Brendan Smith Memorial Picks, Week 3.

Normally, I do major preview posts on NU's games - not this week, it's been hectic, so, nah. Sorry about that. Without further ado, here are your Big Ten/NU picks.

11 AM: Eastern Michigan @ No. 25 Michigan.

Watching EMU lose by 30 to Michigan will be tough for NU fans. It's like watching your friend hook up with a girl you thought you had a chance with, except it's really not like that at all, because its a football game.

Pick: Michigan.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: I'm telling you, eagles have the tactical advantage against pretty any land mammal, except for, like bears, and elephants, and other stuff like that. They got wings and talons. Trust me on this one. EMU wins their second straight Big Ten game. Game, EMU. (Wolverine mascot death fight record: 1-2)

11 AM: No. 8 California @ Minnesota

I thought Air Force would give Minnesota a run for their money, and they did. And California could maim Air Force. This will be ugly, Minnesota's not much of a team despite their 2-0 record.

Pick: California. 

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Bear vs. Gopher is a major, major mismatch, and you probably didn't need me to tell you that. Game, California. (Golden Gopher mascot death fight record: 1-2)

11 AM: No. 5 Penn State @ Temple

I hope you guys don't like insightful analysis. Lou Holtz could pick this one. 

Pick: Penn State

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: I generally give the edge to winged creatures, but owls just don't have the same tenacity eagles do, and although they are predators, they normally kill mice. Unlike the mouse, humans don't kill lions by luring them to walk into glue traps, so you can tell the lion will be more difficult for owls to kill. Meanwhile, lions are lions. Game, Penn State. (Nittany Lion fight record: 3-0.)

11 AM: Wofford @ Wisconsin

I scanned Wofford's recent schedules for an embarrassing loss to put in this section, and sure enough, they lost 70-24 against Appalachian State last year, and, uhhh, yeah, they're good and all, but, um, 70 is a lot of points. Wisconsin will get the W. 

My guess as to what Wofford's mascot is, without looking: The eagle. Nah, yo, the Golden Eagle. 

What it actually is: The terrier. That doesn't give me much confidence with regards to their chances in a mascot death fight.

Pick: Wisconsin

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Badgers are surprisingly feisty, whereas terriers are adorable. Game, Wisconsin. (Badgers death fight record: 1-2)

11 AM: Northern Illinois @ Purdue

I really think Purdue is a team that you gotta watch out for. I thought they'd beat Oregon last week, and I don't think they'll be the tenth team in the conference like everybody's predicting. I mean, they're worse than NU, but, still, they'll do alright. 

Pick: Purdue.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: The Huskies beat the Badgers in week one, but they can't beat people. And Boilermakers are people. Game, Purdue. (Boilermakers mascot death fight record: 3-0)

11 AM: #11 Ohio State "@" Toledo, in Cleveland.

Nothing says "Toledo" quite like, uh, Cleveland, so, look for the hometown crowd to carry Toledo to a 56-20 loss. Toledo likes to give up lots of points, and Ohio State likes to score them.

Pick: Ohio State

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Rockets can fly to to the moon. Buckeyes are nuts. Game, Toledo. (Buckeye death fight record: 0-3)

2:30: Michigan State @ Notre Dame.

Yeah, bad loss for Michigan State last week. If they win that game, I can give their lack of a good quarterback, running back, or, like, anything a pass and give them a W here, but, nah. They're not like last year's MSU.

Pick: Notre Dame.  

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Spartans and Fighting Irish like to fight. Except Spartans fight with weapons, and Fighting Irish fight old-timey boxing style. Game, MSU. (Spartans death fight record: 3-0)

2:30: Indiana @ Akron.

Indiana has looked bad against decidedly lower-level teams. Akron is a decidedly mid-level team, and Indiana's first road game of the year.

Pick: Akron.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: After immediately giving the Zips a loss in their first matchup because I didn't know what a zip was, I decided to look it up this week. "Zip" is short for "zipper" because people made clothing with zippers on it in Akron. Their mascot is a female kangaroo. Game, Indiana. (Hoosiers mascot death fight record: 1-2)

2:35: Arizona @ Iowa.

To me, Northern Iowa is to the Hawkeyes as Eastern Michigan is to Northwestern. Both times, a team played way, way, way too close against a team they should have beaten easily. Both times, there was questionable game preparedness and play-calling on the parts of the better team. And both times, the better team won. This is a top 25 team that had a major, major hiccup against their first opponent of the year, and it'll haunt them in the rankings for a while, but it won't haunt them on the field.

Pick: Iowa

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: A preview of the NU-Iowa matchup later this year, my analysis is simple: One's inanimate, one's a cat. Game, Arizona. (Hawkeye mascot death fight record: 0-3)

6: Northwestern @ Syracuse.

This game will be tough. Really tough.

Our defense right now is a mess. Our d-line just got done getting owned by EMU and failing to tackle a guy named Dwayne Priest. Meanwhile, DeLone Carter and Antwon Bailey make a great running back tandem for Syracuse. This is a problem. 

Mike Williams will be playing professional football next year. Sherrick McManis, who might be playing professional football next year, would generally be assigned to guard him, but he's sort of injured. Justan Vaughn, a guy who backs him up, is also injured. Therefore, guys like Jordan Mabin (good) Mike Bolden (hasn't really played) and Ricky Weina (also hasn't really played, but, yeesh) and hordes of others (potentially horrific) will be assigned to guard a preternaturally talented wide receiving beast, getting passes from Greg Paulus, who hasn't looked bad overall in his first few starts, and is learning on the fly. This is a problem.

Stephen Simmons, who has anchored our questionable running game this year, is, in fact questionable this week. This means guys like Arby Fields (ok) Jacob Schmidt (maybe on 3rd-and-two, but nowhere else) Scott Concannon (nope) will be taking snaps. This is a problem.

Mike Kafka has looked just above average. Against Towson and Eastern Michigan. This is a problem.

Our coaches haven't shown any signs that they'd like to call a successful football game. This is a problem.

But at the end of the day, last year, Northwestern rocked Syracuse, and let's look at what changed:

Andrew Robinson, who started at QB for the Orange, is now a backup tight end. He's been replaced by... an ex-Duke point guard. Meanwhile, CJ Bacher, has been replaced by somebody arguably better. This is good for us.

Last year, Mike Williams, didn't play. This year, he will. This is bad for us.

Our defense has looked shaky, but ultimately, is a very similar unit to the one we had last year, and which dominated the Orange. This is great for us.

Again, this isn't very in depth. But at the end of the day, we won by 20 last year, and could have won by more not enough has improved for Syracuse for me to think that we'll straight up lose.

Prediction: Northwestern, 24. Syracuse, 17.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: The Orange are 0-2 against Big Ten opponents in the mascot death fight league, because they are a color. They're still a color. Game, NU. (Wildcats mascot death fight record: 1-2)

My picks last week: 6-5, pretty dismal. In my defense, Air Force, Fresno State, and Purdue came close to making my upset picks come true, but I was too risky. For once, I would've probably done better last week vs. the spread.

Projected Big Ten record this week: 7-3

Projected Big Ten mascot death fight record this week: 6-4. (Overall, 16-16.)

2-0?: The Recap.

First off, thanks to Patrick for playing along and commenting on the game thread yesterday, it was cool to try out, and it'll be back in future. The rest of you who didn't comment get a free pass because you were hopefully all at the stadium, so, be there next time.

I predicted NU would win this game by 38 points. Obviously, I miscalculated.

I believed that NU was a talented enough team to defeat an unheralded EMU team handily without much playcalling diversity, or effort. For two quarters, I was correct. 

I'd like to chalk up the EMU comeback in the second half to lack of focus, painfully predictable playcalling and NU's nagging habit of playing at the level of their opponent, but the truth is, this team has problems that make them seem a lot worse than we thought at the beginning of the year. 

I'm not a doom and gloom guy. I'm pleased with victories, and today, I'm happy. The following is just a list of observations, and, as you'll notice, a lot of them are negative. I have a funny feeling this team will beat Syracuse next week, but a lot of the things here have to improve, or else, quite frankly, they won't.

Coaching: Yeah, we played vanilla, just like we said. This is the last week this year we can afford to do this, clearly. We're not good enough to pull off that trick against FBS opponents, so, the days of running twice as much as we pass are over. Silly playcalling over and over again down the stretch did aid the EMU comeback, and that's fixable.

