goes off to Dr Jasinski for making the rounds this weeks pressing the flesh and shaking hands with the fans and welcoming them to the campus. I forgot to mention it in last weeks report – but Wren Baker made the rounds last week.
A good friend of mine gave me a sideline pass to watch this game. I watched the first quarter from the stands and then moved down with a few minutes left in the quarter. As soon as I did – NW got the interception, needless to say, I had to stay on the sidelines for the rest of the game. I have to admit being on the sidelines with so many former players was really really cool. Having Jake Soy and Xavier Omon give you a high five after Bryce Young has a great catch is an amazing thing. But I learned that I have lost my skill of being able to watch the game from the field level and know exactly what is going on. The view is soo much better from my place in the stands – that is probably why they have coaches up in the booth! Plus, I might be a jinx. My first game on the sideline and they lose? Coincidence? I think its probably best not to tempt fate. Speaking of jinx’s – this was the first game that one of my friends has attended since the UCM game. I’m pretty sure that he is the jinx – don’t worry Bearcat Nation, I have told him that he is officially banned from watching anymore games live in person this year. It’s funny how football can turn a perfectly normal rational person into a superstitious fool. I know that there is nothing that I do that will directly determine the outcome of the game, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are certain things that I have to do on gameday.
So losing sucks. But officially finding out that NW is getting a new videoboard seemed to take the sting out of the loss. I had heard about the videoboard a few months ago, but its always nice to be confirmed. From what I understand, it is going to be very similar to what UNO had. Approximately 20’ x 40’ for the video screen. It will have nice brick on the sides. I’ve been told that it WILL be on the south side. That they powers that be learned their lesson with the previous video board – that you can’t see it when the sun shines on it. My only hope is that they are smart and do like Pitt St did and put a video booth above it for the cameras to be in. That way they can get rid of the scissor lifts – which would be much safer on those very windy days. My hat is off to Wren Baker and Scott Nielsen for their fundraising efforts and already putting their stamp on this program!
Last Week’s Recap:
Wow. Talk about a tale of two halves. If you had told me that NW would limit Hill to just 40 yards in the first half and be up 17-0; I would have said that NW would win no problem. But that didn’t happen. Credit Jerry for making some great adjustments at halftime – basically scrubing their entire offense that they used all season and went to much more pass dominant offense. There was also a lot of blame to go around on the NW side of the ball.
I thought NW ran the ball a little bit more than I would have like to see – but that was probably due to the weather conditions. And they really didn’t do that bad of a job of it. Both JF3 and Simmons averaged almost 4 yards per carry. I heard before the game several people predict that the game would be determined by the QB play – it turned out that both QB’s played very well. I thought this was one of the best games that TA played. He had some excellent check downs and played smart ball – didn’t try to force anything. A big shout out to the offensive line – they gave TA all day to throw back there. They also only allowed 1 sack. This was not a good game for the TE’s and WR’s. Or I should say – it was not a good second half for them. The refs (don’t get me started) apparently didn’t like the way that they were blocking, and kept calling them for holding. And the WR’s had WAY too many dropped balls. All I can say is that the second half the team played not to lose instead of playing to win. It really wasn’t so much the play calling – although that was a little bit more conservative, but not much. The team was very tight – very tense. And that was the only emotion I saw out of them. Other than that, it seemed like the offense was very emotionless. A lot of that comes from their lack of execution. It’s easy to get down on yourself when you’re not executing. And the offense definitely wasn’t executing. And when they were, they were shooting themselves in the foot with costly penalties. I said after Washburn that if they continue those types of penalties, it would cost them – and it did. The thing that I can blame AD for was deciding to take the wind in the 3rd quarter. It was the same mistake that MSU did. Try to put the game away in the third quarter. It didn’t work for them, and it didn’t work for Northwest. But AD is still a young coach, and I’m sure that he has learned from this experience.
The NW D – that’s a different story. The first half they did an amazing job. They still did a great job containing Michael Hill. He was able to get over 100 yards, but that was because he did get a couple of nice runs – but 12 of his 19 runs were for 5 or less yards that’s pretty darn good. That comes from the Dline and LB playing disciplined football. It is very difficult for a RB to run thru a wall, when a defender tries to shoot the gap, even a little bit and try to get to the defender – that opens up a hole in the wall for the RB to go thru. This is what NW was doing to Hill. They were giving him a few yards, but weren’t going to give him much. There were a few times that the NW D didn’t wrap up that he was able to bounce to the outside and get more yards – but he wasn’t able to power run over the NW D like he was most of his competitors the rest of the year. This game was probably the worst game for the Bearcat LB’s that I’ve seen in a long time. It was like they couldn’t quite decide if they should cover the receivers or try to cover the run, so they tried to do both – and ended up doing neither. Same thing with the secondary – they were so concerned with run support that they got soft on their coverage. Now give Jerry’s Kid credit – he did throw the ball where only the receiver could get the ball (often times about 6” above the turf or on the way out of bounds) but it was effective. On that first TD, it looked like Brian Dixon tried to jump the route a bit and get the interception – which he normally gets. But he didn’t get it that time, and the MW WR got the TD. The last couple of minutes of this game reminded me a lot of the Minnesota Duluth up in Duluth. The defense made a lot of costly mistakes which led directly to some touchdowns.
