[NU Sports] Bummer for us

[Jeff Beamsley]

I think that the big question is whether the Illinois victory was an anomaly
or evidence of a maturing football team.

The only other game of theirs that I saw was against Michigan.

The team that played Michigan had a lot of penalties and made a lot of
mistakes. Juice was benched for a while because he seemed tentative and threw
some bad passes.  If that's the team that shows up, they are eminently
beatable.

They played an almost perfect game against OSU.  They didn't turn the ball
over.  They had only one penalty.  Juice was in control from beginning to
end.  It seemed that OSU's game plan was to take away Mendenhall, which they
pretty much did.  They didn't figure that Juice could beat them, but he had
the OSU defense guessing the whole game, and when OSU did guess right, he
made a play with his feet.  The defense stuffed OSU's running game, got them
down early, turned them into a pass only team, and got into Boeckman's head.
If they play us as they played OSU, they will score early and often because
CJ is going to throw a lot of picks.  

I think our game plan has to be pretty much the same as OSU.  We have to take
away their run and run options, put them in obvious passing situations, and
make sure that Juice throws the ball.  If he has a great day, then tip your
hat and walk off the field.

When we have the ball, we have to be patient, play field position, and let
them make the mistakes.  C.J. is going to have to make some plays with his
feet too.  

Could be a very interesting game.

Jeff





-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Jonathan Hodges
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 9:29 AM
To: Abrahamson, Alan (NBC Universal)
Cc: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Bummer for us

What the NU defense needs to do is play straight up, stay in their lanes, and
take away as much of the running game as possible.  Sure, Juice had 4 TDs
against OSU, but the fact is that he's still not a great passer and his
strength is running the ball.  OSU's biggest issue is that they let Illinois
take a lead then the OSU D "pressed" too much (I know NU has heard a lot of
that word, especially in its 4th quarter meltdowns) - e.g. the defenders were
trying too hard to become "heroes" and do it all at once with a big stop.
Meanwhile, Illinois took advantage of that with a lot of fake handoffs (which
OSU seemed to bite on every time) leaving guys out of position and holes to
run through.  Northwestern needs to contain this by not overpursing and
having someone in position to take care of business - I was surprised that NU
was so effective at containing Lewis this past week, who had under 40 yards
on the ground (along with being sacked 3 times).
Once again the key to the game for the 'Cats will be getting pressure on
Williams and containing him so he can't make things happen with his feet
while closing off their running game.

It's definitely a "win-able" game for Northwestern, but they will have to
reduce their mistakes.  3 score-less trips to the end zone like against
Indiana will cost NU even more against a stronger Illinois team.  But, I
fully expect this week's game to be a close, hard-fought battle.

Jonathan

On Nov 12, 2007 6:55 AM, Abrahamson, Alan (NBC Universal) <
Alan.Abrahamson at nbcsports.com> wrote:

>  NYT this a.m., and this is truly a drag since one of the things the 
> Cats could benefit from is the possibility the Cheating, er, Fighting 
> Illini might fall into a trap game, having waxed the No. 1 Buckeyes 
> only to line up next against the 6-5 Wildcats:
>  '... Illinois has a good shot to reach the Fiesta Bowl,' according to 
> BCS guru Jerry Palm, 'if the Illini win next week against Northwestern 
> and some teams ahead of them lose.'
>  Great.
>  If I were the Zooker, I know how I would game-plan against the Cats.
> Throw deep. A lot. Like Juice Williams did against the Buckeyes.
>  Meanwhile, if I were Fitz, I would assign someone - Kadela? - to spy 
> on Williams on every play. The reason the Illini kept that sustained 
> fourth-quarter drive going was Williams' ability to run the ball himself.
>
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--
Jonathan W. Hodges
1237 Emerson St Apt 2
Evanston, IL  60201-3577
(847) 736-2449
jonathanwhodges at gmail.com
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