Defense: WOAH. Wasn't this unit supposed to be one of the best in years? Like last year's, but better?

First off, tackling. It's one of the most fundamental things in football, and the major role of defenders. So it's disconcerting that time and again NU's players were in position to tackle people, and just straight up didn't. That's bad. 

The line looked suspect. And when I say suspect, I mean Eastern Michigan's offensive line handled them. It's the talk of the town that Corey Wootton doesn't look ready, and I have to agree with that assessment. But this is just a weaker unit all-around than it was last year, and I'm not sure why people, including me, expected it to be better in retrospect. Last year, we had three passable defensive ends: Wootton, who was a beast, Browne, who was also, and Mims, who was pretty good. They substituted for each other, and were constantly fresh. And up the middle, we had John Gill, who people actually had to watch out for. Now, all the attention is focused on our ends, and to be honest, we're relatively weak directly up the middle. EMU ran right at our defensive tackles, and did so for about 5.4 yards per rush. EMU's o-line was being touted as extraordinarily week, giving up six sacks last week... and they looked like grown men against the NU d-line.

Nate Williams is a bright spot so far, but our linebacking corps is part of the reason for that 5.4 yards per carry. It's not a good sign that our speedy LB's are being blocked out by o-linemen on their second line of blocks on run plays. Credit where credit is due, Ben Johnson made that one great play, but he's been pretty lackluster outside of that, not to mention that it was thrown right at him through no effort of his own.

Also, it should be noted that we've given up two wide open passes for touchdowns on plays where it looked like there was a miscommunication in which a cornerback stuck with a man and then passed him off to let the safety pick him up on deep coverage... and the safety wasn't there. Vs. Towson, the play just appeared to be a miscommunication between the cornerback and the safety, and it wasn't clear with whom the fault rested. Yesterday, safety Jared Carpenter was supposed to pick up Jacory Stone, but bit on a simple lookaway from Andy Schmitt, and voila, nobody was covering Stone anymore. The miscommunication was acceptable, I guess, when we were up 40 on Towson, but by week two, these sorts of mistakes that allow people to be completely unsurrounded in the end zone are frightening. 

Credit where credit is due: Brad Phillips played great, Jordan Mabin didn't mess up, and Nate Williams seems to have a nose for the ball. Also, I guess you can't ignore the fact that Sherrick McManis didn't play today, but you wonder how much he would've helped.

So yeah. Not many positives on the defensive side of the ball. We shouldn't be giving up 24 points to EMU, we shouldn't be allowing a bottom-tier o-line body us and let their running back go for 130 on us.

Special teams: YO. Outside of punter messiah Stefan Demos' game-winning 50 yarder, about which enough cannot be said, our special teams game was in absolute shambles, throwing away field position and occasionally leaving points on the field. Let's see: 

We had a muffed punt based on miscommunication between the punt returner and the people trying to set up blocking for him, and that cost the Cats seven points.

We had extremely poor coverage on kickoffs: the Eagles had great field position on multiple returns in the first half and needed Demos, aka he who can do no wrong, to make a potential touchdown saving tackle on one return.

We had back to back failures by Brendan Smith to judge the punt and let it roll to the 1- and 2- yard line. 

Again, Demos gets a pass, but we also had some pretty poor punting.

Luckily, all this is special teams stuff is correctable: Smith getting under the ball knocks three of those poorly executed plays off the list, and there's nothing staying in your lanes won't do on kickoff returns. But this special teams play gifted EMU a touchdown, and if uncorrected, will gift another school a victory.

Offense: Our offense didn't look as bad as the other units. Just like on defense, we've got issues in the trenches: our offensive line didn't look particularly great, racking up holding calls left and right.. But they were good last year, so I won't fret.

The era of Mike Kafka the devoted pocket passer is over. Yes, he can throw, but let's be real: to have an effect against opposing defenses, he has to show off the wheels. It's obvious. Today, Kafka out of the pocket looked only good, not great, overthrowing people a bunch and throwing a pick, although the pick wasn't his fault as he got hit on the play.

It's also obvious that we were way overdependent on our running back play today. Now, don't misconstrue that statement: Stephen Simmons looked better than he ever has against FBS opponents, and Jacob Schmidt looked like someone who can actually contribute, especially on short-yardage plays. But we need to throw more often, and on deeper routes. Just to mix it up. We had a plan to not do that yesterday, and it backfired.

In terms of personnel: Scott Concannon will hopefully improve with time, but I think his audition for playing time this year is over, despite a really great opening game against Towson. Arby Fields looked like a freshman, and I guess that will happen, so you can't be mad, but he's not ready for primetime. And I think we're trying to overutilize Josh Rooks and his hands of concrete-like material. 

So, yeah. Obviously, flush it, and come back and win next week, and we can forget this ever happened. The Cats are half-way to what should be their goal every year: sweeping the out-of-conference slate. 

Obviously, there should be complaints: we just nearly blew a game against an extremely week team.

But yo: Stefan Demos hit a game-winning 50-yard field goal. Like it says in the sidebar: this site is about slowing down and enjoying the good things in NU sports. So live life a little, folks. And enjoy watching more football today.

Northwestern, 27, Eastern Michigan, 24.

W!

I'm not going to act like that's a good win. We played a team we were much better than, and then showed we were much better than them by dropping 21 on them in the first half. 

Then, stuff got real. We almost choked away a game against a team that went 3-9 in the MAC last year. We gave up 120 yards rushing to something called a Dwayne Priest. This game is not something to be proud of, and this team has some major, major issues heading into next week.

But at the end of the day, we just got to watch the Wildcats win a game on a last second field goal, and we remembered what it feels like to involuntarily throw your hands up to celebrate a football team scoring. And that's a good thing.

I'll have a detailed game wrap-up either tonight or tomorrow, so, we'll deal with that then. All praise be to Stefan Demos. 

Game Thread: Eastern Michigan vs. Northwestern.

I know, I know, I said I wouldn't do game threads, but I'm trying it out. I have my reasons, punks, so don't ask. Or do. I'll probably answer you. 

First off, you should be at the game, not reading things on the internet. (You still have time to get up and go if you're in the area, folks!). But if you're not, stop by and comment.

I know it probably makes more sense and is much classier to go and comment on LTP, and by all means, go ahead and do so, but I'd like to get a game comment section going. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but I'm tryin it. I'd like to get a running commentary going, so, hey, yo, say something, and I'll say something back. 

Before the game, here's some links to other things I wrote about the game, of course, you could just hit the "EMU" label, but, hey. Links.

• Here's an actual preview of this game sort of deal.
  
• Here's a highlight reel of EMU getting handily defeated by Army in one of the top ten depressing college football games I've ever seen a highlight reel of.
• Here's the most in-depth preview of EMU that I could write, which isn't saying much.
• And here's discussion of things nobody really asked about pertaining to Earl Boykins and Domino's Pizza.

Poll results: 59 of you voted, 58 of you think that NU will beat EMU. One of you is either a rogue EMU fan, a reader with poor motor skills trying to vote from an iPhone, or someone absolutely tripping balls right now. Good luck with that, dude.

So, if you feel the need, comment below. I couldn't come up with an intriguing reason for people to comment, so I struck a deal with ex-Towson offensive lineman Jermon Bushrod, currently pictured below. He promised me that for every quarter that you don't comment, he'd murder a helpless animal with a sledgehammer.

He hasn't picked his victim yet, but inside sources tell me he's deciding between a bunny and a month-old Jack Russell Terrier. 

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. 

Brendan Smith Memorial Picks: Week 2.

Do you guys care who I think is going to win other Big Ten games? What's that? No?

Well, tough. There's nothing else to blog about on thursdays.

(all times central, which means as a New Yorker I'm doing math over here.)

11 AM: Western Michigan @ Indiana

The polar opposites of our opponent this week made Michigan look pretty good last week, but Indiana is a hulking pile of badness. This game is bad. Linkin Park bad. I still like the Hoosiers to pull out a win, but it will be competitive down the stretch.

What I would guess Western Michigan's mascot is, without looking: The Broncos? I had this one last week.

What it actually is: DING DING DING DING DING! I won't actually count this as an official correct guess since I had them last week. But I'm still impressed.

