Game 12: NW vs UMD

Well, I think its official. I enjoy watching NW playing in Bearcat Stadium South, I mean Splatt, I mean Spratt Stadium. Having 4000 fans on one side yelling and screaming with all their hearts and souls and every fiber of their being – it truly is a great experience.  I am pretty sure that it is always windy as heck in St Joseph, MO – at least it seems that way. If it hadn’t of been so windy – it might have actually been a rather warm day. The wind kept me from breaking out the t-shirt for much of the day.

Last Week’s Review:

Talk about an old fashioned curb stomping. The only thing that kept MoWest from getting it even more was NW’s emotions. They wanted to extract revenge from last year – and they did that. They wanted to make MoWest pay – and they did. The officials obviously knew that there was bad blood and they tried to rule with an iron fist to keep as much of the extracurricular stuff from happening. Well, it still happened and they ended up interfering with both teams. 29 penalties in one game is a bit ridiculous – especially when there were hardly if any OL holding calls. I’m not sure that the White hat knew that he was supposed to be the one looking for that.  Officiating has been particularly bad this year.

Wow, I haven’t seen a MoWest defense that bad in quite some time – if ever. Kudos to the Oline – TA had all day to throw, and the RB’s had nice holes to run thru. Heck, all of the RB’s averaged over 5 yards per carry. The Bearcats even had a RB go over 100 yards – which is the first time all season. Which normally would be a troubling statistic, but since it’s been a RB by committee approach, and the reps have been split pretty evenly – they’ve gained a lot of yards but just haven’t broken the century mark.  I liked seeing Phil Jackson get some reps at RB – but I don’t like how he put the ball on the ground; they called him down – but I don’t think that he was really down. Definitely going to need to work on that – as he has the potential to be really good. I am hoping that that potential does materialize eventually.  I think that this was the best game by the Northwest Receivers in a long time. There weren’t any drops, and they did a pretty good job of blocking downfield.  I loved seeing the return of Korey Jackson – it had been several games since he had received some meaningful throws. Talk about a corps of wide-receivers. There weren’t any receivers that caught more than 5 balls, only one that caught more than 2. Yet NW averaged over 17 yards per catch on 15 passes to 8 different receivers. I love getting the TE involved – and I think that Marcus Wright has some really good hands and can make an impact if he gets thrown too. As it is, he is used a lot as a blocker and decoy. I think that he has the potential to add to the history of really good TE’s NW has had, too bad he’s a junior and NW only gets him for one more year!

The Northwest D will have to clean up the penalties going into the playoffs. Granted it was against a rival and emotions run high, but the defense can’t have 13 penalties against UMD and expect to win. The officiating crew that did the MoWest game is the same crew that did the NSU game – if you remember there were a ton of penalties in that game as well. That tells me it has more to do with the officials than anything.  Needless to say, I don’t think that giving your opponent a free first down 8 times in a game is a good thing! I can’t say that I was upset to see Jerry’s Kid getting pummeled out there. The Dline did a great job and provided really good pressure. Spencer didn’t get a lot of yardage – what he did was primarily on the edge.

Holy Moly the Bearcats found a FG kicker in the Great Dane. For his second time in the role, he managed to win the MIAA Special Teams player of the week. I really don’t mind having three kickers at this time. At least their not missing extra points and puts the option of field goals back on the table.

This Weeks Game:

So this game cannot get here quick enough.  At this point, I just want to get Thanksgiving over so I’m that much closer to this game. Bye weeks are nice for the players to rest up, but as a fan I only get like 16 weeks of this a year – and sitting at home for one of them is not the best use of my time.  So I watched a bit of the Emporia St vs UMD game and looked at some stats – and I’m not too scared of the Bulldogs.

On offense – this game is going to come down to the offensive line. UMD doesn’t have the speed in their secondary to keep up with the fast WR’s, so they rely on getting after the QB to take out the pass game. UMD blitzes a lot – but they don’t really try to hide it all that well. If the Oline can give TA time and he can handle the pressure, I think TA can pick apart the UMD secondary – which isn’t the best in the world. UMD will be without their starting noseguard Buma Foncham who was ejected for throwing punches in the second half of the ESU game, by rule he will be out the first half of this game. From what I’ve seen from the UMD defense on tape, they look physical but not nearly as disciplined as they have been in the past. UMD’s offense is not built to play catch up – if NW can get up by two scores, I think you can turn the lights out on the Bulldogs. But like I said – this is going to come down to the OLine, if they can hold off the D pressure, I think NW can get some great gains in the passing game – which will open up the run game.

