Northwestern vs. EMU, Volume Three: THA RECKONING

So, tomorrow is NU's second game of the year, and, it's against Eastern Michigan. You'd think the talent level of our opponent would increase after playing an FCS school like Towson, but these fellas are only marginally better. Of the 120 teams in the FBS, ESPN's got EMU looking like the 119th, after getting rocked by an equally futile Army team, and at the beginning of the year, the New York Times had them 113th, which was probably a little optimistic of them.

Suffice it to say, that vanilla stuff we found so delicious last week will probably make up most of our arsenal this week again. I'd like to see our playcalling be a little bit more out there - we weren't even blitzing last week - but still, relatively close to the vest. It might be a bummer that NU has such weak opponents to open the year, but on the positive side, the few weeks provide opportunities for us to get game reps in non-pressure situations that allow our inexperienced offensive starters to get some PT together, and we're making the best out of it. 

The injury report lists Jeravin Matthews and Sherrick McManis as "doubtful". I'm thinking these guys are probably not injured that badly, but, to be honest, why bother playing them and risking injury against an opponent like EMU? Justan Vaughn seems pretty talented, so it will be good to see him get a start, so the McManis injury doesn't really hurt us there. Matthews is somehow one of the more known entities out of our running backs crew, and what's more, I think he'll be useful more as a RB/WR hybrid, and his ability to play multiple positions and catch defenses off guard seems like the type of thing that will be more useful the less time he gets now. So that's that.

Last week I said the goal for the week was just to get in and get out, no injuries to starters. I'd say it's pretty much the same this week. I'd like to see our second-string playing in the second quarter, even if the game still is up for grabs. If it is, Kafka and company can come back in at halftime to put it out of reach, as I'm confident they're talented enough to do. But if it's a touchdown or less game, I'd like to see the second unit play, for better or for worse, just to see how they handle it. I'd like to see Dan Persa lead us on a scoring drive when the opposing defense is still in it to win it, and I'd like to see a big stop by like, I dunno, Purple Drank favorite defender Stone Pinckney to keep NU in the lead, a sort of baptism-by-fire sort of deal. That would be nice, and I'm convinced Fitz will bring in bench guys to play early regardless of the score.

Now, on to the gameplan. 

Offense: Again: we know Mike Kafka can run. However, he's sort of our starting quarterback, and I don't want to see him getting injured this early in the season. So if I were him, I'd set a reasonably attainable goal for tomorrow: don't get tackled. We have a sturdy o-line, so he shouldn't have to worry about sacks. If he runs the ball on a scramble, he should slide down, as he's been unwilling to do in the past because of his wheels, or end up out-of-bounds or in the end zone. And if he runs an option, pitch it, something he seemed a little bit scared of doing against Towson. Kafka did a great job of passing last week, but he still didn't stick around in the pocket long enough to suit my likings - I'd like to see him just chill out back there for once, just to show that he can.

Persa as noted, I hope gets some serious tick, more than just the two throws he had last week.

At running back, we've got some unsolved issues still after the first week. I'd like to see more of what we saw last week, which is pretty much just everybody getting their fair share of carries. I'd like to see if Jacob Schmidt could emerge as a third-down back sort of carrier, and if Scott Concannon is worth anything. And I'd definitely like to see Jeravin Matthews stay on the sidelines, because he doesn't need to risk it. The running game should get a little bit more inventive this week - last week, we shied away from runs outside the tackles and options for pretty much the entire game once it got out of hand - and that was no fun. I'd still like to see the running game get the bulk of the playcalls, but, I'd like these playcalls to be more like the ones we'd see in a Big Ten game. Not just dashes up the gut, although we do have to keep those in the offense.

I liked the spread of the ball to various WR's last week, and expect the same. Nobody did anything spectacular except Brewer, and, with what will hopefully be another relatively small passing sample size, it would be unlikely to expect anyone besides Brewer to rack up a big game. I know this week will probably rightly be a vanilla attack, but, I'm dying to see Brewer pull a Peterman-esque end-around pass. I know it can work for another touchdown this year if people aren't expecting it, so, maybe it can wait a few weeks, but I'm anxious. 

