[NU Sports] WILDCAT WRAP: Michigan 28, Northwestern 16

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

Where’s Dennis Green when you need him? As the former
Northwestern coach and current star of beer
commercials would have screamed, “we let ‘em off the
hook!”

The Northwestern Wildcats rebounded impressively from
a dismal showing last week at Ohio State to outhustle,
outcoach and outplay Michigan for most of Saturday’s
game in Evanston, before letting Big Blue off the hook
with a trio of fourth quarter turnovers in a 28-16
loss.

The encouraging news for purple-clad fans was that NU
stopped what had been a steady regression each game
this year from the season-opening win over
Northeastern. The bad news, however, is that for the
second straight home game, the Cats outgained their
opponent and played well enough to win. Penalties did
them in against Duke and turnovers were the chief
culprit against Michigan.

It was a picture-perfect day in sunny Evanston as the
Cats took the field for the Big Ten opener. Ryan Field
was packed, mostly by Maize and Blue fans, but the
Michigan faithful really didn’t make themselves heard
until the fourth quarter. It’s actually not all that
bad when visiting fans outnumber NU fans in Ryan Field
(embarrassing, but not all bad), because it really
seems to fire up the folks in purple. The crowd was
standing on third down today, making noise and helped
fire up the team as much as I can recall in recent
years.

One other note – maybe it’s the resurgence of turf in
the Big Ten this year, but the grass at Ryan Field
looked awfully rough and spotty – not the lush green
bed it had been in recent years. Dunno if it’s the
weather, trying to cut it shorter for a faster track
or what, but it didn’t look too good.

As for the game, things started out well for the Cats,
with an opening out route to Ward that wound up being
a 64-yard gain. Unfortunately, the Cats could only get
a field goal out of the drive, but it got the team and
fans fired up and showed a new aggressiveness from the
coaches that was much needed in putting the OSU
debacle behind them.

On defense, the Cats keyed in on Michigan’s main man,
Mike Hart, all day and shut him down as well as
anybody has this year. He wound up barely topping 100
yards on 30 carries, but the only reason he topped the
century mark was a late scamper aided considerably by
a wide receiver hold that was uncalled. Speaking of
our zebra friends, this crew was the exact opposite of
the Duke crew – several seemingly obvious holds on
both sides went uncalled and only a few flags delayed
the action all day. As long as it’s consistent, I have
no problem with that.

The down side of the Cats’ focus on Hart was that it
opened up the passing game. Michigan zipped down the
field on the first drive with the pass and scored a
quick six to go up 7-3. It would, however, be their
only real drive of the first half. The NU defense
continued to clamp down on Hart the rest of the day
and even got some pressure on Michigan’s passing game
later in the half to keep the Wolverines off the board
for the rest of the half and really until the very end
of the third quarter. They didn’t convert many third
downs (and the one fourth down they made was by
penalty) and given how talented their receivers are,
we played about as well as we could on defense by
shutting down Hart and keeping the passing game in
check – the fourth quarter scores were short field
ones. They really only had one drive after that
initial score. Nice job, defense.

After Michigan scored, Northwestern did something they
haven’t done in awhile – respond. They did it with a
nicely called drive that mixed up the plays and kept
the Wolverines guessing on defense. The balanced
attack led to a 49 yard scamper up the middle by Omar
Conteh to put the Cats ahead 10-7 at the end of the
first.

Special teams continued to be a welcome strength for
Northwestern in the second quarter, as Amado
Villarreal nailed a 49-yard field goal along with a
27-yarder at the end of the half, while his Michigan
counterpart missed an easy chip shot (and would miss
another later). Unfortunately, however, these were the
only points the Cats could muster in the second
quarter despite dominating in plays, yards and time of
possession. Michigan was out of sync on offense, out
of answers on defense yet only down 16-7 heading into
the locker room.

The third quarter again saw the Cats squander some
chances, as promising drives that started to get a
rhythm going fizzled out near midfield. Michigan
continued to struggle on offense as well, until Chad
Henne was put back in the game and led a drive late in
the third to cut the NU lead to 16-14.

Northwestern-Michigan games have pretty much followed
two patterns over the past 15 years. Either Michigan
wins big, or Northwestern wins a close game. Through
three quarters, the Michigan fans had to have a
nagging feeling in their gut that this year was going
to be one of the latter examples. The Cats had come to
play and Michigan was not looking too good. Hart and
the O line was not wearing down the purple rushing
defense and Northwestern was racking up a lot of yards
on offense. You could see signs of hope on the faces
of NU fans and players as well as the teams came out
fired up for the last 15 minutes of play.

And here’s where you would insert Dennis Green’s
postgame rant, now famous in commercials, after his
Arizona Cardinals surrendered a flurry of late
touchdowns off turnovers and special teams play to the
Chicago Bears to let a win slip away last year on
Monday Night Football. Northwestern was well prepared
for this game. Michigan was exactly who we thought
they were 
 and we let ‘em off the hook.

After another nice defensive stand near midfield, the
Cats set the unfortunate chain of events in motion by
Ward bobbling a punt and barely recovering to start
the drive in the 1 yard line. We dug out of that hole
thanks to a gutsy call and nice pass from C.J. Bacher
to Ross Lane on 3rd and 10 
 only to give the ball
right back to Michigan a few plays later as Bacher was
carrying the ball loosely on a scramble, was stripped
and Shawn Crable recovered the fumble at the 15.
Michigan still couldn’t get Hart going, and had to
work for every inch despite the short field, but
eventually scored to take a 21-16 lead.