Pick: Indiana.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: One of the more competitive mascot matchups yet: On the one hand, bucking broncos can and do kill people, but on the other, you've got Barbaro. (too soon?) But I gotta go with the broncos: they're difficult to tame, while people from Indiana don't seem particularly intimidating to me. Game: Western Michigan. (Hoosier mascot death fight record: 0-2)

11 AM: Central Michigan @ Michigan State.

Central Michigan looked like a good MAC team heading into the year, but lost to Arizona pretty brutally. MSU on the other hand, looked like pretty good. They probably scheduled this thinking it would be an easy win, and it will be.

Pick: MSU.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: the Chippewas are going to come at the Spartans with a fighting style they're not used to, which might throw them off a bit, but when it comes down to it, Sparta is a military machine which any groups of soldiers would have trouble defeating, unless they have guns. Game, MSU. (Spartan mascot death fight record: 2-0.)

11 AM: Syracuse @ No. 7 Penn State.

The Orange looked good against Minnesota, but this ain't Minnesota. 

Pick: Penn State.

Pick to win in a mascot fight to the death: The ruling I made last week is that orange, as a color, is incapable of dying, and therefore, shouldn't be allowed in the mascot death fight club. Game, Penn State. (Nittany Lion mascot death fight record: 2-0.)

11 AM: Fresno State @ Wisconsin.

Fresno State played Wisconsin close last year, losing 13-10, and that was when Wisconsin was, you know, good. Last week, Fresno State won a tuneup by 51, while Wisconsin got by against NIU, 28-20. This one will be closer than that, a genuine toss-up. By the way, I'm really low on Wisconsin this year.

Pick: Fresno State

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Last week, the Badgers had a tough loss against the Huskies, and they face a similar mascot death fight this week against another canine foe in the Bulldogs. A similar mascot death fight with a similar result. I'd like the Badgers in a fight against a smaller dog, like a chihuahua or a dachshund, but Huskies and Bulldogs have too much grit and strength to fall to the tiny, rodent-eating carnivore. Game, Fresno State. (Badger mascot fight death record: 0-2)

11:05 AM: Iowa @ Iowa State.

Both struggled with FCS opponents: Last week Iowa State gave up 17 points to North Dakota State, and Iowa gave up 16 to Northern Iowa. The difference is that Iowa State also scored 34 points, while Iowa only scored 17. My instinct is telling me that Iowa just had a bad game and will revert to something close to last year's form soon, but common sense is telling me that they'll lose to ISU on the road.

Pick: Iowa State.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: I'm still unclear on what a hawkeye is. Is it someone with great vision? Is it the disembodied eye of a hawk? Until I get an explanation, this team will have trouble winning mascot death fights. Game, ISU. (Hawkeyes mascot death fight record: 0-2.)

2:30 PM: No. 18 Notre Dame @ Michigan

This game is so annoying.

Pick: Michigan.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Even the most Fighting of the Irish would have trouble against a ravenous wolverine, and unfortunately, the fisticuff enthusiast leprechaun in Notre Dame's logo looks like it stands even less of a chance, magical leprechaun abilities aside. Game, Michigan. (Wolverines mascot death fight record: 1-1.)

6 PM: Air Force @ Minnesota

I have this image of Mike Kafka running for 217 yards last season, and I have this image of Air Force wreaking havoc on Minnesota with their "we're a service academy and therefore we feel compelled to run a completely option based offense" state of mind. Squeaking by Syracuse didn't help. 

Pick: Air Force.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: I think falcons probably eat gophers in real life, so this isn't a good matchup. Game, Air Force. (Golden Gophers mascot death fight record: 1-1.)

6 PM: Illinois St. @ Illinois.

Analysis: I'ma stop analyzing the ones that are like "derivative of state vs. state", because, even in cases like Northern Iowa vs. Iowa where it could be close, is anybody going to predict it being close?

What I would guess Illinois State's mascot is, without looking: the Indians. (In retrospect, probably not very likely, cuz of the whole politically correct thing, but it sounds right.)

What it actually is: The Redbirds.

Pick: Illinois. 

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Redbirds, presumably cardinals, are tiny and harmless. It would be a difficult kill for a Fighting Illini, but an inevitable one. Game, Illinois. (Illini mascot death fight record: 1-1.)

7 PM: No. 3 USC @ No. 8 Ohio State.

People seem to be giving OSU a chance in this one. At this point in world history, even with Terrelle Pryor being an absurdly talented athlete, probably the one quarterback I would like for my college football team if I were building one from scratch, I just see USC and Ohio State being in different leagues right now. I'd give OSU ten points in this one and still expect them to lose.

Pick: USC.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Buckeyes are nuts, folks. I don't see them winning a mascot death fight all year long, whether they're poisonous or not. Game, USC. (Buckeyes mascot death fight record: 0-2.)

9 PM: Purdue @ Oregon.

A lot of people probably see the Boilermakers making it close after last week's Duck debacle. I see them winning.

Pick: Purdue

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Have you ever played Duck Hunt? Boiler manufacturing engineers have. With real guns. And real ducks. Game, Purdue. (Boilermakers mascot death fight record: 2-0.)

Totals, excluding yet-to-be-picked NU vs. EMU:

Projected Big Ten record in Week 2: 5-5.

Projected Big Ten mascot death fight record in week 2: 5-5. (on the year: 10-11)

My picks last week: 10-1. Admittedly, the early season is a little easy going, but this week I went a little bit out of the box I think, so we'll see.

Gettin Familiar With: EMU Football.

I told y'all about EMU, now lets read about their football team. 

(Oh, and, if you want shorter posts, tough.)

Historically vs. NU: The Eagles and the Cats have two meetings, in 2006 and 2007, one at Ryan Field, and one at Detroit's Ford Field. NU won the '06 game 14-6 on the strength of running touchdowns by, oddly enough, quarterbacks Mike Kafka and Andrew Brewer, and the '07 game was a 26-14 win led by 361 yards passing by Mike Kafka and 122 on the ground from Omar Conteh. Still remaining on the squads that played then are Kafka and Brewer (who combined to go 16-26 with 110 yards and a Kafka pick through the air), QB Andy Schmitt, who went 3-9 as a backup in '06, EMU starting running back Dwayne Priest, who had four yards for 19 carries as a backup in the 07 game, and stud EMU wideout Jacory Stone, who caught 8 passes for 85 yards at Ford Field. The starting QB for EMU in '07, Kyle McMahon, is now the backup, which probably disappoints any of you who remember his 28-48 three pick, no touchdown performance.

Hard Times: EMU hasn't experienced a winning season since a 6-5 campaign in 1995, and didn't have one since 1989 before that. Against Big Ten teams, they're a remarkable 0-15, and 0-14 on the road, with the Ford Field game being the only time the Eagles have "hosted" a Big Ten opponent. 

Overview: EMU, like Towson, isn't a very good football team. They, like Towson, went 3-9 last year, although against a higher caliber of opponents. (except Indiana State, who they beat 52-0. Towson could probably manhandle them.) They showed some offensive promise scoring 108 points in the last two games of the season, with Andy Schmitt throwing for exactly 1000 yards between the two games while throwing eight touchdowns and only one pick (and rushing for three more!) but on the flip side, they gave up 107 points in those games. This year, their extreme spread offense is gone, and they didn't start off well by dropping their home opener to an Army team that also went 3-9 last season. New coach Ron English look promising, but, progress takes a while, and it won't be happening this year with a team with a new coach, new coordinators, and seven new position coaches. Also, "promising" in regards to EMU is a mid-place MAC finish in a few years, so, that doesn't mean much.

Sense the Depression: EMU's marketing slogan for this football season is thus: "Embrace the Process." That's near starving puppy on the sadness level. I don't think I've ever seen a marketing slogan acknowledge that the team is in the midst of a giant ocean of suck, and that it will take years to get out of. 

This tells you more about EMU's team than the following several thousand words, so, skip it if you wanna. 

Offense: As noted, Schmitt had some serious stuff going on in those last two games of the season, averaging 500 yards passing and scoring 11 TD's. Well, it was a little fluky: take away his two nova games (in which, it should be noted, he threw 156 times) against Temple and Central Michigan, and in the other ten games, Schmitt was 153-261 for 1648 yards with seven touchdowns and seven picks. Luckily for Schmitt's arm of going Kerry Wood on him, the Eagles have slowed down their pace, as coach English has installed a more pro-style offense, meaning he only threw 31 times against Army, completing 18 for 183 yards with a TD and two picks. 

