[NU Sports] El Painful El Paso

[Louie Vaccher]

I don't agree that a spread offense automatically means that your defensive 
numbers will suffer. You could make the time-of-possession argument in the 
early '00s when Northwestern was running it without a huddle, but now that 
they've modified it and huddle after every play, the time-of-possession 
factor isn't that big a deal. This year, Northwestern averaged 29:39 in TOP 
and their opponents averaged 30:21. That's pretty darned close.

And yes, West Virginia may have blown a big lead last night, but the 
Mountaineers went into the game ranked eighth in the country in total 
defense and 10th in scoring defense.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "SjT (Stephen J. Truog)" <sjtruog at yahoo.com>
To: <nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 2:23 PM
Subject: RE: [NU Sports] El Painful El Paso


>> What about a 28 point lead that WV almost blew last
>> night?  For those who argue that ball control would
>> prevent the blowing of leads this is a good counter
>> example.  WV barely passes, being almost entirely an
>> option team, yet Georgia came back and almost won.
>
> Except that West Virginia runs a spread attack in
> their offense -- the spread does a lot of great
> things, but shorten the game it does not. The problem
> isn't whether you run or pass from the spread, it's
> how little time it takes to do either out of the
> spread.
>
> Teams that run the spread across the country almost
> always have horrible defensive numbers because whether
> the offense does good or bad, the D is on the field
> much more than D's on teams with a traditional
> offense.
>
> NU's offense all year was a rhythm offense - when it's
> on, it's tough to stop. When it's disrupted, it's a
> 3-and-out taking maybe only 20 seconds off the game
> clock and giving the D a minute or two of rest -- so
> it does wear out a defense.
>
> Of course, on the flip side, Tressel went away from
> the spread yesterday to milk clock and almost blew a
> game where OSU was absolutely dominating Notre Dame
> but hadn't put the game away.
>
>> Our defense this year was porous, but they were also
>> opportunistic and bend, but don't break.  They
>> caused the 30 turnovers, which is the 2nd most in
>
> It'll be interesting to see what Charlie Weis does in
> South Bend, becuase the statement above could almost
> be applied exactly to ND's defense. All year, they
> were opportunistic, bend-don't-break and bailed out by
> a big-play offense (and the fact that their soft
> schedule didn't include many high powered opposing
> offenses save USC and MSU).
>
> BTW - Weis also took some big gambles in the game
> (going for it on 4th down early only down 14-7 with a
> chance for a FG) -- so I wouldn't get too upset with
> Walker for trying for the TD at the end of the first
> half instead of the FG when we'd had two kicks blocked
> already.
>
>> our history(33 in 1995).  Special teams were by far
>> the number 1 reason we had tight games/losses this
>> year -- bad placekicing, bad punting, bad kickoffs,
>> and bad coverage.  Our porous defense and an offense
>> that would go into funks for quarters at a time(see
>> Q3 vs. UCLA, Q3/Q4 vs. Michigan) were also
>> contributing factors.
>
> Good analysis - special teams needs to be addressed
> first. That's a huge hole right now. But there have
> been flaws all over -- including the offense, which
> couldn't keep big leads built by the D vs. PSU or UCLA
> or get back in the game vs. Michigan despite numerous
> chances from the D.
>
>> Next season our defense has to improve to be
>> competitive, but it does not have nearly as far to
>> go as special teams.
>
> Amen - and the good news is that if you focus on
> special teams, it is the area that can be turned
> around the quickest, see Beamer when he came to
> VaTech, Snyder at KSU and Barnett at NU.
>
> GO CATS!!!
> -SjT
>
> * * * * * * * * *
> STEPHEN J. TRUOG
> sjtruog at yahoo.com
> GO CATS!!!
>
>
>
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