Northwestern, 21, Penn State, post-game thread
by Rodger Sherman on Nov 6, 2010 5:59 PM CDT
in Northwestern Wildcats Football
Email
PrintIt's either amazing comebacks or what happened today.
Vent.
32 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
umm that was disappointing
what else is there to say right now?
by Brad Silverman on Nov 6, 2010 6:09 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs
Kind of at a loss for words
it was more horrible than I could have imagined.
Off Tackle Empire - Ruling on the Big Ten since 2008.
I've said it before and I'll say it again......
This team does not know how to put a game away. All three losses had us leading at some point in the game. And Demos, missing a 28-yarder. You can’t hang this loss on him, but really, missing a 28 yarder!
The defense melted down the second half and made Penn State look unstoppable. As soon as PSU tied the game in the 3rd quarter, I know it wasn’t going to be a good outcome.
Love my cats but this team has a Jekyll & Hyde personality.
Last year’s team had a lot more moxey!
All 3 losses?
Try 9 losses since 2008…..the Cats have had a 2nd half lead or tie in 25 consecutive games dating back to 2008 (last time we trailed an entire second half was OSU in 2008).
Greenstein is right — Dan Persa? Michael Jordan in the 1980s — doing it himself without much help…
Perfect storm.
As soon as PSU had scored that TD to close out the half, I got uneasy. Their running game was starting to show signs of being a wrecking crew. We were better off if he stuck with Bolden, but to his credit JoePa went with the hothand.
I have a hard time thinking that the ‘Cats went into a “shell.” Once it’s 21-14, it’s practically an even game again — and then with the bad field position and momentum taking a hard right turn, PSU’s more athletic lines were ready to roll.
Now if we go into the half at 24-0, and lose the game, it’s different. PSU were the favored team, and they righted the ship.
We didn’t help ourselves with the 3 and outs. And if Trumpy catches that ball, I think we find a way to get it to OT and then it’s a coinflip.
I don’t know — it was unfortunate all around. But today I really saw the talent differential hit us.
www.massivecreativity.com
I guess we'll agree to disagree.......
The purpose of each game is to win. Penn State hasn’t been that sharp this season, and they ran up points last week on a very weak Michigan defense. NU has the talent to keep pace with Penn State, and just didn’t. We looked flat the second half and gave the game away.
Very disappointing to watch
I don’t know how we disagree. When did I say the purpose of each game is to lose?
We came in to this game the underdog for a reason. Yeah, Penn State hasn’t looked sharp all season — so what? They put it together in the second half. Our much maligned offensive line got its tail kicked. And our somewhat decent run defense was getting undressed by their lines and power duo even starting in the first half.
We’ve got a young team, and they’re in the heart of 100K going right at them. I have no idea what that’s like. But, obviously our guys got rattled. I don’t know how you simulate that in practice.
Either way, we lost this game in all areas in the second half. I think we certainly agree that its disappointing to watch.
www.massivecreativity.com
Talent differential?
Where was it the first 29 minutes?
Transitive Rankings: It's not who you beat, it's who they beat. Post Week 9: Big Ten and all FBS
Reality has a little-known Northwestern bias
NU prez knows how to get PUMPED
PSU with Bolden at the helm was lost. Dude couldn’t pick up a safety blitz or hit any passes. That’s pretty much why PSU has been iffy for the first half of the season — kid isn’t ready.
Our offense has always been pretty good. Our ability to run persa in the first half gave allowed our OL to be aggressive. However, once we started going to the pass, our OL didn’t seem to have enough time. You could put “predictable playcalling” as a reason for this — maybe if we went long on first down, that might’ve given Persa a window to throw. But if you don’t hit it, then you’re looking at 2nd and long. I’ve always thought our offense’s ability to get to 3rd and manageable was what made it go — perhaps that’s also our achilles heel. Same thing with that final drive before the half. Perhaps its fair to call out Hank — “why aren’t you blitzing McGloin instead of giving him time/space”?
We should’ve been up 24-0 at half. Then it’s a totally different game at that point, as the Nits would’ve had to abandon the run (though it was working pretty well, I’d think that conventional wisdom would’ve suggested they’d have to up the urgency) which would’ve allowed us to tee off on the pass rush. Ugh.
www.massivecreativity.com
venting time.
our secondary has no idea the covering teniques almost as abd as i dont know grammar. Most of the time all they need to do is turn around and jump, but yet fail to complete this task.
Persa literally decided that today he would be the offense. He could of done no more than what he did.
Our line slowly got worse as the game went on.