The running back is Priest, who was a backup RB in last year's "pass until Schmitt's arm falls off" offense up until this year, but still managed about 500 career yards. He looked decent against Army, carrying 19 times for 83 yards and a TD. However, the team only had 40 yards rushing total because of some pretty poor pass protection leading to a bunch of sacks. 

On offense, the person to watch will be Jacory Stone, a wide out who is on the Biletnikoff award watch list. (Then again, 17% of Americans are on a college football award watchlist, including one of my aunts.) Stone led the team in receiving yards and receptions last year, and had a pretty nice 25-yard grab against Army which you saw in all its pixellated glory on the video I posted today. 

The offensive line is sieve-like, allowing seven sacks against Army for a loss of 53 yards, meaning that pretty much one in every five times they dropped into pass protection, they failed, and I'd bet there were a decent amount of hurries with numbers like that. 

Overall, not an impressive unit to me. A quarterback with two impressive games that account for about a third of all his career stats is not, as many previewing this game will say, the sign of a dynamic offense. It's a unit adapting to a new system under a new coach and a new coordinator, and, with the pasta strainers up front on the o-line, not much will get done.

Defense: Defense? Pshh. The team gave up 35.33 points per game last year in the MAC, and when you remember that one of those was a 52-0 romp over Indiana State, who have lost 52 of their last 53 games, that becomes even less impressive. This is a team that nearly lost both of those games in which Schmitt was busy breaking the laws of physics by throwing 80 times a game, allowing 55 points against Temple and then 52 in the win over Central Michigan. 

People will pass off Army's 300 yard rushing game this past weekend as a fluke because Army runs a crazy triple-option running attack that will make any defense's rushing stats look bad. But consider that EMU gave up 341 on the ground to Akron last year, in a game where the Zips also passed for over 200 yards. This is a really, really weak defense. 

The new coordinator, Eric Lewis, has never had a coordinating gig - for the record, his offensive counterpart, Ken Karcher, has held head coaching jobs and offensive coordinating jobs at multiple levels - so this defense won't get better right away. On the plus side, they have DB Johnny Sears, who transferred to EMU after being kicked off of Michigan, so he's clearly got talent (although this blog documenting his departure from Michigan notes that he was "really bad", and the commenters agree), and he hasn't gotten into the starting lineup yet. Senior DE Brandon Downs looks to be the leader of the defensive unit after getting ten tackles and two sacks against Army. However, the "star" of the defense is Jermaine Jenkins, whose listed position is... "star". The team's depth chart for the front seven shows three d-linemen, three linebackers, and Jenkins, who is neither here nor there. He's listed as a linebacker on the team roster, but I guess in actuality he plays on the line occasionally, allowing the team to vary 4-3 and 3-4 sets without having to switch in and out defenders.

Transitive Property Logic that leads me to believe that we'll win by a lot:

9/27, 2008: Northern Illinois, 37, Eastern Michigan, 0.

8/30, 2008: Minnesota, 31, Northern Illinois, 27.

11/22, 2008: Iowa, 55, Minnesota, 0.

9/27, 2008: Northwestern, 22, Iowa, 17.

Transitive Property Score Differential: 101.

(By the way, I obviously could've gone straight to Minnesota to NU, since we beat them, but... I figured adding the extra 55 points made this whole thing more convincing, right?)

All Name Team: Pretty strong competition on the Eagles, but I narrowed it down to four runners-up and a winner. 

Runners-up, listed in ascending order of name goodness: There's junior offensive lineman Bridger Buche (Bushy?), redshirt freshman wide-out L'Shane Bynum, true freshman wide-out Kinsman Thomas (The fact that Kinsman is third really attest to the deepness of this name class), and, in a shocking second place finish, senior linebacker Lorenzo Seaberry. First off, it should be noted that Lorenzo is my second favorite name, (behind Marcus) because you can be either an Italian renaissance statesman or a member of N.W.A. with that name. I swear, my child will be named either Marcus or Lorenzo. But moving on, Seaberry's full name is Lorenzo Seaberry III, which is an astoundingly great name, and sounds like something I'd say my name was if I was prank calling someone as a pretentious wasp character but hadn't bothered to think up an actual name until the person actually asked what my name was, and I had to come up with it really quickly on the spot.

Winner: Junior linebacker Nate Paopao, who has one of the best football names I've ever heard. Nate is a juco transfer, and thanks to the EMU official pronunciation guide, we can find that his name is pronounced "POW-POW", the only name to get the all-caps treatment. Nate has six siblings, all of whom manage to have better names than him, but I won't drag them into this, because they don't deserve to google themselves only to find that somebody's writing about them on the internet, so, find his roster page to see for yourself. 

However, if a member of the Paopao family does read this, let it be known that you have phenomenal taste in naming, and like I said in the last post, this isn't about humorous names as much as it is about classy names that make me want to sip expensive scotch and smoke cigars and discuss how great your family's names are in a well upholstered room with a fireplace. Hope you appreciate. I also hope you download the "Pow!" application for the iPhone, where you punch the air and a cartoon punching sound effect is made, because if you do it twice really fast, it's like your name.

Bam-Bam shoulda been called Paopao.

So how do we play them?: We could play them the same way we played Towson and win. It's as simple as that. For the game to be as big a margin of victory, we'd have to actually call multiple plays inventively and blitz, or maybe even do basic things like stunt linemen or spend the entire second half running in between the tackles, but let it be known that we probably won't need to to win. I hope we do, though, because those things are fun. 

If I had to give a team-specific instruction, it would be that we need to watch for the deep ball to Jacory Stone, but, quite frankly, we don't need to, and we'll still win. I'll give a gameplan in my friday post like I did last week.

So that's EMU football. Embrace the process. 

Ever wonder what an EMU football game looks like?

Here's your answer: a highlight reel of the Eagles' game 27-14 loss to Army on Saturday.

Judging from the video, EMU will be the most pixellated team Northwestern has faced since our 2001 matchup against the Goombas from the Super Mario Bros video game for the original NES, and we all remember how that turned out.

One of the many sacks by the goomba d-line that caused NU's quarterbacks to jump off the screen while flailing their arms.

Besides the low video quality and cliché music selection (which I still find cool in conjunction with NU videos, for some reason), you can take things away from the video. 

First off, seeing that whole messed up Army triple-option thing shows you that the way Army gained yards on the ground is a lot different from the way NU will attempt to, so EMU's rush defense isn't as weak as the stats would make them seem. They still look pretty bad though.

On the other hand, Andy Schmitt, who put up rather gaudy stats last year out of an extreme spread offense, looks like a gunslinger of the Rex Grossman variety, getting a lot of air under passes he probably shouldn't be throwing in the first place, but, he does, and it led to EMU's only two touchdowns of the day. He throws four long balls in the clip, and I like to think that Mabin n Mcmanis make those four throws into three picks and a knockdown, whereas Army turned it into two picks and two long completions. Either way, those two should be preparing for loads of deep balls (pause) out of the gun, but, then again, they'll probably be taking a nice long rest during the second half against an opponent of this caliber, so they shouldn't be too worried.

this must be some type of sick joke.

As noted, I like me some AP polls. It's a nice checkup on NU's perception around teh college football world, which is hard to get from inside our big "hey, Northwestern is good!" biodome shielding us from the outside world. 

So, I checked the updated polls today, and after my big freakin' song and dance on sunday... we're not even receiving votes anymore. None. 

I know this isn't something to be upset about, because not a single person in the world gives about the bottom of the AP poll, but, I've assembled a timeline of recent events.

A few weeks ago: NU had five AP votes.

Saturday: NU beats Towson 47-14. 

Today: NU has no AP votes. 

To help interpret that timeline, here is a timeline of of Northwestern-related things Kevin Gorman, a high school football reporter from Pittsburgh who gave NU all five of their votes in the last poll, has done, or at least things I'd imagine he's done.

A few weeks ago: Gorman fills out his ballot. He remembers NU did well last year, and puts us 21st.

A day after that: Gorman looks at everybody else's ballot, and realizes that not a single other human being in the universe thinks we're a top 25 team. Rather than stand by his guns, he makes up his mind to remove NU from his next ballot regardless of how they perform, in order to avoid being laughed at by some nerdy sports writers. 

Saturday: NU beats Towson 47-14.