Overall – it comes down to execution. NW just didn’t execute in the second half – plain and simple. The coaches can put the players in the right position to make the play, but the coaches can’t make catch, block, tackle, hike the ball, etc for the players. The question is how does the team respond from this loss. Historically the team has done very well coming off of a loss. The last time that the Bearcats lost shortly before the playoffs started was 2005 – and that season ended up okay for the Cats.
This Weeks Match Up:
Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few days you’ve probably heard that Jordan Simmons will not be playing in this game. He apparently broke his arm in a ‘freak accident’ in practice. On Wednesday he underwent surgery to put a plate in his arm and put in 6 screws. Apparently he sustained a ‘butterfly fracture’. From what I understand of those type of breaks – it is theoretically possible that he could return in a few weeks with a big ole cast and lots of padding on his left arm. Not saying that he will by any means – a lot depends on how quickly he heals, and where exactly the fracture is at. NW has lots of capable backs – hopefully they will step up to fill his void there.
The Harding Bisons run a triple option offense – much the same as Missouri Southern. Unlike Missouri Southern, HU runs it much more efficiently. Their Oline isn’t the big guys like MoSo, they are much smaller and quicker. The option offense is the great equalizer. It can make the not as athletic players be able to compete with the much more athletic defenses. But it requires the offense to be very disciplined and efficient. MoSo was not. And it cost them – big time. Harding can be very efficient – but in some of their games I’ve seen, they can be less than efficient as well. They’ve actually lost 15 fumbles – that’s not even counting how many they recovered themselves. Statistically they are very similar to MoSo. MoSo is #9 rushing the ball, HU is #5. MoSo is #153 passing the ball, HU is #152. Both teams essentially have one receiver. For Harding – that receiver is Donatella Luckett who has 26 receptions and 7 TD’s. The next highest reception total is Kamper who has a total of 4 catches on the year. Harding does have a lot of good runners though – starting with their QB. In fact, they have 3 different runners with over 450 yards this year, and 9 total with more than 100. Southern Arkansas did a great job limiting Harding’s offense. They did this by not worrying about their passing game – they did get burnt a couple of times, but it pretty much shut down their offense. They stacked 8 men the box and took away the dive and QB keeper. SAU’s D was pretty quick and was able to limit any option out to the sides as well. Looked to be a pretty good recipe for success for the D. But the NW defense is going to have to do a much better wrapping up than they did last week. If NW’s D can duplicate what SAU did, I like the Bearcat chances. I think they can. I can see this being a lot like the MoSo game for the Defense.
The Northwest offense could be very interesting going into the playoffs. Simmons injury is going to hurt – he is arguably the most involved player, one of the best RB’s, leading receiver, huge in special teams. But NW isn’t a one trick pony. There are more than capable RB’s one the team – both Creason and Adema-Schulte have shown their skill sets this year: Creason is still a powerful runner, and KAS always amazes me how fast and hard hitting he is. I would not be surprised to see either one or both of them step up big time in the playoffs. JF3 went off the charts last year in the playoffs – it would be awesome to see that history repeat. As far as the receiving corps goes – they need to put last week behind them. I know Shaw took the loss very personal – well it takes a team to win and a team to lose. Bryce Young will be back, he came back last week after an injury to his shoulder. That injury is normally a 6 week heal time, he came back after 2 weeks. So another week and it’s feeling better. With J5 out, I would like to see a WR or two or three really step it up in the PO’s. I am looking at Utter, Flint, or Jozaites or possibly somebody else. Hinchey has had some very good games – maybe he comes out and just kills them. NW has a history of WR’s stepping up in the PO’s – I don’t see why this year should be any different. The Bison defense is very quick. From a statistical point of view – they are very good. But statistics don’t really mean anything when you don’t play anybody – ask Emporia about that. I really don’t know what to think about them. I think NW should be able to score. NW will need to utilize their strengths. Use the short passing game to help open up the run game – mix in the deep ball to Shaw to help open up everything. TA did a great job of checking down last week – he’ll need to do that again this week.
Both of NW’s kickers made the All-Conference team – both deservedly so in my honest opinion. Goodburn has been amazing at punting, and Adolf kicking – both KO and FG has really impressed this year. It is great having these weapons when you need them – but hopefully we don’t need them too much.
I have been going back and forth all week how to predict this game. I can see this game being very close, or I can see it being similar to MoSo. A lot is going to depend on momentum. If NW gets it, and keeps it rolling, it could be a blowout. Or it could be squeaker if they don’t get the momentum going. I saw NW gets up big and then coasts, HU scores a couple of trash TD’s and the final score makes it look closer than it actually is: NW 45 HU 30
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