[NU Sports] Rueful Realist

[John Labbe]

> Candidly, a good defense would have brought the hammer down in the first half -- after the Cat offense raced to a 23-7 lead.

I thought our D was doing pretty well in the first half.  The offense "raced" to a 23-7 lead with the help of 3 interceptions, 1 forced fumble, and 1 special teams recovery (kick-off).

We can talk about the passing defense all day, but that wasn't the only thing that cost us the game.  True, that final drive was a killer and it succeeded due to several good passing plays.  But I don't know whether every time an opposing team completes a pass means it was "inexcusable" on our part.  If so, we've won quite a few games in the past 10 years where the opposing teams (unbeknown to me) were inexcusably bad because they allowed us to have come-from-behind wins thanks to quick passing attacks (Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Minnesota--you know the games).

I don't know who mentioned that they don't know any coaches they respect who would have allowed a team to blow a 16-point lead.  Well, I don't really like Lloyd Carr much because he's too much of a crybaby, but besides that, I think he's a pretty good coach, and I've known him to blow a 16-point lead in the fourth quarter (you know the game).

I thought the difference was that in the second half, PSU's defense came to play and their offense began to click.  Our offense sputtered.  How many times did we need to see Basanez run into a wall of defenders with nowhere to go?

Having said all that, I kindof think Walker might be getting a little long in the tooth, assuming we have a losing season this year.  I don't really see how we could do much worse with a coaching change.  I don't think he needs any more time to build a program than he's already had, and it's true that we continue to have weak defenses (regardless of what else can be said (as I do above) to explain our losses).

I think we have some wins left in us this season because 1) I think we'll continue to move the ball on offense and score.  I think PSU had one of the better defenses we'll see all season.  2) Not every team has the fast receivers that PSU had this weekend, nor the passing attack that ASU threw at us.  We should be able to stay in some games.  3) Lest we forget, this is NORTHWESTERN FOOTBALL.  Even in our great years of the mid-90s we had some stupid losses.  But somehow, in other games, we always achieve the unexpected.  If that Hawaii game last year had been our first game of the season, who the heck would have predicted us to beat Ohio State?  I'm not making any predictions about any remaining games this season, but I think we have a few more upsets up our sleeves.