Yesterday: Gorman fills out his next ballot, in which he removes NU, but leaves Texas and Tennessee in the highest position of any reporter filling out a ballot.

Right now: A bored NU blogger contemplates using the word "spineless" in this post, then realizes he really, really hopes nobody is writing posts about how stupid his ballots are in ten years when he is a journalist of some sort. 

Overall, I can't fault Gorman for his actions: he's just a guy who's filling out some stupid ballot, and he doesn't deserve to be criticized for it over the internet. He made a mistake by ranking NU as highly as he did. If I were him, I wouldn't have done that, but I would've stuck by my cojones and left NU as high in the next poll. But like I said earlier, the AP poll is a nice look into the way NU is perceived, and I guarantee you, there's not many other schools that could pull off a magic trick like having votes one week, winning convincingly, and then making them disappear. 

Around the Big XI, plus other stuff

First off, some responses to things you had to say in response to my mascot death-fights:

The Thief commented on my original post saying that Buckeyes are poisonous, and therefore, couldn't be eaten by Midshipmen. Fair enough. However, they could, like, stomp on them, shoot them, or bring them into their boats and throw them into the water, all of which would be effective ways of dispatching the Buckeye. It also should be noted that according to the wikipedia, the poison in buckeyes can be eliminated "by leaching the pulverized nuts in multiple changes of boiling water, to yield a wholesome starchy porridge once important to some Native American people", and, furthermore, can be eaten by other mammals such as deer or squirrels. Therefore, poisonous or unpoisonous, predict the Buckeyes go 0-12 in their mascot fight death schedule, since they are the seed of a tree - possibly 0-13, since the Buckeyes are probably bowl bound. 

Joshua seems to think that I've misdefined the Wildcat in my other post, and, to be honest, he's right. The Wildcat is wild version of the domestic cat that lives in Europe. The wikipedia tells us that it is about two feet long, ways about eight pounds, and is "extremely timid." 

The wikipedia also tells me that the word "Wildcat" can be used to refer to bobcats and lynx, which can actually kill something and aren't simply the wild versions of the thing scratching on the bedposts of lonely old women across the globe. I'm going to use this definition as opposed to the snuggly european one. Trust me, it will improve Northwestern's mascot fight death pool winning percentage at least 20 times, unless Miami of Ohio changes its mascot to the "tiny harmless mice", in which case that little tiny Euro-wildcat might be able to fend for itself.

In other news, I'm bored enough with having two weeks left until going back to college that I just wrote two hundred words about wildcats. 

So the Big Ten had some mighty close calls this weekend. I predicted the conference would go 11-0, in fact, it went 10-1, on the virtue of ranked Iowa blocking two straight field goals against the University of Northern Iowa, a overtime miracle win for Minnesota in Syracuse, a squeaker of a win in Columbus over Navy, who came to play. To some, the conference looks weak. 

But let's not go printing up Purple to Pasadena t-shirts yet. A week doesn't tell you much, which is just as true of the games of our ten conference foes as it is about NU's romp over Towson. A few more weeks of similarly sucky play by teams like OSU and Iowa, and we can talk title. For now, let's just focus on ourselves.

However, a week was totally enough to tell us that, no, Illinois isn't much good. If they get more votes in the polls tomorrow than us after that game, well, journalists around the country need to learn something.

The Top 25.

I have somewhat of an obsession with the AP poll. Not sure why, but I get a rush out of seeing those little numbers in front of my school's name. So every week, until we get into that poll, I'll be profiling both our performance and the performances of teams in between us and that No. 25 spot. Last year, it took the Wildcats a few weeks just to start getting votes, and they ended up in the poll, and this year, we have a preposterously easy schedule, and five votes already. If the team performs the way they should, they really should end up top 25 by the end of the year. The losses will begin racking up for the mediocre teams in the top 25, and NU will most likely be 3-0 in two weeks, and if they can keep that undefeated streak going, they could be in the rankings by this time next month.

Current position: 44th.

Positions we'd need to move up to be top 25: 19.

How many top 25 teams actually lost: Four, with FSU and Mississippi still to play: Oregon, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, and Georgia.

So how many spots should open up? I predict one: all those losses were to top 25 teams, and all of those teams were ranked above No. 16, making a drop out of the rankings unlikely. Oregon's loss was particularly ugly though, and they lose their star running back for the rest of the year, so I wouldn't be surprised if they fall out of the voting. Iowa's squeaky win might scare off a few voters, but at the end of the day, it's still a win, and they'll probably hold on.

How many teams in between NU and the top 25 lost?: Four: Illinois, NC State, Central Michigan, and one of either Cincinnati or Rutgers, who play Monday night. (Miami (FL) also plays Monday against a ranked team in FSU.)

Should NU pass any of them?: I've already made my opinions clear on the Illinois thing, and the other three - NC State, Central Michigan, and the loser of the Cincy-Rutgers game - will definitely fall below NU. 

So what are NU's chances of cracking the top 25?: Preposterously slim. NU will likely pass those schools and pick up a few votes, but pretty much end up in the same place next week, as other schools will probably pass NU. 

Is that justified?: Yeah. Objectively, nobody can say NU deserves to be in the top 25 teams in the country right now. I'd put them between 35-40 right now, but time will show this team improving. 

Brendan Smith Memorial Big Ten Picks.

Memorializing what, again?

Oh, yeah, that. It's been almost six days since I posted that. Too long.

Anyway, pickin: no scores, just games. I'm just gonna tell you who I think is going to win.

Do you guys care who I think is going to win? Probably not. But if you're like me, you just want to read as much about football as you can right now, so, here goes. If you want, you can skip this post, cuz I'll have better ones later.

11 AM CT: Montana State @ Michigan State.

Analysis: Both Montana and Michigan are states that start with the letter M. One is better at football.

My guess as to what Montana State's mascot is, without looking: The Cougars.

What it actually is: The Bobcats. Not that far off, to be honest.

Pick: Michigan State. 

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: A single bobcat might be able to cause problems against a single Spartan, but Spartans work well in packs. Game MSU.

11 AM CT: Minnesota @ Syracuse. 

The last time we saw Minnesota, they were stumbling and bumbling their way down the stretch by losing five straight to end the season, including the Brendan Smith game, a 29-6 loss to Michigan, and a 55-0 loss to Iowa. However, they still have Adam Weber and Eric Decker, and Syracuse is, as noted on here, recovering from a hellish apocalypse of a season and now have a new head coach and a quarterback who hasn't been tackled in four years. Minnesota should win by a lot, but they won't.

Pick: Minnesota.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Orange is a color, and therefore, cannot die, I'm DQing them right off the bat. Game, Minnesota.

11 AM CT: Navy @ Ohio State.

People have criticized OSU taking Navy and their freaky triple option run-on-every-play offense in a week where what they really need is a tune-up game a week before playing USC. They're right, in a way, in that, yes, they need a tune-up, and these are two very, very different offenses that will be difficult to play in back to back weeks. However, this is not a trap game: OSU is just too talented. This'll be a blowout.

Pick: OSU. 

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Buckeyes are nuts, right? Midshipmen can eat those. Game Navy.

11 AM CT: Akron @ Penn State.

Jesus, this is boring, what with all the obvious victories. I hope Akron scores, if only to prevent the obvious headlines about the Zips offensive performance from appearing in every single reputable publication in the state of Pennsylvania and Ohio on Sunday morning.

Pick: Penn State.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: A zip is an onomatopoeic sound, and therefore, not a tangible object. Game PSU.

11 AM CT: Toledo @ Purdue.

Both teams have new head coaches. You're probably like, "hey, why does Toledo need a new head coach after that great season where they beat Michigan?" But you have to remember that that Michigan game was an outlier in an otherwise bad season. Toledo went 3-9 last year, with the only wins against Michigan, and... two NU out-of-conference opponents, Miami (OH) and Eastern Michigan, who they beat 42-14 and 41-17, respectively. All this to reinforce how bad our out of conference schedule this year is, as if you didn't know already.

Pick: Purdue.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Yeah, rockets are scary, but boilermakers have the engineering prowess to make rockets, and presumably, would know how to disarm them or otherwise escape death by rocket.

11:05 AM CT: Northern Iowa @ Iowa.

I'll put it this way: I guarantee 90% of the players on Northern Iowa wish they played for Iowa. That artificially imagined statistic is not the stuff upsets are made of.

