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
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