Defense: As noted, this Schmitt fella is a bit of a gunslinger, even with the non-hurl-it-80-times-a-game offense EMU has this year. I want our secondary to get their grown man on and play like they should've last week. I foresee three picks, and that's being conservative.

Corey Wootton was barely a factor last week, and this week, he and Vince Browne go up against an o-line that gave up 6 sacks for a loss of over 50 yards last week. LTP has said this all week, but these two also have to get their grown men on, and I want to see Corey legitimately play this week whereas last week he just got a few series and called it a day. This year, opposing o-lines will be hurling as much of their manpower as they can at him, and if he can't overcome that this week against EMU, he won't be able to overcome it in the Big Ten season. Not to mention that Browne should be absolutely teeing off against minimal opposition on the other side. 

People I'm watching:

Corey Wootton. Corey was my person to watch last week, and he barely set foot on the field, so, I haven't taken my gaze off of him yet.

Arby Fields: is he really our best running back? He'll have the opportunity to prove he is this week, and I think he will.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: this is a classic battle of fearsome land predator vs. fearsome air predator. As is generally the case in this type of battle, it's a mismatch: the cat is unable to attack the eagle unless the eagle comes to him first, therefore, the eagle is perennially on offense. Game, EMU. (Wildcat mascot death fight record: 0-2.)

Prediction:

Eastern Michigan, 7, Northwestern 45. Fitz will be less relenting than he was last week against Towson, but the opponent will be slightly better, so I foresee roughly the same score. The only difference is that I expect our defense to be a little bit more on top of themsleves after the coaching staff got surprisingly mad at them for allowing two touchdowns against Towson. I expect the Eagles to flukily push one across on a deep pass that manages to go unintercepted, but generally, this will be a romp for NU.

We're 1-0, and we're trying to go... 1-0 again. Is it okay that I find coach-speak fun to buy into sometimes?

Go Cats, yo. 

1-0: the Recap

So I watched the game, took a long, long walk, just to make sure I wasn't sitting in my room from sunrise to sunset on pretty much the nicest day in Manhattan history, and now I feel ready to set down my thoughts on that game. 

First off, I said that there was pretty much no way this Towson game could turn out well - even if we did well, there'd be the thought in our head that "oh, it was only Towson." Well, I was wrong. That game went about as well as it possibly could've with only a few exceptions: the worst part of the game was a rather nasty looking injury to Jeravin Matthews, and our defense fell asleep on two drives. But otherwise, I thought we managed to look great even with the context that we were playing against a rather scrubby team. Our first team was clearly overwhelming, then, our second and third teams proved that they were both better than Towson's starters.

Even with a gameplan conservative enough to make Karl Rove tingly, the Wildcats ran rampant. There were large stretches of the game where it was clear that we'd be running the ball right up the middle on every play, and we were still regularly converting first downs. We ran the ball 23 times on first down, and passed it six times. We ran the ball 21 times on second down, and only passed it six times. And yet, even with that run-heavy attack, we still moved the ball down the field pretty easily. 

The fact that the first four possessions of the game resulted in four punts and four TD's makes me feel pretty confident about this team. After that opening stretch, our whole team seemed to loosen up and take the whole process a little bit easier, resulting in the output slowing a little bit, but, there's no way you could really be angry at that happening. The score could've easily been more lopsided than 47-14, but neither Fitz nor I would have actually liked to have seen that happen, because that first quarter was all the affirmation we needed that we were way, way better than the other team. There's no better way of saying "I'm not trying to score" than making Mark Woodsum run on five consecutive downs. 

Oh, and experience is clearly overrated: five guys caught, ran or threw for their first touchdowns today.

 So let's break this down by unit.

Throwing it: In my prediction, I called for Mike Kafka to just chill out and throw the ball. And sure enough, he did, and sure enough, he looked absolutely fantastic. I don't recall any poor throws, and he went 15-20 on a variety of short passes. He still could use a little bit more confidence in his ability to throw out of the pocket, but still, he looked great. In future, I'd like to see him throw a bit more, but this was a great tune-up, and allowed us to fully figure out our RB situation. He also looked good on the ground.