My guess as to what Northern Iowa's mascot is, without looking: I'm sticking with Cougars. I'm confident, if nothing else.

What it actually is: the Panthers. The big cat motif is a wise one to stick with.

Pick: Iowa.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Well, a panther is a vicious, murderous beast, and a hawkeye is either the disembodied eye of a hawk or a person with good vision, both of which could be devoured quite easily by your average panther. Game NIU.

2:30 PM CT: Western Michigan @ Michigan.

The battle of the directional schools against the larger schools the athletes wish they played for continues. WMU was actually pretty decent last year, but I have a feeling that Michigan won't be that abhorrent this year. Just mediocre. And that this one won't be as close as you think it will be.

My guess as to what Western Michigan's mascot is without looking: I know I just stuck with the cat motif, but, Michigan directional schools seem more down to earth. I'm going with the Rams. 

What it actually is: the Broncos. It's actually in the school's logo, so I should've seen it.

Pick: Michigan.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Most interesting matchup yet. Common wisdom goes with the wolverine, since they're ferocious, but they're relatively small, definitely not big enough to bring down a bucking bronco. I think this one ends with an upset via a bronco hoof to the head.

2:40 PM CT: Illinois vs. Missouri.

The Braggin Rights game features a Missouri team trying to find its identity after losing Jeremy Maclin and a boatload of Chases, while Illinois needs a win for this year to mean anything. Juice and Rejus have some fun, and Illinois will come away with the win.

Pick: Illinois. I just said that, didn't I.

PIck in a mascot fight to the death: The most lopsided fight yet. Game: Mizzou.

6 PM CT: Northern Illinois @ Wisconsin.

Nothing about Wisconsin impresses me. If you want a bold prediction, I think Purdue will have a better season than Wisconsin. I would pick this as a Big Ten loss, but NIU isn't a particularly great program.

Pick: Wisconsin.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Another interesting mammal fight between two animals not known for their killing prowess. Huskies are bigger and more durable, and although they're not carnivorous by trade, I think the Arctic Circle has gotta be a pretty tough place to survive: Game NIU.

11 AM CT: Towson @ NU.

My pick: in the next post. Yeah, it's like that.

My projected Big 10 record in Week 1 (including Indiana, excluding NU): 10-0.

My projected Big 10 mascot death fights record in week 1 (including Indiana [for the record, the Eastern Kentucky Colonel is probably packing heat, and wouldn't hesitate to just shoot the Hoosier in the chest with his ivory-handled pistol], excluding NU): 5-5.

Like I said, come back later for my prediction on the NU-Towson matchup. If you thought this was an exercise in futility, tell me, and I won't do it next week. In my defense, it really does look like the Big 10 has practically no competition this week. If I had to pick a loss, it would be either Illinois or Wisconsin.

One. Day.

A different Youtube video every day, just to get you sufficiently pumped.

I saved the best for last. Ten minutes of solid dramatic music set to every highlight from the 2008 season, except none of the highlights from games we lost. For ten straight minutes. Yes. 

T-minus 24, folks. T-minus 24. And think about this. Watch that video.

Did you watch it? Ten less minutes to football season now than there were when you started.

College football last night was actually pretty boring, but hey. I always find myself in the first few weeks of the season rooting for every team with slightly more votes in the AP poll than NU to lose, and that wish came true with NC State and their multitude of ten votes coming up short, although I was disappointed with ranked Utah and Boise State beating lesser opponents. (I also pull for every team in another BCS conference to lose to non-BCS opponents, but unfortunately, Iowa State wasn't really troubled by North Dakota State. 

On the Big Ten front, Indiana... sort of represented, taking down Eastern Kentucky, 19-13, so my 19-13 pick was close, I guess. However, I set a bad precedent picking a score for that game. I will, however, be picking the Big Ten games in a quick post later today, and, guess what, I got two more posts coming up too!

I've been posting up a storm recently, and it's not stopping any time soon. So check back later.

I think we're going to disappoint Towson.

Towson is an FCS school that runs a football program, year-in, year-out, with little glamor or glitz. As noted about a billion times, they've only played one FBS school in team history, and that was in-state opponent Navy last year. 

And Towson seems excited to be playing a opponent that's on a bowl-game level, but the problem is, I think they're a little bit too excited. I think they have some image that because NU has had a decent amount of success in the past few years, we're a major, big time, Hollywood program, with tens of thousands of murderously raucous fans screaming obscenities and hurling D Batteries and soda bottles filled with blood onto the field. 

The Baltimore Sun tells us that head coach Rob Ambrose has been putting his team through practice with "music, thunder, and screaming" piped in to simulate the atmosphere of NU's 47,000 seat Terrordome.

The article includes a smattering of funny quotes:  (Editors note: I wish I could tell you why all the font on my blog goes black for a few paragraphs, but no idea.)

"First up is Northwestern - yes, that Northwestern - a bowl-savvy, lip-smacking Big Ten team whose scrubs might give Towson fits."

"Not lost on the Tigers is recent history. Three years ago, New Hampshire, another team from the unheralded Colonial Athletic Association, journeyed to Evanston, Ill., and stunned Northwestern, 34-17."

Rob Ambrose says that ""Our guys are going to find out that, as big and bad as a top 20 team is, if they play their butts off, they can play with anybody."

"Northwestern has 47 lettermen back from a team that beat Michigan before 107,000 in Ann Arbor.

On the other hand, Towson has new uniforms"

Uh, while it's cool to see NU portrayed in such a flattering light, there's some serious overexaggerations. First off, Towson might have beaten Michigan in front of 107,000 in Ann Arbor last year. Next, although we were ranked No. 19 for a little bit last year, calling us a "Big, bad top 20 team" is a bit of a stretch. Also, we've played in bowls, we're not quite bowl-savvy, I'm not sure what "yes, that Northwestern" is supposed to mean, and although we were expected to win against New Hampshire, the author is writing about it like it was Hoosiers or something.  (By the way, despite the slight tweaking of facts to make this story more dramatic than it should be, the author is not fictional Baltimore Sun reporter Scott Templeton. And to be honest, it's not a badly written story, nor is it really tweaking the facts, I just find it really funny how NU is described in the complete opposite way of how we've come to expect it. If you're reading this, author of this story, keep doing your thing.)

Also, Towson is organizing a big trip to watch the game, the only time they're doing so all year, and an author for Towson's student newspaper calls us "inarguably the school's toughest opponent in program history."

Look, like I said, it's all flattering. But I'm sorry, we have to disappoint. There will probably be somewhere in the range of 15-20,000 people at the game on Saturday, leaving the stadium about 2/3 empty, and, in terms of us being, big, bad boys, although we wish everybody thought that we were, the other ten schools in our conference laugh at us. Even when we beat them.

Basically, as I've said about a million times, this game is a whirlpool of disappointment. If we do great, we're saddening a bunch of happy-go-lucky Towsonians excited to see their Tigers compete against a Big Ten school, only to see them get ransacked in front of a half-interested crowd. If it's close, our team isn't too good. If we lose, well, I hope you enjoyed people talking about us positively.

That being said, I think we'll win by a lot. And although this means that we'll forever have to live with the guilt of bringing sadness upon the comically overenthusiastic people who wrote these articles, on the plus side, 

Two Days/I'm an Idiot

A different youtube video every day, just to get you sufficiently pumped.

Props to whoever recorded this. There's nothing like a college football student section (except maybe a college basketball student section), and while the season starts in two days, the quarter system means I've got another three weeks until I get to stand on metal bleachers and go hoarse, and that's sort of depressing.

For those of you wondering about the "I'm an idiot" portion of the title, well, you'll notice that yesterday I had a post saying "four days" and today I have a post saying "three days." 

Well, last saturday, I had a post saying "Seven Days" because I looked and saw it was a week from football season. However, it took until today for me to actually look at a calendar and realize, "hey, that countdown means there's still a day left on saturday", which is stupid. I'm not counting down to sunday.

Anyway, yes, I'm an idiot. In my defense, I'm a journalism student, and therefore, haven't taken a math class since high school, haven't gotten above a C+ in a math class since tenth grade, and haven't gotten a B in math... ever. (I'm proud to be one of the few Northwestern students who says they got bad grades and means it. I assume this means I'm amongst the top five journalists of all time, but I'll leave that for you to decide.)

