I know many will think I'm crazy but I went back and watched the Northwestern game twice to get a better idea of what was going on.
Overall despite TA throwing one horrible pass for a NWRN TD and a few bad other passes he actually played pretty well for the most part. I actually counted 11 dropped passes with only one of them being a bad throw on TA's part. Thus he should have been more like 35 for 48 instead of 24 for 48. In many cases he seems to throw better rolling out than just dropping back in the pocket. As I said above TA played rather well considering all of the drops along with being hurried or sacked 12 different times
The offensive line especially the right side (mainly right tackle) was simply awful and hard to watch. Overall NU ran the ball 24 times inside with varied success (I defined success as getting 4 yards or more or a key first down). Overall 11 out of the 24 plays were considered a success. Any play run to the right side (6 of them) got blown up except in once case. NU hardly ran the ball to the left side at all (only 5 times). However in 4 of those runs they got decent yardage. Thus I have no idea why they didn't try to run it more to the left side as the right side was a complete disaster (let's hope Gates can play this weekend). If they would have run to the left side more I imagine the running statistics would have looked much better.
Defensively outside of a few big running plays by NWRN's QB, which were both aided by 2 to 4 non called penalties (I will review this in another post which had a significant impact on the outcome), the defense played very well until 12 minutes left in the 4th Quarter. I'm at a loss what transpired defensively for the last 12 minutes as it seemed they just lost focus for whatever reason. In the 1st half NU hurried or sacked NWRN's QB "7" times but that dropped to only "3" times in the 2nd half. I know Collins got a stupid penalty in the end but if you watch closely he was getting egged on by somebody on NWRN's line. As Malik will learn you have to keep your cool no matter what is being done or said to you. Having played myself I know sometimes it's easy to lose your cool and do something stupid.
Some other observations were that the Special Teams were just awful at all levels except for Brown's Field Goals. This was probably the worst game for the Special Teams as a group. The Kick Return game is baffling as Stevenson doesn't appear to be the answer either. They way things are going they should just down it in the endzone and bring it out to the 25 every time. Finally I have listened to DB talk about a certain safety on the team and after watching the game closely I now know what he is talking about. I really think they should move him back to Linebacker as I think he would be more suited for that position.
Finally NU played well enough to win but in the end they made just enough mistakes to allow NWRN to pull it out. That's my thoughts good or bad and the next post will deal with the terrible officiating involving the two big runs by NWRN's QB which lead to 10 points.
Overall despite TA throwing one horrible pass for a NWRN TD and a few bad other passes he actually played pretty well for the most part. I actually counted 11 dropped passes with only one of them being a bad throw on TA's part. Thus he should have been more like 35 for 48 instead of 24 for 48. In many cases he seems to throw better rolling out than just dropping back in the pocket. As I said above TA played rather well considering all of the drops along with being hurried or sacked 12 different times
The offensive line especially the right side (mainly right tackle) was simply awful and hard to watch. Overall NU ran the ball 24 times inside with varied success (I defined success as getting 4 yards or more or a key first down). Overall 11 out of the 24 plays were considered a success. Any play run to the right side (6 of them) got blown up except in once case. NU hardly ran the ball to the left side at all (only 5 times). However in 4 of those runs they got decent yardage. Thus I have no idea why they didn't try to run it more to the left side as the right side was a complete disaster (let's hope Gates can play this weekend). If they would have run to the left side more I imagine the running statistics would have looked much better.
Defensively outside of a few big running plays by NWRN's QB, which were both aided by 2 to 4 non called penalties (I will review this in another post which had a significant impact on the outcome), the defense played very well until 12 minutes left in the 4th Quarter. I'm at a loss what transpired defensively for the last 12 minutes as it seemed they just lost focus for whatever reason. In the 1st half NU hurried or sacked NWRN's QB "7" times but that dropped to only "3" times in the 2nd half. I know Collins got a stupid penalty in the end but if you watch closely he was getting egged on by somebody on NWRN's line. As Malik will learn you have to keep your cool no matter what is being done or said to you. Having played myself I know sometimes it's easy to lose your cool and do something stupid.
Some other observations were that the Special Teams were just awful at all levels except for Brown's Field Goals. This was probably the worst game for the Special Teams as a group. The Kick Return game is baffling as Stevenson doesn't appear to be the answer either. They way things are going they should just down it in the endzone and bring it out to the 25 every time. Finally I have listened to DB talk about a certain safety on the team and after watching the game closely I now know what he is talking about. I really think they should move him back to Linebacker as I think he would be more suited for that position.
Finally NU played well enough to win but in the end they made just enough mistakes to allow NWRN to pull it out. That's my thoughts good or bad and the next post will deal with the terrible officiating involving the two big runs by NWRN's QB which lead to 10 points.