Dan Persa decided to go with the thunder-and-lightning approach to being quarterback, throwing two passes, one for a 72-yard TD and the other for a telegraphed pick into what looked like a crowd of three defenders and one receiver. I like his game though - he's going to be a good quarterback when it's his turn to start, although that could be my obsession with running QB's talking for me. He should get a few more reps against EMU, and then he should ride pine for the rest of the season.

Joe Mauro, it turns out, is a real human being, which is good to see, as his existence was previously questionable. 

Running: I called for a bunch of RB's to run the ball straight up the gut in my prediction, and because Fitz must've read that and tried to make me look as smart as possible, he complied. Stephen Simmons, Arby Fields, Jeravin Matthews, Jacob Schmidt, Scott Concannon, and Mark Woodsum all got time taking handoffs and going in between the tackles with them. By far the most impressive was Fields, who, a week before new student week, is already having a pretty beast freshman year. If I had to rank the crew, I'd go Fields, Simmons, Matthews, Concannon, and Schmidt. That being said, they all looked really good. It was cool to see Schmidt and Concannon, guys who, like Joe Mauro, hadn't completely convinced me of their existence as actual people, get into the end zone, and I wouldn't feel uncomfortable with them taking snaps in Big Ten games after seeing each of them break out decent gains against the Towson d. Simmons didn't have any signature plays, but he's definitely our most consistent back at this point, and should continue starting unless Fields really cranks up the heat.

Catching: We have a number one wide receiver, and his name is Andrew Brewer. Brew has proven himself as a deep ball threat since spring ball, and the culmination of that was a 72-yard streak past the Towson d. I really love his size and speed (pause) and think he'll be a true threat in Big Ten season.

Our other wide receivers proved to me that they could catch the ball when nobody was near them pretty well, which is good. The only drop I remember belonged to Josh Rooks and he was hit pretty heavily. Demetrius Fields kept confusing me when the announcer said "Fields with the catch", and for those of us looking for more superback action, Drake Dunsmore looks like he'll really be able to contribute from that position.

Also, after a long time, I finally learned how to pronounce "Markshausen." I assumed there was a "shhhh" in the middle, but apparently it's like "Mark's house in" which was news to me.

O-line: Solid. Although I still think Ward shoulda redshirted, but I guess it sends a good message to any four star recruits out there looking to come to NU but going somewhere else so they could play as freshmen.

D: Not a great game for the d. First off, the two touchdowns really shouldn't have happened, and, surprisingly, the Tigers moved the ball relatively well through the air for a team with three freshmen quarterbacks going up against an imposing secondary. However, for now, I'm going to look back the two touchdowns, and celebrate what was an absolute lockdown performance in the first quarter. This performance might have resulted in a loss if we were playing against some good team, but, luckily, it wasn't, so, we can let it go: all told, they did pretty well. The secondary wasn't great, though, and we've read too much about that unit for them not to be, so, hopefully they improve.

I'm really confident in the linebacking corps of Davie, Williams, and Johnson, by the way. Those guys are good.

Where was Corey Wootton? I barely noticed him. I was expecting to see him record somewhere near a dozen sacks after last season and after reading about how bad Towson was, but, instead, he didn't even record a tackle, and I don't really even remember seeing him that much on the field. 

Our second unit gave hope for the future: that Quentin Williams pick was fun to see, and my boy Stone Pinckney recorded two tackles. Long story short, when they were on the field, the younguns looked great.

Kickin it: Stefan Demos looked good as a kicker and punter, but I've decided that to keep the poor kid's leg ligaments from turnin to puree by week 9, I think Steve Flaherty should take over kickoff duties. And I'm not saying that just cuz he's a journalism kid: Demos had seven kickoffs, no touchbacks, Flaherty had one, and one. Ball don't lie. That way, we divvy up Demos' heaping of kicking duties, and still manage not to dirty wonderchild Jeff Budzien's redshirt. 

So, a huge offensive day, but it only makes one W. Admittedly, it was really, really, really, really depressing to watch - I almost cried when Towson snapped it out of the back of the end zone, and the crowd was really pathetic - but it's always good to see a W. We dodged the karma gods of college football with all the Mauro-Woodsum handoffs, and now, we can move on. On to Eastern Michigan.