In other news, college football starts tonight! In even better news, Big Ten football starts tonight! Indiana plays Eastern Kentucky, and if this game took place two years ago, and was basketball, and you changed the word "Eastern" to "Western", I'd totally watch it, and it would be on the news as a matchup of potential tourney teams. Sadly, none of those things are the case.

Eastern Kentucky is sort of an FCS powerhouse - 31 consecutive winning seasons - and Indiana is sort of a FBS, well, whatever the opposite of powerhouse is (slaughterhouse? crackhouse?), so expect it to be closer than your average I-A vs. I-AA matchup. 

I'm going Indiana, 24, EKU, 17. Watch a bit and switch over toe the Oregon-Boise State matchup. You gotta pull for the Hoosiers, because you never, ever want your future opponents to drop a game (or nine) to FCS squads.

It also should be noted that Indiana added a little over 3,000 seats to Memorial Stadium in the offseason, pushing the difference in size between our stadiums from about 2100 to about 5500. I'm not sure what the purpose of this was, but suffice it to say, with a hot start to the year and good student support at Ryan Field, who knows, maybe Indiana will challenge for the 2009 edition of the prestigious Big Ten's Most Empty Seats award, which NU has won handily pretty year ever. Sadly, short of back-to-back NU Rose Bowls or a snap decision by Purdue to move all their home games to el Estadio Azteca,  I think NU will probably be the frontrunner for this trophy for a long time.

Gettin Familiar With: Towson Football.

I told y'all bout Towson, now to find out about the football team.

This is a photo of ex-Tiger Jermon Bushrod. It's not related to this at all, but it is by far the coolest picture ever taken of somebody playing for the Towson Tigers, and quite frankly, would probably be the coolest picture of someone playing for Northwestern, so I had to post it.

I mean, I'd need you to find me a person who wouldn't look awesome holding a mallet. I would look awesome holding a mallet. 

Historically vs. NU: No meetings. Towson's first game in school history against an FBS opponent was last year's season opening 41-13 loss to Navy.

Overview: Towson isn't a good football team. The team went 3-9 last year. The three wins came against Morgan State, Columbia, and Rhode Island, with the Rhode Island win being their only victory against a conference opponent in a 1-7 slate. Sean Schaefer was a pretty good quarterback, throwing for 3286 yards with a 25-16 TD-INT ratio, but remember, that's against FCS competition. 

So, that, minus...: A decent amount of people. Head Coach Gordy Combs was fired after his 17th season at the helm of the Tigers, and was replaced by Rob Ambrose, UConn's offensive coordinator and an ex-wide receiver for Towson. Schaefer, the QB, graduated, Matt Castor, the teams leaving rusher, left the team due to personal reasons, and the team leader in receiving touchdowns, Tommy Breaux, graduated. The Tigers are not very experience-heavy, in fact, they only have 8 seniors this season, which is a really, really, really low number.

Offense: Towson's offense, predictably, is a jumble. It's bad enough that they lose all those starters, only averaged Ambrose ran a very rush-heavy system at UConn, with Donald Brown leading the nation with over 2000 yards on the ground. Here, he might not have a choice: as of today, there's no starting QB. Blake Peterson, a 24-year old who spent two years as a missionary in Argentina, then went to the University of New Mexico, then transferred because he realized he'd never play, backed up and played in six games last year, and looked like the sure starter after spring ball, but true freshman Peter Athens has supposedly given him a run for his money. The Tigers also have Jeremy Jayne, a quarterback who transferred from Temple, providing ex-DI talent.

As noted, they don't have a returning running back, which is a problem for a fellow like Rob Ambrose. Jas Lee Rouson, who has a great name, was the second leading carrier last year, but he's injured, and it appears carries will go to either Trevor Walker or Tremayne Dameron, both of whom redshirted last year. (It should be noted that Tremayne lists his favorite author as Owen Meany, which is either a clever, hyper-literary inside joke or a sign that Tremayne isn't one for the books. These are the things you must know.) Damien Kinchen started a game last year due to injuries to the top two running backs and also could play.

If you're wondering about Towson's offensive line, they gave up six sacks... against their own defense in the spring game. That might sound reasonable, but you clearly don't know about their defense. (It's pretty bad too. I consider this a segue into the defense part of this post) I hypothesize the poor offensive linesmanship is because Chuck Taylor, a 345-pound offensive guard who started 25 games at New Mexico State before transferring, ate one or two of his platoonmates. Either that, or he provided them with his old-timey basketball shoes that he told them would help them play football, but instead made them hang out with annoying hipsters all the time and they smoked a lot of cigarettes and drank PBR and decided to quit the football team. 

Chuck's shoes are good for 1930's basketball but have little traction.

(In all actuality, Taylor is supposedly a pretty good OG.)

Defense: SEGUES, HOMIE! The Towson defense allowed 35.25 points per game against atrocious opponents last year. They allowed 30 points in 12 games (the exceptions being the victories against Morgan State and Columbia) 40 points in four games, and a whopping 58 against James Madison in the season closer. However, the unit was dominant in the spring game, only allowing one touchdown, recording six sacks and an interception. The impetus behind any improvements will be defensive end Brady Smith, who transferred from Boston College, where he had started 20 games in his first two seasons, recording a sack in the ACC Championship game against Virginia Tech. 

In case you're wondering what scheme the Tigers will run, the answer is... "multiple." Matt Hachmann, an ex-NU recruiting assistant and Towson's new defensive coordinator, said they simply aren't decided yet. This, friends, sounds like a team to worry about. 

I have to ask, what's up with all this transferring?: Towson, as you might have noticed, has a high proportion of players who are transfers from FBS schools. Well, quite simply, it looks like Rob Ambrose has tried to corner the markets on transfers. FCS transfers are attractive to guys at FBS programs looking to play, because unlike transferring to other FBS schools, you aren't required to sit out a year, and Ambrose has capitalized on this, luring Smith and Taylor, and attempting to lure Justin Roper, a transfer QB from Oregon, who eventually decided to play for the University of Montana. As for why they're transferring, it appears many just wanted a change of scene although for the QB's, those guys needed to go some place where they could play after finding they weren't FBS talent. Smith seems to be the only notable exception, as he was good enough to play at BC, and liked it there, but was kicked out of the school because he was a tad too rapey to remain under scholarship at BC.

Transitive property logic that leads me to believe that we'll win by a lot:

9/20, 2008: Coastal Carolina, 31, Towson, 3. 

8/30, 2008: No. 22 Penn State, 66, Coastal Carolina, 10.

11/8, 2008: Iowa, 24, No. 3 Penn State, 23

9/27, 2008: Northwestern, 22, Iowa, 17.

Transitive property score differential: 100. 

All name team: Runners-up: The alliterative Ghanaian redshirt freshman linebacker Brian Boateng-Botwe, sophomore DT Marcus Valentine, and of course, senior LB Alex Butt. I particularly like Butt's name because it's such a great contrast between a relatively serious name in "Alex" and a very not serious one in "Butt". It's sort of like Gary Pelvis, or something.

Winner: Senior wide receiver Tamba Tongu. This is a great name. It's alliterative, and it's got a nice rhythm and a nice flow to it. It just rolls off the tongue (Tongu-e?) very nicely. 

(It should be noted I'm not looking for the funniest names, just the best ones. Sometimes that means funny, but I'm looking for quality. For example if I scanned the Wildcats roster, I'd definitely pick Stone Pinckney. That's such a great name. I'd like to be named Stone Pinckney. With a name like Stone Pinckney, you could be like a congressman, senator, or golf school instructor, and on the other hand, you totally could be a fireman, news anchor, or porn star. It's a limitless name.) (What I'm trying to say is, unlike Name of the Year blog, this isn't so much an "I'm laughing at you" as it is an "I salute your wonderful name, if you'd like to come over and smoke a cigar in celebration of your wonderful name, you're free anytime. You know my number" sort of thing.)

So how does NU play em?: Just stick to our strategy. We don't need to alter our game plan. This should be like the spring game or scrimmage, just with the other team instead of our defense. Take the starters out sometime in the middle of the second quarter, and just play Northwestern football. We can save our experimenting for EMU or Miami (OH). 

Prediction: Nope. Wait till Friday.

Three Days.

A different Youtube video every day, just to get you sufficiently pumped.

Boy, it's sure going to be exciting to see all those guys... in action... this year for the Wildcats... oh crap.