On defense – it comes down to the Dline being physical and the LB’s playing smart football. If everyone does their 1/11th, and just focuses on their assignment, I really don’t think that UMD will be able to hang with NW. It really is all about gap assignment – the Hornet defense was not that great, but when they followed thru with their assignment, the Bulldogs didn’t get much. But when somebody didn’t do their job, the Bulldogs exploited that. This will truly be a test for Rich Wright to get his players to do their job. If NW can funnel the run inside to Yost and Bevins with the LB corps doing their job, they aren’t going to get much. If they try to run to the outside, NW’s speed on defense is going to stop them. That forces them to go to the air – and Bulldog WR’s and freshman QB against the Bearcat secondary: my money is on the NW secondary every time (and twice on Saturday.)

Special Teams – it looks like the UMD punter does a rugby style punt, so that makes blocking them a bit tougher. UMD has also faked several punts and FG’s this year – I wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen again. I hope that NW can keep their All American punter on the sideline again this game. Looking forward to seeing if the Great Dane can follow up to his nice performance against MoWest.

Prediction: NW 45 UMD 27

Game 11: NW vs MW

Well it’s been a while since I’ve experience some good heckling. The Emporia State student section did a good job of remedying that. I particularly enjoyed the students jingling their keys in the first quarter when they were down 6-0. I don’t think that they necessarily understand what that gesture means. Or the drunk ESU fan who was trying to argue that Bearcats aren’t real – even his fellow students couldn’t convince him otherwise.  My favorite quote of the week has got to be “Sell more tickets” which was in response to one of the students heckling NW fans for being in ‘their’ section.  Which last time I checked the ESU stadium map, the only reserved section was Section B which was reserved for the Emporia Students – which was only partially full. That didn’t stop the Hornet security from trying to move NW fans out of the “Emporia fans section.” I even heard of one gentleman who tried to purchase a reserved seat but the manager of the box office refused to sell him one because he was a NW fan. Oh well, that is their prerogative.

Last Week’s Recap:

Well the Hornets are definitely improved over last year, but so is NW; and their improvement isn’t enough to go against a team with a good defense.

Offensively, NW pretty much did what ever they wanted to do. Their first drive they Emporia State defense was pushed from the NW 19 all the way to the ESU 2. NW obviously has no faith in their FG kicker, because I don’t think that there was ever a doubt in mind that NW was going go for the TD instead of the FG. And rightly so – as Trewyn hit the upright with his first extra point attempt – he ended up getting a pretty good ass chewing about that one. NW’s next series they ended up going 3-out – the only other time that happened was their final possession of the game. Trevor Adams had another great game – going 24-35 for 291 yards and 5 TD’s.  Bolles was tied with Billy Creason as the second leading rusher – 40 yards on 9 carries. I really hope that the NW coaches are doing these single play switches for some type of set up. I really think that Robert Burton in the backfield with Bolles as QB in those situations is much more dangerous for defenses to prepare for. Bobby Burton was again the teams leading rusher with the highest yards per carry – 4.9. The Offensive Line did a great job of opening up holes and giving the QB all the team that they needed. The WR’s, and Reuben Thomas in particular, need to remember to catch the ball, and THEN run.

Defense again was stifling. Honestly the majority of ESU’s yardage came on a handful of plays. Their first TD happened on something that I said NW had to watch out for – Brent Wilson’s escapeability. He somehow was able to sneak out of the pocket after it had surrounded him, and found a wide open WR. But NW adjusted and destroyed them the rest of the year. I really do like Brent Wilson though – I think that he has the potential to set a lot of records in the MIAA.

Special Teams: Punt blocks are awesome. But something needs to be done in the NW kicking game. But Ben Trewyn is not the answer we’ve been looking for. 5 missed extra points is not acceptable. Either let the Great Dane kick all of the extra points, and not worry about FG’s, or pull Alex “Easy Money” Easley’s redshirt. If NW loses a game because of a missed xtra point, that will not sit well with Bearcat Nation

Next Week's Preview:

Prediction: NW 45 MW 17

Game 10: NW vs ESU

I want start off by letting everyone know about a fundraiser for the NW baseball team. The fundraiser is to raise money to purchase some camo jerseys to honor the Armed Forces as well as honor the late Matt Mason – NW alumni, baseball player, and Navy Seal. For more information, please go to: http://bearcatsbaseballreport.blogspot.com/2013/11/camouflage-jersey-fundraiser-this.html

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