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Express Opponent View: Northwestern

On3 imageby: Tom Dienhart11/17/22TomDienhart1

Northwestern is limping into West Lafayette, riding a nine-game losing skid after opening the season with a 31-28 win vs. Nebraska in Ireland. This, after the Wildcats closed last year with six losses in a row. So, Northwestern is 1-15 in its last 16 games.

It wasn’t that long ago when NU was going to the Big Ten title game in 2018 and 2020. But this program is now a shell of itself under 17th year coach Pat Fitzgerald, who may be forced to alter his staff after this season.

GoldandBlack.com spoke to Louie Vaccher of WildcatReport.com to learn more about the Wildcats in advance of their visit to West Lafayette on Saturday.

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GoldandBlack.com: What can we expect from the Northwestern offense?

Vaccher: Yeah, not a lot. I can tell you that. I was just looking up the numbers. They are now ranked 128th in scoring offense at 15.3 points a game. So, that’s not very good. They’re coming off of a three-point performance against Minnesota (31-3 loss). They’ve been under 300 yards of total offense the last three weeks (177, 285, 278).

On top of that, the starting quarterback, Brendan Sullivan, left the Minnesota game with an injury. And then Ryan Hilinski, who began the season as a starter and now is the backup, looked like he had a pretty serious leg injury. He went out. So, Northwestern actually played four quarterbacks on Saturday, which is never a good sign.

So, right now, I’m not expecting a whole lot from Northwestern, offensively. I mean, they’ve been really struggling for the past several weeks and I expect it to continue. They are really looking for something, whether it’s the running game, the passing game, something to hang their hat on. It just hasn’t happened for them all season.

GoldandBlack.com: What can Purdue expect from the NU defense?

Vaccher: Northwestern has played pretty well the last couple of weeks. Their problem most of the season has been big plays. But they’ve kind of cut that out the last couple of weeks. They’ve been a lot more solid, a lot more sound. But, you know, Minnesota cranked up that ground game and ran for over 300 yards (302). I think they had 64 yards passing; they didn’t have to throw the ball at all. They just controlled the clock. They had the ball for over 40 minutes and they just kind of pushed Northwestern around.

Northwestern is ranked in the 80s (82nd) in total defense (390.6 ypg) and scoring defense (83rd, 28.2 ppg). And, again, they have been victimized by big plays. But, lately, it’s been more of the running game (that has hurt NU.) It was kind of the same thing we saw last year where they got moved off the line of scrimmage and teams are able to control the clock and run the ball on them pretty effectively. I know that’s not Purdue’s game plan, but a lot of teams have been successful against Northwestern with that.

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GoldandBlack.com: How do you see this game unfolding?

Vaccher: I’m not very optimistic in terms of Northwestern’s performance. I just can’t see them scoring enough. I think the defense might be able to keep them in the game for a little while. And maybe if Purdue turns the ball over a couple of times, they’ll be able to hang in for a little bit.

But, in the end, I don’t think that offense is going to score many points and Purdue eventually will kind of wear them down. I think Purdue, especially, will be able to hit them with a big play or two. And the game will get away from them. So, I would expect it’ll be something around 28-7. I don’t think Northwestern will get more than a score two.

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