PS: I will be revealing the results of the poll to the right directly before gametime, so I suggest you vote now. It's getting heated, as one person has manned up and voted for Towson, so, vote. It's your civic duty.

Next on the Chopping Block: Towson.

Four times this year, and, well, every year, NU plays an out-of-conference opponent. The question arises: who are these guys? 

Some people only want to know who they are in a football sense, but to truly understand our opponents on the gridiron, you have to understand where they come from, so football strategy can wait. I plan on getting to know these universities a little bit better with four quick posts on each college, mainly with info gleaned from the school's wikipedia pages. 

This weeks victim: Towson University.

Where: Towson, Maryland, a place in Baltimore County the Wikipedia is very precise not to refer to as a town. There aren't many notable Towsonians, but Carmelo Anthony, the proud West Baltimore native, went to high school in Towson before transferring to the Oak Hill Academy. In a weird NU connection, the wikipedia tells me that Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character Elaine Benes is supposedly from Towson, although I don't remember it ever coming up on the show. Also in Towson is Goucher College, a former all-women's school which would probably provide a considerably worse opponent in football.

When: Towson was founded in 1866, and has been called by many names, something the Wikipedia kindly sums up in a single image:

(apparently, this image goes wayyyyyyyyy off the right of the page. There are five logos.) Surprisingly, Wikipedia doesn't have an image of the seal from the University's brief period when it was called "Towson University Ochocinco."

Enrollment: 15,374. 

Stadium Size?: Johnny Unitas Stadium seats 11,000, or about 4,000 less than there are attendees of the school. In other news, a Towson fan just heard you complaining about how difficult it is to fill a 50,000 seat stadium with only 8,000 students, and I'm pretty sure he just rolled his eyes and gave you the finger.

Public/Private?: Public. 

Alums I've heard of: Quite frankly, the list of interesting people who have actually graduated from Towson is pretty short: I'd limit it to Braves GM John Schuerholz - who actually is the main person credited with the making Towson's mascot the tiger - and the guy who played the voice of Elmo, whose name I already forget despite the fact that I'm looking at the wikipedia page now. However, Towson does have some pretty cool almost-graduates: Stacy Keibler, a wrestler/actress mainly known for being unreasonably attractive, attended Towson before leaving to capitalize on her attractiveness, and Tamir Goodman, the Jewish Jordan, an orthodox Jew who was very briefly an inspiration to basketball-loving Jews like myself everywhere in the mid 1990's.

For those of you unfamiliar with Goodman's story, he was highly touted after averaging in the high 30's in his junior and senior years of high school playing for the Talmudical Acadamy of Baltimore. He was electric on the court, dunking a lot and whatnot, and accepted a scholarship to play at the University of Maryland. His insistence on wearing a tallis and yarmulke during games, and his refusal to play basketball on the Sabbath, caught a decent amount of press, but after he found out that Maryland wanted him to play and practice Fridays and Saturday's, Goodman left the Terps for Towson. His first year at Towson went off without a hitch, as he averaged a decent 6 points and 4 assists, not great numbers, but alright for a rookie, and he attracted decently sized crowds to go watch Towson play. Unfortunately for Tamir, Mike Jaskulski, the coach who brought Goodman in, left after the Tigers' 12-17 season, and he was replaced by Michael Hunt, a coach less sensitive to Goodman's religious tendencies. (This really skippy youtube video was filmed in the halcyon days of Goodman's time at Towson.)Tamir left the team a month into the 01-02 season, and has spent the past six years bouncing back between playing pro ball in Israel and playing minor league ball in the US. He's currently a player for the Maccabi Haifa Heat in Israel, so, good for Tamir. This clip sums the whole thing up pretty well, features some clips of Goodman in his Towson days, and also shows he's pretty happy with the way it's all turned out.

Current NFL Players: Only one, Jermon Bushrod, an offensive tackle for the Saints and therefore the platoon mate of NU grad Zach Strief. By far the most notable Towson grad to play pro football was punter Sean Landeta, who spent 24 seasons playing professionally, starting with the Philadelphia Stars of the USFL in 1983, picking up two Super Bowl rings with the Giants, and playing until 2006. He was the last active player to have played in the USFL, the last to have appeared in Tecmo Bowl, and among the last to wear the single-bar punter facemask, a uniform object that appears to be officially extinct due to Scott Player's apparently finished career. 

Mascot: Doc, the Tiger. As noted, John Schuerholz is behind this baby. Before that, they were the Towson Golden Knights.

Mascot if I ran the school: Something related to either crabs or The Wire. Perhaps the Towson Cripplingly Realistic Commentaries on the Modern American City. Catchy, huh?

Difference between the amount of times this school has been to the Division I NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and the amount of times Northwestern has: (Yes, I plan on doing this with each team we face. Just to show how silly it is.)Two. Towson may be an FCS school, but they're still D-I, and therefore, they qualify for the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers went dancing in back to back seasons in 1990-91, losing to Oklahoma and Ohio State, respectively. They actually kept it close in both games, losing by 9 to the Sooners and 11 to the Buckeyes. 

Elsewhere in Towson sports: Towson's most popular sport is lacrosse, because Maryland is a weird, weird place. The men's squad won the DII championship in 1974, made the DI finals in 1991, and the DI final four in 2001, and the women's team, of course, has won five consecutive national championships. (Oh, wait, that's Northwestern with the five straight national championships. Silly mistake.) 

Tidbits:

Might I suggest "Go U Towson-stern"?: Here's how much Towson's football program is in flux this year: in addition to the new head coach and still as-of-yet undetermined starting QB, the Tigers will be taking the field this fall to an all-new fight song. The marching band's musical director, John Miliauskas, was growing tired of the old song which was played to the tune of the University of Arizona's fight song, and commissioned a new one. The theme was written by recent music graduate John Hosier, and the lyrics... well, a contest was held, with the winner receiving $500, but the results haven't been revealed yet. They better hurry, what with the team playing a game in five days and whatnot. 

Can we play them on the road?: NU sports teams are undefeated at Towson's Johnny Unitas Stadium the past two years, with the women's lacrosse teams winning their fourth and fifth consecutive national championship at the Tigers' home football field, Johnny Unitas Stadium. I like to imagine that some of NU's championship athletes snuck through a series of grates in the Towson locker room to find Towson's top secret football game plan book to bring back to Evanston to help out their fellow athletes, dispatching security guards with fast-paced lacrosse balls to the face. But it doesn't seem likely.

Just dance. It'll be okay: The Tigers dance squad has won 11 straight Division I national championships. In case you're wondering what an 11-time national champ looks like, the answer is this:

You're probably thinking "hey, that looked a lot like every other dance team I've ever seen." But then again, if Michael Phelps was swimming laps by himself, would you know he was the best swimmer of all time? In other words, you can't understand how great the Towson dance team's rendition of the stanky leg is until you see the other school's renditions of the stanky leg. 

Johnny U U: Towson's home football stadium is called Johnny Unitas Stadium. It's a brand spankin new facility built in 2002.You'd probably assume Johnny was a large donor or alumni, like John Schuerholz (after whom the team's baseball facilities are named) but that's not the case.

Unitas, as you probably know, was the quarterback for the Baltimore Colts in the 1950's, 60's, and early 70's, back before the team moved to Indianapolis, and is considered one of the all-time greats. He wasn't a Towson grad - he went to Louisville. He retired and lived out the rest of his life in Baltimore. In 2002, Towson asked him to be the "community liason" between Towson sports and Baltimore at large, and Unitas accepted. I assume the major aspects of the job were showing up at fundraising events and making other public appearances, but one of the listed aspects of his job was helping find a corporate sponsor for the brand new stadium. Anyway, soon after Towson opened the stadium, then called "Towson Stadium", and Unitas showed up at the grand opening, threw some passes, and probably signed some autographs. A week later, Unitas died of a heart attack, and rather than continue searching for a corporate sponsor, the team named the stadium after Unitas, and started a scholarship fund in his name to raise money. You could argue that the stadium is named Unitas Stadium because of how beloved he is in the Baltimore community, but on the flip side, you could just as easily argue that it's named that because of the few months he held a puff position at the university.

Long story short, don't be surprised if Ryan Field is renamed Scottie Pippen Field in the year 2033.

So that's it for Towson. I'll have an in-depth analysis of the, you know, football aspect of the matchup tomorrow.