[NU Sports] I see an 8th Bowl spot slipping away...

[Jeff Beamsley]

I agree.

This was RW's team.  It is slowly becoming PF's team.  For example, penalties
are way down, and defense is up.

As much as PF would like to be RW, he can't.  He has to be true to himself
and he appears to be learning how to do that.  A more experienced coach would
not have lost the Duke game and would have known which buttons to push when
the team finds itself in unexpected situations (e.g. entering the 4th quarter
with a lead in a game where you were the underdog).  He's learning how to
recognize those situations, prepare for them in preseason and during
practice, and push the right buttons when he senses the team needs it.  The
only way that you learn what the right buttons are is by pushing some of the
wrong ones.  He's had that experience this year.

Besides learning his own strengths and weaknesses; he is learning the
strengths, weaknesses, and potential of his assistants.  We'll see what he
does with that experience during the off season.

NU has been making investments in PF this year.  We won't know whether or not
it has been worth it for another two or three years, when it is reasonable to
expect him to perform as an experienced head coach with a staff he has chosen
and a team that has no memory of RW.

Jeff



-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of SjT (Stephen J. Truog)
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 8:27 PM
To: johnadeg at comcast.net; thehaze at earthlink.net; nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] I see an 8th Bowl spot slipping away...

> It's not a matter of optimism vs pessimism, it is a matter of being 
> realistic and also having high expectations .

How about we just have reasonable expectations?:)

You can't just say "high expectations" and expect that to magically make
everything better without the support or building process.

Northwestern was building under Walker, had a setback and now is back to that
level of contention - which is a lot given that Walker's death wasn't even
two years ago.

We can't settle for just 6 or 7 wins (which is why you see a lot of criticism
- rightly so - of Colby), but you can't forget that not long ago, 6 or 7 wins
would have us in purple heaven.

Northwestern will never have the talent of the big powers - we just have to
be realistic about that.
Depth will always be a problem and when one of our starters is injured, it
hurts us more than the big schools. 

That's why even our Big Ten championship teams had a slip-up loss in their
season. We have to play well as a team using innovative coaching and "sum
greater than their parts" team play in every game. When we do, we can beat
anybody. When we don't, we can lose to anybody.

The Duke loss obviously sticks out this year, but I do like how despite
setbacks with Sutton, we were in every game but one. Did we lose some we
should have won? Yes. Did we win some we should have lost? Yup.
But we did get to six wins and have a shot at a bowl heading into the final
week.

I certainly wouldn't call this year a disappointment.
Unless we win Saturday, I wouldn't call it a success either. It's been a good
year, but we have a lot of talent back next year and hopefully that Duke game
and the blown fourth quarter leads in conference play stick with them and
drive them to reach up to that next level next year.

Using this season as a stepping stone to 8-9 wins next year would be a
reasonable expectation.

But first, let's make this season last longer by beating the hated Illini and
going bowling!

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!


 
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