Redbird Focus
By Lake The Posts on
The “short” week has Saturday seemingly arriving so much quicker so it is time to turn our focus to Illinois State. Click on over to the other side for more…
Man. It’s tough to get a word in edge-wise with headline breaking news like Mayor Daley calling it quits and Reggie Bush’s potential Heisman strip. We’ll touch on the latter in a bit. The “short” week has Saturday seemingly arriving so much quicker so it is time to turn our focus to Illinois State. You may have read this LTP preseason preview of the Redbirds, but I’ll crib some of that info and update it in the wake of their week one 55-54 victory of DII Central Missouri.
There is an NU connection on the coaching staff – former NU assistant Jay Peterson (at NU from ’99-’03)is now on the ISU staff under former Purdue assistant-turned-ISU-head-coach Brock Spack. Spack, who earned his wings under Joe Tiller, is obviously no stranger to Northwestern and candidly both in name and look is out of central casting as a head coach. Spack’s season-opening win has him at 7-5 overall at the Missouri Valley football school and you know this game is the highlight of their schedule since it is the annual FCS team playing up to try and shock the FBS opponent.
Spack has somehow converted ISU in to a Big Ten back-up All-Star team. As I mentioned in my preview this past season he bolstered an FCS roster with the following transers:
Nickcaro Golding – DE (from Purdue)
Leonard Hubbard – LB (from Wisconsin)
Shelby Harris – DE (from Wisconsin)
Otis Merrill (from Wisconsin)
Erik Smith – RB (from Wisconsin)
EJ Jones – DB (from Minnesota)
Andre Tate (from Minnesota)
Ashton Leggett – RB (from Michigan State)
Marvon Sanders – WR (from Eastern Michigan)
Xzavier Stewart (from Kansas State)
Many of the above prepped for NU’s offense just a year ago either on the 2-deep or practice squads of their respective programs. Add in the fact that QB Matt Brown, the reigning Missouri Valley Freshman of the Year, opened up the season earning Missouri Valley Offensive Player of the Week honors and you know this team has some talent. Brown had a stellar day posting 298 yds and 3 TDs on 23/30 passing including a game-winning come-from-behind drive late in the fourth quarter. The Redbirds conference features some top tier FCS talent including the likes of Southern Illinois who may give the Illini a run for their money on Saturday, along with Northern Iowa who nearly upset Iowa last season and of course North Dakota State who pulled one of the biggest opening week shockers with a 6-3 win at Kansas on Saturday. ISU entered the season just on the outskirts of the FCS Top 25.
Not even Lou Holtz can rally up the scare card here on defense though. The Redbirds were gashed for -get this – 547 passing yards – against DII Central Missouri. ISU gave up only 58 yards on the ground, but when a team throws at will like that it is more of a function of going with success than credit to ISU’s rush defense (UCM’s leading rusher had 7 carries). This is where I hope we don’t outhink ourselves on Saturday. Now that Dan Persa has his game legs under him, it is time to pass – pass -and pass again. I fear we’re going to approach this game with “overthink” and try to use it to prove we’re a run team. You can almost see us forcing the run and not worrying about exploiting the ISU weakness. Look, I’m all for improving from week one in game situations. Our line must improve and our RBs must get in better sync with timing, running north-south and reading their gaps. It’s a must to work on, however I don’t want it to distract from the gameplan of winning a game and doing so in impressive fashion. It is equally important to try and build a big lead and get Evan Watkins some reps. Our “D” will be tested by Brown, and ISU, though so this is by no means going to be a cakewalk. They’ll put up points. I want us to approach it like any other game where we play to win the game first and then work on the priority points like the run game. Persa should have 15-20 pass attempts in the first half of this game. Period. Anything less and we’re not gameplanning effectively.
It will be interesting to see what kind of crowd the Redbirds bring. The undergrad population of 20,000+ and a healthy Chicago alumni base should bring some numbers, albeit my expectations are very managed. I’d be encouraged if we eclipsed 30,000 but am expecting more in the 25,000 -range. Perhaps we should borrow the Cubs ticket takers who claim that last night’s attendance was in the 32,000 range. Uhhhh…don’t think so. My post yesterday on cranking up the volume RIGHT NOW is even moreso after attending that deadbeat game. Rick Telander – a disgruntled ‘Cat – took the same angle today consciously overlooking NU in his Sun-Times article claiming the Sox are “The Only Game In Town” (he even mentions the Chicago Wolves, but not NU). Putting up some big time points in a landslide win is exactly what the doctor ordered as we traverse through our “must go 4-0″ non-conference schedule.
Did (N)U Know?
NU DC Mike Hankwitz coached ISU head coach Brock Spack during part of Spack’s undergrad LB days at Purdue. According to the NU game notes (Mike Wolf) Hankwitz was the linebackers coach in West Lafayette from 1977-81, while Spack’s Boilermaker playing careerspanned 1980-83. Also Bob Heffner, NU’s superbacks coach was a line coach at ISU in the 80s.
Stats To Stew On
- Somewhat lost in my postgame analysis was the remarkable upgrade in NU’s punting thanks to Brandon Williams’ stellar debut. Willliams’ 42.6 ypp is currently ranked 18th in the nation.
- While Dan Persa’s 90.5 cmp% offers NU some top-ranked Big Ten billing in several categories (pass comp, pass efficiency), there are some not-so-good rankings as well. The 422 total yards given up to Vandy put NU dead last in the Big Ten and 89th in the nation. We’re ranked 10th in both run defense (192 ypg) and pass defense (240 ypg).
- I find it amazing that since 1995 our overall record (including bowl games) is now 92-90. You’d think it’d be better than that, but you realize how much the bowl losing streak hurts our regular season record which is 92-83 during that span.
Coming up in a bit…From Bush to Baz…
Something that I completely overlooked when it comes to the running game… we can still get those rushing reps in… we just need to wait until the second half. Ideally we could build a nice 17-20 point cushion on ISU (provided the defense is clicking) and then actually start running the ball with your halfbacks. If ISU’s defense is really outmatched, we should be able to blow the doors off their secondary without breaking too far into the playbook.
We’ll see if Fitz and McCall go that pass-first, run-second-when-we-build-a-big-lead mentality.
A 92-90 record since 1995 is actually a little better than I would have guessed. We did have several mediocre to awful seasons on either side of the 2000 Big Ten Championship season.
Hopefully they do use the pass to set up the run. That’ll be the best formula for success all around. But they do need to use this game to help jump start the running game.
I keep forgetting that this Saturday is HS band day. Lots of HS bands, the ISU band will come down, and at least a decent contingent of red. With roughly 16-17k season tickets now, whether a large chunk aren’t used or not, hopefully it will top 25k. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if the fans in red are a bit more energized than the NU crowd.
Just my $.02 from the Redbird point of view.
I have a feeling it will be a close and high scoring first half and with some stops in the second half Northwestern will get a couple scores ahead and lead going away. I will be on hand to watch the game and excited for my first experience at Ryan Field.
Unfortunately, the path of tropical depression Hermine is still probably on track to make Saturday a very wet day in Chicago according to the NOAA. But a lot can change between now and then.
Telander doesn’t seem like a disgruntled ‘Cat as much as a disillusioned former college football player. He can’t stand the hypocrisy in the game so doesn’t cover the sport (generally) out of principle, which I fully understand. Even though I enjoy watching college football, I don’t pretend that there isn’t massive hypocrisy & greed in college football.
Some time ago, I did need to buy a good house for my firm but I didn’t have enough cash and couldn’t buy something. Thank goodness my fellow proposed to try to get the credit loans at creditors. Thence, I acted so and was satisfied with my short term loan.