[NU Sports] El Painful El Paso

[Roy Lamberton]

Its just possible that RW has already addressed the kicking game with the commit
from Demos out in Phoenix. I also thought Villareal showed a lot of poise
kicking at the end of the game.

[FWIW - David played on a college team that missed just about every kick one
year. The next year their kicker made all conference.]

Defense is another matter - in the past we'd always find 9 or 10 good defenders
but we had little or no depth. Folks point to the 95-96 defense as if that was
something we always had. But if you dig out your media guide and check our NFL
draftees, the older teams produced a lot of offensive draftees. Up until
recently, NU hasn't produced NFL defenders the way we've produced offensive
folks.

The Big 10 also didn't have to produce the cornerbacks and safeties back in the
"3 yards and a cloud of dust" days. 

Right now, we may be a victim of our own success at coaching younger players - a
highly ranked DT would look at NU's D-Line and figure we're loaded with young
guys who will start for 2 or 4 years. Same thing with the linebackers, altho
they seem to want to come in and play for Fitz. 

But lets face it. NU is not the school of choice for most top HS defensive
players.

Besides, I suspect that even with Barry and McG [and Hershell] gone, the D has
the "hosses" to continue to improve.

Our defenses seem to be able to come up with a scheme at the half that stop the
opposition. 

Even in the Sun Bowl, we saw the defense make the shifts that stopped the UCLA
run.  We started the game set up to shut down a passing attack, and we did - 22
points worth. They changed to a running game, over our freshman tackle. During
the season we had the depth to pull one guy, talk it over, and make the
adjustments. In the Sun Bowl, we had to leave our 2 top guys in because of
depth. 

I'm working on an analysis of our recruiting so far, and possibly what the team
will look like in 2006. From my preliminary look at the recruiting chart, its
not that bad on both sides of the ball.

rsl

 


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate
Computer Applications & Support Associates
and Publisher of Purple Reign, 
The Scout.com Northwestern University Site
(http://www.purplewildcats.com)
AIM Handle: CoachRoy74
======== Go Cats -  Beat 'em All ===========
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Biz handled 
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, but the curse of the Walker era --  pathetic 
> kicking game and 
> defense -- just continue to haunt  us.  We need help in those 
> areas or we'll 
> never go beyond the 7-5  plateau. Period.  
>
>