Northwestern still had plenty of time to drive down
with nine minutes left, and was putting together
another nice drive with a  couple of nifty first-down
catches by Kim Thompson and Eric Peterman. But Bacher
was hit on a blindside blitz and the ball popped out.
Any hope of a “tuck play” replay made famous by
another Michigan alum was dashed when the Wolverines
picked the ball up before it hit the ground and
returned it again to around the NU 25. But three plays
and one yard later, Michigan missed another field goal
and the Cats still had hope with 6 minutes remaining.

But the Cats’ ensuing drive ended in, you guessed it,
a turnover. A pass behind the receiver bounced off
Wildcat hands into a Michigan defender’s arms and for
the third time in half a quarter, the Wolverines were
starting a drive inside the Wildcat 30. The D held
last time, but you just can’t keep giving an offense
with as many weapons as Michigan a short field. Here’s
where Hart had his one long run of the game – aided by
some jersey grabbing downfield – to get it to the 1
yard line and set up a touchdown later to seal the
game with 4 minutes to go.

Any hopes of a comeback were dashed by yet another
Wildcat turnover on offense when Bacher fumbled after
being hit, and the Wolverines ran out the clock to
escape Evanston with 28-16 win. They didn’t play near
as well as they had the past two weeks, but they took
advantages of NU generosity to get the win.

As for the Cats, it was their best overall effort of
the season and showed so many signs of growth 
 but
they panicked in the fourth and started to make
similar mistakes to the Duke loss before collapsing.
They could easily be 4-1 right now, but are 2-3
instead and will be kicking themselves about these
last two home losses and how they let them slip away
at the end. Hopefully the can rebound to catch a
Michigan State team coming off a heartbreaking loss
napping next week.

GAME BALLS
* The coaches. The play calling and game plans against
Duke and Ohio State justly deserved weeks worth of
criticism. So today’s game plan and motivation are
just as deserving of praise. We mixed up the offense
well to keep Michigan off kilter (even put in some
nice runs for CJ – but HANG ON TO THE BALL!), we made
them one-dimensional on defense and even got a little
pressure when needed and – a big credit to Fitz – we
put that embarrassing loss to OSU behind us and came
to play against one of the nation’s most talented
teams.
* Special teams. Aside from the muffed punt and an
opening kickoff out of bounds, we again played solid
in this phase of the game and clearly outplayed
Michigan. Great field goal kicking by Villarreal. Good
returns. Solid coverage.
* Omar Conteh. With Sutton out, Conteh really stepped
up nicely to outplay Mike Hart and give our offense
balance with a running attack.

THINGS TO WORK ON
* Finish. Finish drives. Finish games. We had this one
gentlemen. We had this one cold. But our second half
drives fizzled out around midfield and our fourth
quarter was awful – and it wasn’t conservative style
play calling (we were nice and aggressive still), it
was our execution. We looked like we believed we could
win for three quarters and then all of a sudden had
doubt.
* Hold on to the ball. Three fumbles. Two
interceptions. You just don’t win with those numbers
and most of those came in the fourth quarter.
* Capitalize on chances. This goes along with the
finishing drives theme. We had 500+ yards on Duke and
14 points. We had 400+ on Michigan and only 16 points.
Even one more TD on those second and third quarter
drives that fizzled out would have really had Michigan
hitting the panic button.

AROUND THE LEAGUE
* Can we finally lay off the Big Ten now national
media? After a wild weekend of upsets around the
country that makes you realize just why you gotta LOVE
college football, it’s pretty clear that you can’t
judge our league by the 0-2 Michigan start and place
us near the end of the BCS conferences. The ACC is a
mediocre mess, the Big East’s Big Three have all lost
one game already and the Big XII’s Big Two both lost
in shockers today. Even the Mighty Gators choked one
away at home against an Auburn team that was in
disarray after two home losses to unranked teams. We
may not have the heavy hitters the SEC does or USC,
but I’ll put our depth alongside anyone – even this
year.
* As for the top teams, OHIO STATE is starting to look
like the one to beat. The defense is the league’s best
(by default?) and the offense is coming along. The
Bucks have some tough road tests coming up, though.
* And WISCONSIN keeps surviving and advancing 
 and
winning. Yeah, their D is pretty porous and they
haven’t been impressive, but all that counts is the W
and beating Michigan State is no easy task this year.
* PURDUE called off the dogs a bit and allowed a few
late scores to make it closer than it was, but still
easily rolled to a quiet 5-0 by beating Notre Dame.
* As for our depth, the Big Ten looks to have a solid
middle this year of bowl contenders. ILLINOIS would be
5-0 right now if they could have even hung on to one
of the 55 turnovers against Mizzou in the opener. Nice
win over Penn State for Zook’s resurgence. And INDIANA
is sniffing the postseason as well after an impressive
win in Iowa City. There are just no easy Ws in this
league.

I hate to keep harping on it, but the mood of Cats’
fans right now still goes back to that Duke game. Last
week’s embarrassment felt even worse because it
knocked us to 2-2 when we should have been 3-1. And
despite a vastly improved game plan and effort this
week against Michigan, it’s still hard to feel
anything but empty and disappointed because we let
Michigan and Duke get away. If we had beaten Duke, 3-2
with a solid game against Michigan might be less
mopey, but now it’s 2-3 with a tough game ahead in
East Lansing. We really don’t have much more margin
for error this year and as noble an effort as today
was, it doesn’t cut it anymore. No more letting teams
off the hook – time to step up and finish, Cats. Start
next week against Sparty!

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

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


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