It's What You've All Been Waitin For, Ain't It: Week One.

So tomorrow, we play Towson. The word surrounding our gameplan this week is likely to be "vanilla", and that's a great thing.

Last year's starting skill position players on offense had about three of game reps to gel before last year's Big Ten schedule. These guys have three weeks. Luckily, those three weeks contain three relatively easy games. NU's players are good enough to win this on talent alone, and won't need fancy playcalling, so look for that vanilla stuff to just help them get into rhythm and get comfortable with each other.

You can sort of sense this coming from the way NU handled last year's Syracuse game. In the first game of coaches McCall and Hankwitz, the playcalling was pretty bland, and in the second quarter, when the game was still relatively up for grabs, we saw Mike Kafka come into the game. However, since the game was still losable, Bachér and fam came back in until the game was safely out of reach, when subs started to come in in droves.

Next week, against Duke, the playcalling was a little bit more bold. One drive featured direct snaps to Tyrell Sutton and an end-around pass to CJ Bachér. So, the future weeks are for experimenting. 

This week is just for going in, playing the starters for 20 minutes, and getting back out.

Predictions:

Offense: I don't want to see Mike Kafka running around. Judging from the way he merked Minnesota last year, Kafka is faster and most likely stronger than a lot of guys playing on the Towson defense. If he gets a head start towards the line of scrimmage on a bootleg, he'd probably be past the Towson secondary faster than Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson.

But we don't need that. What we do need is a Mike Kafka that can consistently complete short passes to his receiving corps, and a Mike Kafka that doesn't have a concussion or some other injury. I want to see him passing out of the pocket and getting on the same page as his receivers. (Yeah, I know he's been passing to these guys on the second unit in practice for years, but, he's never played in a game with them . So he needs to get on the same page.)

Towson has a comically weak running defense, one I should've highlighted a few days ago in my post about their football team, but, here will suffice: the Tigers gave up 231 rushing yards per game. TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-ONE. Opponents averaged 5.57 yards per carry. Highlights include Navy's 558 yards on the ground (they only threw four times), led by Shun White's  348 yards rushing, Coastal Carolina's 302 yards on the ground, and James Madison's 440 yards rushing. 

Luckily, NU has an unproven running corps that we need to see getting some action. I want Simmons, Fields, and Matthews each to get a large amount of carries. This is still an open competition, and I want to see these guys compete. If our running game racks up a lot of yards straight up the middle against Towson's swiss cheese run defense, it will go a long way towards selling our run game so that we can do more interesting things with our play calling. Let's keep it a little bit run heavy after Kafka completes a few out of the pocket.

Defense: This unit is too good for Towson. This team gave up six sacks in their spring game against a considerably less talented defense in, well, their own defense. If they do get throws off, our secondary is waiting to pounce. They'll quickly learn that passing will not work against our defense.

Stopping the run up the middle could be the weakest part of this year's defense, and, luckily, Towson's offense is extremely run-heavy, so it will be a good opportunity for our DT's to get some reps and step up and make some stops.

People I'm watching: Dan Persa. He should get heavy tick in the second half, so let's see if he can play.

Our whole running back platoon: as noted. These guys, as noted, should rotate in and out the whole game. I want to see everybody on the depth chart get in there and show whether or not they can compete or not. If Jacob Schmidt or Scott Concannon comes out having the best game, fine maybe he deserves more time. If Arby Fields has the best game, hey, maybe he should be starting come Big Ten season.

Corey Wootton. Corey's healed. I wanna see some maulings.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Tigers and Wildcats are pretty similar in name, but whiel you know that the Tiger is a vicious killing machine, a wildcat is a really vague term. It could be anything from a puma to a stray cat that's spent a few years on the streets. Therefore, I have to pick the Towson Tiger. Unless you're dealing with one of those Siegfried and Roy tigers, in which case, Wildcats.

Prediction:

 

Towson, 6, NU, 44. That's five touchdowns and three field goals. Fitz won't run up the score, but with a weak defense as bad as this, I expect even running up the gut in the fourth quarter to net a TD or two. I do expect Towson to get on the board, just based on us not being ready yet. 