I think Fitz needs to take some of this on himelf. He failed to realise that Penn State would see what they were doing on Offense and Defense and adjust accordningly. So he didnt change what he did. Fitz has a god future as NU coach, but i think that NU needs to hire someone with experience to give him some help. An experienced assistant head coach would do wonders.
On the bright side we are still 6-3 witch is better then i expected going into week 10.
Go Cats?
Devastating.
What else can be said about this game that hasn’t already be said about Afghanistan…no matter how hard we try to spin it, there’s very little positive to take from this. Let’s hope the next one doesn’t hurt as bad.
buck nasty
funny what you said about my coat. its made from your mother’s pubic hairs.
by Rodger Sherman on Nov 6, 2010 7:39 PM CDT up reply actions
surprisingly
I’m not that pissed off right now. Once it was 21-14 I resigned myself to the final outcome. Agree with macarthur’s sentiments that this was mostly a matter of being out-talented. There were certainly plenty of mistakes, but I’m not prepared to just throw the coaching staff under the bus. I hear all this talk about “they didn’t make adjustments”, but I don’t really know what the adjustments should have been. When your offensive line can’t protect the QB, and your front 7 is getting steamrolled, there’s not much a coaching staff can do other than recruit better talent (which is a big facfor here, recruiting does need to improve a lot).
still not buying they were "out-talented"
they just didn’t play well today.
agreed
you don’t jump out to a 21-0 lead by having less talent than the other team
PSU realized what they were doing wasn’t working and made adjustments, we did not
so what adjustments should have been made?
bring in Luis Castillo and Barry Cofield from the NFL to control the line of scrimmage? bring back Jason Wright or Tyrell Sutton to catch passes out of the backfield?
I feel like I was watching a different game than everyone else. The defense let up almost 300 yards rushing when you take out sacks. Penn State was running the ball very effectively the whole game. They only stalled in the first half because of poor QB play, which was fixed when they made the QB change. I mean seriously, wtf do you want the coaching staff to do about that? You’re going against the all-time leading rusher in PSU history, plus a super talented true freshman back. And both guys had gaping holes to run through. Combine that with injuries in the secondary, and I have a very very hard time blaming the coaching staff for the defense’s performance.
Agreed
Excellent post, Loretta8.
I have a feeling we’re watching the 2007 Wildcats here — defense is young but has problems stopping people, offense clicks but we’re suffering in the running game (Sutton was injured much of that year), and we’re just not finishing.
What happened? Fitz made necessary changes on the coaching staff (canning Colby and hiring Hankwitz most notably), but mainly he stayed the course and let the players improve. The result? 9-4 season in 2008, 8-5 in 2009.
I have all the confidence in the world that Fitz will do what he needs to do, and our young men will improve. 2011 is gonna be a special year.
the one caveat to this
is the drive by PSU to end the first half. that shouldn’t have happened, the 2 minute defense can be a whole lot better than that, even with injuries.
I'm not here to rub salt in any wounds
but it seems like 2010 Northwestern Football is about 1.5 quarters of 95-96 Northwestern Football followed by 2.5 quarters of 1980s Northwestern Football. Nothing but a personal opinion based on the few Northwestern games I’ve seen this year (PSU, MSU, Indiana).
A talent gap between NW and PSU? No. A depth gap? Maybe. This will correct itself in the future; Fitz is getting better recruits all the time, and that’s really the only way to fix it on a consistent basis.
As consistently better as NW is getting year after year (seriously, this was supposed to be a rebuilding year, and Northwestern is 6-3 and darned close to 8-1 or 9-0), I’m terrified for how good this team will be 4-5 years from now if Fitz stays where he is.
Best of luck in the rest of your games, especially teams in front of PSU in the Big Ten standings, both of which are very winnable for this team.
I've got the brains. You've got the looks. Let's make lots of money.
thanks for stopping by
beat Ohio State next week plz, k thx
“Depth gap” is much more accurate than “talent gap”. Seeing Jones, Lawrence and Mark coming down the pike is comfort in terms of that position. I imagine (and am hoping) that DL and OL has a different kind of talent development process since players need to fill out and learn technique.
www.massivecreativity.com
I'm not really buying
the talent gap or depth gap arguments. Penn State is a team that struggled to beat Temple at home, that got absolutely buried in front of its own fans by the same Illinois team that just gave up 67 points. Penn State doesn’t suck, but by historical standards this is not a very good Nittany Lion team.
The Cats quit yesterday, and should be thoroughly shamed.
I can't buy...
