[NU Sports] Rants and bias ...

[johnadeg at comcast.net]

Note that Navy beat Duke which jut adds to the absurdity of losing to Duke.

John DeGroat
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "SjT (Stephen J. Truog)" <sjtruog at yahoo.com>
> I dunno ... I guess you need to rant sometimes and
> after yesterday seems as good as any. And I don't
> really care about bias or who announces our team. I
> think it still all boils down to the Duke game - we
> win that, as we should have with 500+ yards in
> offense, and we're 3-1 now after a tough loss at a
> tough place. Instead, we're stinging and 2-2 with a
> rejuvenated Michigan next.
> 
> I can understand the rant. I hope someone's lighting a
> fire under the team and coaches right now as well.
> 
> As for what we can do - we will never have the
> athletic budget, support or recruits of Ohio State.
> I'm glad and proud that NU puts its fund-raising focus
> on education instead of these obscene coaching
> salaries these days. Though I'm sure if a wealthy NU
> alum wanted to pony up a couple million to hire Jimmy
> Johnson or Bill Belicheat, the school would gladly
> take it. As an educator still paying off NU loans
> myself, it won't be coming from me!:) I give NGN what
> I can and buy my season tickets even though I'm in
> Arizona, but that's about all I can do. And that's
> fine - personally, I'd rather have a state-of-the-art
> lab or media facility on campus anyway.
> 
> As for the players, we've been over this before. NU
> does get marginal recruits sometime, but we really
> can't go any further, nor would I want the school to.
> Besides, unless we were paying kids under the table or
> something, most world-class athletes are going to want
> to head to OSU or LSU instead of NU.
> 
> But the point is that we have won three Big Ten titles
> in recent history and none of these were factors in
> those championships. Did we have a roster of five star
> recruits in 1995, 1996 or 2000? Nope. Did we have a
> coach making millions that we lured away from the NFL
> and was branded a genius? No. Did we have full
> stadiums the year before those titles or even the
> first half of those years? No.
> 
> We had teams that believed in each other, played as a
> team, cut down on mistakes and (95/96 defense and 00
> offense) used coaching innovation to outthink our
> opponents.
> 
> That's what we can focus on now. Fitz has Barnett's
> optimism and our renewed focus on special teams is
> refreshing (A return TD? NICE! Touchbacks? GREAT!).
> But I'm not sure the players have bought in yet. That
> should change once the team becomes more Fitz' in the
> coming years.
> 
> What we can change immediately though are the mistakes
> - penalties and turnovers have doomed us the past two
> games - and coaching innovation. Our spread doesn't
> even spread out the field anymore - Big Ten defenses
> have adjusted and know the flat pass laterally or draw
> is coming. We need to rejuvenate our play calling and
> look for some areas to exploit. We have a good crop of
> receivers, a good back (when healthy) and an
> experienced quarterback. We should be able to move the
> ball better.
> 
> We'll see what kind of improvement we get next week.
> Ohio Stadium is the most intimidating environment in
> the Big Ten and with us coming in moping from last
> week still, we got our butts kicked early and often.
> Now we get Big Bad Blue ... we need to truly run the
> spread to exploit the weaknesses AppState and Oregon
> did against their defense. And on D, make the kid
> throw. He has great receivers, but we can't let Hart
> run all over us.
> 
> Northwestern will always be different from schools
> like Ohio State - not a bad thing, but it doesn't mean
> we can't compete either. And yesterday we just never
> believed we had a chance.
> 
> GO CATS!!!
> -SjT
> 
> * * * * * * * * *
> STEPHEN J. TRUOG
> sjtruog at yahoo.com
> GO CATS!!!
> 
> 
>        
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