Wait's over, folks. Go Cats, yo.

One Less Day til Football Season, Post 1: Quarterback

As previously noted, it was a truly terrible call on my part starting a blog in mid-June, the exact dead point of any college's sports calendar, but I guess you could think about it as me having a few months to tune up, or something. Whatever. 

Anyway, I'll be dropping fire on weekdays I don't have other posts planned in the form of these posts previewing how our football team looks at various positions. (That should eat up, like, two weeks.) Today, we take a look at quarterback.

Days Left til Football: 72 (Mad props to Nusports.com for doing the math!)

One Less Day Til Football Season, Post 1: Quarterback. 

 Mike Kafka (13) becomes the first human to actually use Madden's "juke stick" function in a real life situation, as he did for the entirety of a Minnesota-Northwestern football game.

Who played last year: CJ Bachér. Familiar, yes? CJ, the quarterback for three relatively successful seasons, was a generally solid QB. Pretty good, but nothing to write home about. What I'm trying to say is that CJ wasn't really a bad QB, but the one common thing linking most male Northwestern students was the ability to jokingly crap on CJ Bachér's throwing ability. It made for a great party ice-breaker. Anyway, CJ has moved on to be the star QB for my hometown franchise, the creatively named UFL New York, where he and star wideout Noriaki Kinoshita will combine what I believe to be the first 3/4 asian battery in professional football history. (correct me if I'm wrong, japanese football scholars.) Anyway, it's sad to see the end of the Bachér era, especially for enthusiasts of the letter "é". He will be remembered by a simple Bachér memorial plaque on a bronzed Hundo barstool. (But seriously, folks: all kidding aside, CJ was a really dependable player and a beacon of consistency. He will be missed.)

Who's got next: Mike Kafka. You're also familiar. For a refresher, watch this. (By the way, best part of this blog so far for me: rewatching highlights of games we shouldn't have won but did.)

Mike is one of the best running quarterbacks... well, I've ever seen. His skill at eluding people in the open field is preposterous, better than the stuff you see from some of guys who only run,  and when he's got room ahead of him, he's got wide reciever speed. People fear that he can't throw, but that throw to Ebert was just perfect. I've watched Kafka play in games and in spring practices (for my article in here - mine's the one on the centerfold on the left side where the words meander around Andrew Brewer's crotch) and from a technical point of view, he's got the tools to be a good passer. I've seen him put touch throws over the top to guys on flies and fades three times I can think of. Meanwhile, the only pick I saw him throw in three practices and the spring game was a dump pass that bounced off of Steph Simmons' hands into those of a waiting defender. I'm sure he threw more, but from what I saw, he's become a better decision maker. People will remember his hideous throw for a pick 6 into the flat to a waiting Minnesota DB, but his picks aren't really bad throws in that they're poorly thrown, they're just stupid throws. He should've seen that guy waiting to pounce on that quick pass. In spring camp, he wasn't even making those throws. So here's my thesis on Kafka: he's got the tools. He can do anything we ask of him. He might not actually be able to put them all together for 60 minutes: even against Minnesota, he dug NU a major hole with two silly picks. Kafka has tremendous potential - let's hope he comes through. At the very least, he'll be fun to watch. My only fear is in the way we call plays for him - last year, after the "Oh sh*t" game at Minnesota, the coaching staff wanted to keep playing him even after CJ came back, but absolutely would not let the guy throw the ball. The key to any success from Kafka is going to be his ability to mix it up. As a runner, he needs open space, like, three or four yards worth. And designed draws won't give him that open space. What will are a few pass plays, establishing his arm, and then either one of those designed draws or a good ol pass play he decides to bust looses on, after all, that's how he got most of his yards in that game. But what won't work is the way we utilized him late last year, where he'd come in, run two draws and an option and then ride pine the rest of the way.

