WU vs NW

[NW Normal]

Random thoughts: Decent crowd just under 7,000. Washburn's first drive exploited NW's weakness, our CB's. NW adjusted on both offense and defense. Third quarter drive by Washburn was aided by two Personal Fouls, yet when they got in red zone CB's responded, batting away passes in both corners of end zone. Northwest just wore the "Bods down. Joe Q's conditioning won the second half! I was impressed with young Schurig. He took some savage hits. 'Letch' (as his Coach called him) is a really good WR. He and Schurig are going to surprise some teams.

[NW Normal]

NW D-line, Washburn O-line

[NW Normal]

Tatum high stepping into end zone

[ForeverGreen]

[BearcatDude]

In the past several years, the dline (which were some of the best possibly ever) took away the run game and forced other teams to become one dimensional. It's a lot easier to defend when you make an offense do what you want. The Dline at this time doesn't seem to have that capability - although in the second half, when adjustments were made the run game was taken away on 1st & 2nd down. The secondary is still hurt a lot by injuries. Granted by the time those starters get healthy the back ups will have gotten a lot of experience. Satety Drew Dostel found himself out of place several time, and got beat because of it. But he's a transfer from IWCC - and I don't think that he transferred until this summer, so he doesn't have a lot of experience with the system. There is a learning curve. I remember Jack Young finding himself out of place a lot when he was just learning - but he ended up quite the ball hawk.

The first half looked like poo - whatever was said or done at halftime, needs to be done before the game. The play calling was MUCH better in the second half. It's amazing how designed QB runs sets this offense up for success.

[IowaBearcat]

Receivers bailed BW out a few times. Andrews 43 yarder was badly under thrown and should have been picked, but he made a great play on the ball.

[Guest]

I wasn't able to watch the game, as my son had a football game at the same time, however, it seems like a solid win on the surface. We have extremely high, almost absurd expectations for NW teams, and that's a good thing. However, it's not a standard anyone can live up to year over year forever. It would be awesome, but it's just very difficult. The offense (even removing the D scores) has averaged 34 points a game. In the history of NW, scoring 34 points is enough to win most games. They do need to be more crisp. I do feel that play calling is still a bit uneven. That is not a slight to the OC because I firmly believe that offensive play calling is the most difficult thing to coach on a football field. It's completely an art and not a science. Trying to predict how the defense is going to react to any certain play is difficult. You try your best to set them up, but it doesn't always go your way. I have never seen guys go from genius to idiot and back so quickly based on how plays end up.

The defense is just not as tough as it has been to this point. They just aren't the shutdown D we are used to. Still though, traditionally NW is a top 10 defense. Now they may be top 30 type by the end of the season. Both sides are good enough to make a run if things break their way. Both sides are also just good, which means the team is beatable. That's the thing people are struggling with. From having a team that was largely unbeatable, to being beatable. They are still good and still it will take a good effort to beat them.