Game 5: NW vs NSU

What a crazy week in the MIAA. Missouri Southern lost to Southwest Baptist, and other teams didn’t do as well as they should have: going into the lockerroom at half MoWest only held a 7 point lead over Ft Hays, Pitt St only scored 7 points against Lincoln in the first quarter – and until :24 before half the Gorillas were only up 21-10, and Washburn struggled with UCO ending up beating them only 28-19. The biggest news to come out the MIAA this week was the announcement that beginning in 2014 Southwest Baptist and Lincoln will no longer be competing in the MIAA in football. This will leave 12 football schools in the MIAA – meaning that there will be a complete round robin: thus being able to crown a true conference champion. This is kind of bitter sweet in my opinion. A true conference champion can be named, but at the same time – this doesn’t allow for any nonconference games. You may ask, “So what? What does that matter?” Why that matters is the playoffs and the Regional Rankings. When your conference plays everyone and no one else, your Strength of Schedule (which is figured by your opponents winning percentage, and your opponents opponents winning percentage) is .500 – which is not good. How that  comes into play is regional rankings. Regional Rankings are based on your winning percentage and your Strength of Schedule. So what, you say – win the conference and you will make the PO’s. Well I don’t know about you – but I like having a bye week, or having home games, or hosting SemiFinal games. These are all much less likely by having such a low SOS. How bad is an SOS of .500? Well, last year that would have tied for 94th place. But hey – we don’t have to play the Blue Tigers or purple Bearcats anymore.

Last Week’s Recap:

I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong. And I was completely wrong about UNK. I really thought that the Lopers were going to be able to get a lot of yards, but not necessarily a lot of points. Boy was I wrong. NW was able to hold the Antelopes to a total of 124 yards of total offense. The last time that NW held a team to that few yards was Truman in 2009 (NW won that game 70-0, Truman had 92 yards.) The defense did an amazing job of containing Marsh. In fact, I would say that that was the best performance by the Dline all year. The combination of Bevins and Yost at DT – that is something fun to watch. I would say that NW is 1 defensive end away from having an elite Dline. That DE may very well already be on the team and just needs to step it up a notch. I’ve seen flashes by several of the DE’s on the team – if they can make that step up – WOW is all that I can say. The secondary of course is great again this game – special props to Manning and Enyard – they just continue to impress. And the LB’s are looking better every week. This D is starting to look really really good – like what some of us envisioned it to look like.  They have only allowed 3 touchdowns in the last 11 quarters of football.

The offense rocked again. No surprise there – UNK’s D is not very good. If this game proved anything – it was that TA and Bolles do NOT have different skill sets. One is just better than the other, and one is a Senior and the other is a Sophmore. There was absolutely no difference in call playing depending on who was playing. The only difference was that the receivers didn’t have to wait for the ball to get to them. That would be the only knock on Brady – he throws too hard at times. But that is a good problem to have.  A WR worth their salt should be able to catch the ball – and those that aren’t WR’s won’t: like the Loper LB that jumped the route and almost had an interception. I’m pretty sure that the only reason why he didn’t catch the ball was that it was thrown too hard and he wasn’t able to hold on to it.  I thought that the WR’s did a great job, and Coach Osborne has done a great job of stressing the role of blocking downfield. What I wasn’t really fond of, was the fact that two of the top three rushers were QB’s. NW has a ton of RB’s and the QB’s are being asked to run and run – even when the game is well in hand. It is almost like AD is tempting fate to injure one of the QB’s – so he doesn’t have to make a final decision about who should be the QB. But getting back to the RB’s – we’ve got a lot of them. Let’s use them! Bobby Burton and Phil Jackson are each averaging 5.8 yards per carry. That’s pretty darn good.

Overall, the problem with a game like this is that you don’t really know what you’ve accomplished. It’s easy to think that you are really good, but in fact, you really haven’t played anyone. You lull yourself into a false sense of security. And with Fort Hays last week, UNK this week and NSU and UCO in the coming weeks, it will be important for the coaching staff to keep that mentality from setting in!

This Week’s Game:

I don’t really know what to say about this game. I honestly am not that excited for the game. Kind of hard to get excited about a team that lost their starting QB in the first game and scoring an average of less than 12 points per game and giving up over 38 ppg. But one thing I’ve learned is that if you overlook anyone, they can come up and bite you in the buttocks. Just ask MoSo about the purple Bearcats! The Riverhawks are lead on the  ground by their RB Joel Rockmore. Rockmore is currently averaging 6 yards per carry and 122 yards per game.  Thor Long (QB) go to target is Terrance Dixon. But he isn’t his only target, they definitely spread the ball around and there really isn’t one main guy. In fact, Dixon is their leading receiver, but he’s only caught 10 balls this year.

I know that this is short and sweet, but I think NW is going to have fun. I forsee one thing for the Riverhawks: PAIN. The Bearcats are definitely going to rain on their Homecoming parade.  Last year NW beat them 66-6. I don’t see a whole lot different happening this year. How much NW wins by depends on what the coaches want to do in the second half. If the last two weeks is much of an indication, the starters won’t play much if at all in the second half. Overall, NW wins this one easily. NW 70 NSU 0

#freeBolles