Purdue, 20, Northwestern, 17

In this game (and against teams that we are actually better than), we need to put the opponent away. Demos had a blocked and a missed FG from distance, which sucks, but that shouldn’t be what this game swings on. The offensive play calling was just that, offensive. You can see on the last drive, when we play the NU style spread (lots of short passes), the run game opens a bit and provides opportunities down the field b/c the opposing D is watching the 4-6 yard pass closely.

I feel bad for Demos b/c he was put in a shitty situation that the coaches didn’t need to put him in, all to continue to try to prove that we are a running team.

Sure he is a good person, big deal. We want to win and this was horrible. He needs to be replaced. Hold people accountable Fitz, stop clapping your hands. That is typical old NU loser talk.

There is one thing that Stefan Demos is attending NU to do, and that is to kick a football accurately. This season, he hasn’t done that. It IS his fault when kicks get blocked. He needs to elevate more. Every one of his kicks is low low low, even on kickoffs. When it comes down to it, he missed two kicks he’s made in the past and left 6 points on the field. We would’ve won 23 to 20 if he makes those kicks. He needs to take blame, and there’s no use being an apologist for him.

That being said, another part of the blame goes on Fitz. He is the special teams coach. The special teams failed tonight. #($ING 3!!!! dropped kickoffs or punts. Unacceptable. Offsides on a #U%ING kickoff. Pathetic. Consistently poor kick returns. Suspect coverage at times. This tells me that Fitz, as great as he is, needs to hand the special teams to someone else.

Finally, the rest of this blame lies with Mick McCall. Since he’s been hired, he’s always been afraid of opening up the playbook. Last year vs. Eastern Michigan. This year vs. Minnesota and Purdue. We have a spread offense where we are good at throwing the ball like we run it. If I had my way, we would never have anyone line up in the backfield next to Persa. At least three times during this game I turned to my friend after 2 or 3 long-ish throws to Jeremy Ebert and said “This is what we should be doing all day.” But then I’d just swallow those words when we’d do the option to Schmidt on the outside. Twice in a row that play was called at one point! Three guesses what the result of the second one was.

Today was one of those games where I felt like I could make better play calls than McCall. I hate those because it just reminds me of how great we can be. Outback Bowl, where he called over 70 passes, and we put up over 500 yards through the air? WHY can’t we take a page out of that book every game? The very first option needs to be a pass, at least on every third down greater than a yard. Period.

At least now we’ve got two weeks for Fitz to instill the fear of God into them. #*($.

“We’re going to have to respond. We’re going to have to respond the same way we respond after we have success,”

I hope not, we haven’t responded after a win at all this year…

This game was exactly why. Three dropped kick returns, a blocked field goal and a missed field goal. Special teams are a major part of football, yet we don’t have a coach for them.

The coaching for NU was bad. Really bad. Coach Fitz is supposed to have smart, disciplined teams. However, they rack up costly penalties and McCall continues to call run plays even though we can’t run the ball.

Ugh. I hate this.

Rodger, your admonition at the outset of this forum is well placed. I have been harshly critical of our kicker in the past, but not this morning. A lot of poor performances all night long resulted in that last ditch effort to stay alive. #1 gave it his best shot, and yesterday it wasn’t good enough. Neither was the snap on the final kick good enough. Nor was the whole evening’s punt handling, run blocking…go back through the game and you’ll find plenty of shortcomings at virtually every position by our guys—-and certainly by their coaches.

Yesterday they gave one away. Good teams respond and regroup. TIme to get ready for Sparty.

Most of you are acting like pissed off Bama fans.

and i have high seats. i can see everything, including every call by the ref. im not normally one to blame the refs, but there was some questionable calls. now do i think the refs were the only reason we lost?, no. they did play a part though. like when they stopped play to let purdue’s players get on the field, what was that?

Just laying out the facts. His “body of work” this season is pathetic. I hold my breath on extra points. .. ON EXTRA POINTS!

Now I understand, at some point he WAS considered a decent kicker. But that position is seriously “mental”, and he has clearly lost that edge.

I’m suggesting a change there not because the alternative is going to be any better, but because the alternative might GET better with some experience. Demos is going nowhere other than into “life after football” at the end of this season. Time to start letting his replacement get reps. It probably won’t be any worse, and will help us in the long run.

was far too apparent. I would advocate for a special teams coach. You can’t have punts dropped. Was it something with the lights against a night sky for a change? That should’ve been practiced. Was it a matter of confusion that Williams would take a step to his right and half-rugby the first shank? That shouldn’t happen. We’re simply better than what we showed.

Rodger’s absolutely right – Demos doesn’t deserve all that blame, and yes, missing extra points is inexcusable. It painfully reminds me of my days growing up watching the Gophers, when you never knew if Jason Giannini would hit a 50-yarder to win the game, or two-hop a shanked PAT into the snapper’s rear end. But Purdue provided an example last night of what special teams should look like. On PATs, the ball should be kicked so high in the air, there’s no question. 40+ yard field goals are a different matter, but Demos has shown that he can do that over the last season. He’s capable of it. I firmly believe that recommitting to technique and special teams can give us back these games.

especially that stupid roughing the passer penalty that pretty much sewed up the game nicely for the Boilermakers. The holding penalty was a killer and the play calling just angers me. We really need to just start putting teams away. You let teams stay close, you’re going to get bit and that’s what happened. As for Demos, no excuses. He was a preseason All-Big Ten pick in a couple publications. He hasn’t kicked like it. From my view in the endzone, it just seems like he lets his mechanics get sloppy and it sends everything out of whack. (Disclaimer: I’m not a kicker, just watch a lot of football) He just gets lazy with his kicks sometimes and they go all over. Dating back to the Outback Bowl game though, it’s getting very hard to take Demos side on anything. I know you need to show him some respect because he’s a senior and he’s paid his dues, but at the same time you need to think about the W’s too.

Football Outsiders published a list of every NCAA FBS team’s Field Goal Value Per Attempt. Northwestern ranks 84th at -.30 points per attempt. Yeah for losing value thanks to field goals!

Link: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/fei-ratings/2010/fei-guaranteed-three-points