Is that an improvement? The jury's definitely still out. I'm not sure Mike Kafka will be a better QB than CJ, as impressive as I find his skill set.  If the public eye is any indicator, while CJ was the occasional butt of those ice-breaking jokes I mentioned earlier, people talk about Kafka in hushed tones. (You could probably tell by the hushed tones that previous paragraph was written in.) For a dude who played two games, lost one of them, and needed a Minnesota missed chip shot field goal and a dramatic finish to bail out him throwing an inexcusable pick six, people talk about Kafka like he's an NU football messiah. Everybody, including me has a harebrained scheme about how best to use him. Mine is the essay-length space above me, some people think he should be a wide out, running back, people say he shouldn't be allowed to throw, everything under the sun. He's achieved cult hero status at Northwestern, and while CJ was by all respects a good QB, he never got the love that Kafka got immediately after that Minnesota game, and to the current day. I've got my fingers crossed that he'll prove he deserves it.

Who else we got? Well, there's redshirt sophomore Dan Persa, whose defining characteristic so far is his willingness to play special teams, even returning a squibbed kickoff last season, much to the confusion of the announcing crew and the delight of coach Fitz, who loves his Fitzian desire to randomly throw his body at other people and do whatever it takes and do things that are easily defined in coachspeak such as "grit", "determination", "hustle", and "flow". His days as a special teamer, however, are over, he's now our backup. He performed satisfactorily in spring games and practices, completing pretty much every pass he threw in the spring game if I remember correctly, although almost all of them were dinky little things nobody cared about.

There's junior Joe Mauro, who may or may not actually exist.  His player profile says that the one person in all history he would like to dine with is Dirk Nowitzki, which sets off all sorts of alarms in my head, because Dirk is probably not in the top 150 current professional basketball players I'd like to eat dinner with. He is famous to me personally for getting into a fight in practice in my NCAA Football dynasty, getting suspended for three games, then getting into another fight in practice the week after he was allowed to come back, getting suspended for another three games. If my Playstation 2 is to be believed, QB # 14 needs some serious moral conditioning. 

There's new recruit Evan Watkins, who, according to those people who pay attention to high schoolers, is good at quarterback, which is swell for all the people hanging around Northwestern after I graduate. (Unless I take a redshirt year for journalism, which doesn't exist yet.) Watkins is tall for an NU quarterback at 6-6, and is the heir to CJ Bachér's number, meaning he will presumably be the only mortal allowed to sit in the aforementioned Bachér stool at Hundo. (Metaphorically. Not in an underaged drinking way.)

To end, I have a bit of a sad note about the bottom of our quarterback depth chart. During the practices I attended for my spring article, I noticed all the quarterbacks pretty easily. (They had purple jerseys.) Every time I went, one boy in a purple jersey didn't get to play with all the other boys in purple jerseys. He played the dummy quarterback in the defensive line drill.He yelled hike, pretended to hand the ball off, or, sometimes handed the ball off, and then stood around for a few seconds, then repeated. Every other player in the drill was a lineman, and they would recruit some linebackers to come and put on red pinneys and play pretend running back, and they would run pretend plays. I always wondered why they needed a real quarterback to do a job which a linebacker in a pinney, a lineman in a pinney, a coach, a sports reporter, or, quite frankly, anybody with arms could have done. (Legs: optional.) I became quickly aware of this quarterbacks plight, and looked him up in my media guide. His name was Harrison Scott, #16. He threw for 5,700 yards in high school, was an all-state quarterback in his class, and, yet, somehow ended up as a walk-on at Northwestern, playing with all the defensive guys in a drill where he wasn't really allowed to throw or do quarterback things. I thought to myself: this quarterback deserves better. What harm could letting him throw occaisonally possibly do? When I wrote this article, I went looking for Harrison on the roster page, but he wasn't there. Only the other four quarterbacks were listed. Maybe he transferred to someplace he could play. Maybe he gave up on football to pursue his academics. Maybe Joe Mauro kicked him into a bottomless pit, 300 style. All I know is that it appears Harrison is no longer a member of the Wildcats football team. 

The Purple Drank is sure he is in a better place, where he can participate in non-contact passing drills from dawn til dusk. You'll be missed. 

Meanwhile, it's a good thing the Daily has editors, because otherwise, every article I wrote would be, like, this long. 

Also, as you might have noticed, I'm overly enthusiastic about labels. And somehow, every post I've made so far has a different font, which is disconcerting, because I haven't tried to change them.