…that our team “quit.” Our OL and DL may have been gassed, or overwhelmed in the face of a 100K mob, or even perhaps housed by a team inspired to get their venerable coach 400 wins.
From my experience, Fitz-coached teams have played to the final whistle. I have a hard time “shaming” this team.
www.massivecreativity.com
Penn State will win one more game
Against Indiana. Probably. They really aren’t that good.
I’ve seen enough bad football in my time (I attended NU from 81-85) to recognize when the team is overmatched. Yesterday was not it. Rather, this was a team that packed it in once it faced the first sign of adversity. It’s not the first time it’s happened this year either.
Can it be fixed? Maybe. It’s not gonna be easy with Iowa coming to town next week.
you are entitled to your opinion.......
But the Purdue and Penn State losses are tough to stomach. Complete meltdowns, and there were not outmatched. They just fell apart in both games. In my many years of following the cats, these are two of the most disappointing, and they come just a few weeks apart.
I’m not shaming the team, but being realistic. The fell apart, plain and simple. Same holds true for Michigan State, but I can accept the loss to Sparty much more than I can the losses to Purdue and Penn State.
Call me a spoiled freshman, but...
I can’t get with this whole “getting better” thing. We should be good, and we should be good now. Somebody from the 80s is probably yelling at their computer for me not being thankful that this team is bowl eligible for the fourth straight year. After driving nine hours to watch this crap show, I can’t take that optimistic attitude. I can’t. I have no more faith in this team. I honestly doubt if this team will ever record another defensive stop. Ever.
For most of the time since I got in, I’ve been arguing that this team deserves way more respect than it gets. I can’t do that anymore, because this team is god-awful. We have no defense (Silas Redd averaged 11.9 yards a carry. WHO THE FUCK IS SILAS REDD?). We have no offensive line. None. Now i understand why we have no respect. There’s no tradition (See: last bowl win in 1949) and our most recognizable player is Otto Graham.
So yeah, I"m pissed. I’m sure I’ll fell better, but I’m pretty ashamed of this team right now. Yesterday was pitiful. This program and this athletic department has a looooong way to go, and I don’t know if they’ll ever get there.
I'm a fairly recent graduate and I'm still thankful for bowl eligibility 4 years in a row.
That said, I’m still pretty disappointed. The weirdest part to me is that last year, they were so bad early in games and so good later on, while this year it’s the exact opposite. If you take the first halves from this year and and the second halves from last year, I’m pretty sure the team is undefeated.
This probably is some sort of logical fallacy, but I keep telling myself that the team was 5-4 at this point last year.
Transitive Rankings: It's not who you beat, it's who they beat. Post Week 9: Big Ten and all FBS
Reality has a little-known Northwestern bias
NU prez knows how to get PUMPED
but this team isn't last year's
Last year’s team had a lot more heart, soul and fighting spirit. The cleaned the table last year after a loss to Penn State. They had a lot of fight and the ability to come up with big plays late in the game to preserve a close win. This team doesn’t have that. I love my cats, but I’m being realistic
last years team thru 9 games
looked a hell of a lot worse than this team has so far.
And....
….last year’s team was 5-4 after letting Penn State score 24 unanswered points in the 2nd half — at home in Ryan Field. We had losses to Syracuse, MSU, and Minnesota, and had barely squeaked by EMU. We needed tons of turnovers to beat Purdue, and had to stage the largest comeback in team history to beat Indiana. And in 2009, we were facing games against an undefeated Iowa team ranked #4 in the nation, at Illinois, and against a Wisconsin team that ended up being 8-2 when it visited us with its only losses to OSU and Iowa — two BCS bowl-winning teams.
In other words, we were DEMONSTRABLY worse off last year at EXACTLY this point.
I just posted this in a Fanpost, but we are demonstrably better in every facet almost this year than last year — record-wise, scoring offense, QB play, running game, scoring defense…..
I think your view of last year’s “heart, soul and fighting spirit” have a LOT more to do with what you saw from that team as it went 3-0 against Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin….which, coincidentally, are the next 3 teams we play.
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think this team has the same fight.....
This team is young and loses its concentration. The Syracuse loss shouldn’t have happened, but it was a close game to the end; MSU we just got beat, and Minnesota was a loss that never should have happened. But last year’s team didn’t blow leads and didn’t show the levels of inconsistency.
I’ll repeat, I HOPE I AM PROVEN WRONG….but I just don’t see this team doing the same thing this year.
Regardless, I’ll be cheering loudly for the Cats this Saturday.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
