[NU Sports] Polls

[Roy Lamberton]

Scary isn't it....

My primary concern is that when we get towards the end of a game with a lead
we go into extreme conservative mode - it's like we're afraid to lose,
rather than desire to win. 

You don't see teams hold back on scoring opportunities against us, yet when
we have a lead we're happy to stop throwing completely, and just run, run
and run again. Most other teams that I've watched this year continue to play
the same offense, maybe the passing is a little more careful, but they
continue to try to score. 

To me it appears we don't.

Not that I don't think C.J. Bacher can't run effectively. I think he's more
careful about when he takes off and is more ready to give the ball away to a
better runner, but when we're trying to burn up the clock, NU seems to lack
the power running game that can grind 10 or 12 minutes off the clock in the
4 quarter.

It’s the same on defense - the Cats swarm the QB early, with pass coverage
that allows some blitzes and lots of pressure on the backfield. We get a
lead in the 4th and suddenly we're in prevent [as Walker used to say
"prevent you from winning"] and the other suddenly QB has all the time in
the world to pick our secondary apart because we're not blitzing any more.

Michigan threw a lot of passes at the end of the game, fortunately most were
dropped. The Wolves catch a few more passes and we might be cursing the day
we went to the Big House in 2008.

dOSU kept so much pressure on Juice last Saturday (I watched parts of that
game too) that Ron Zook put in the 2nd string QB, who didn't fare any
better. Pam & Co. kept hinting that Michigan might put their backup in to
try to jump start their offense, but we appeared to back off and they left
him in the game.

Now, a win is a win is a win and I was fired up about Wisconsin knocking off
Minny, and dOSU's win over the Ill-whine-I, but I wish we didn't go into
conservative mode at the end of the game.

I know Fitz doesn't believe in running up the score, but I really like to
see us make a drive for the goal line at the end of game we're winning by
less than 7.

Go Cats
Irradicate the IllwhineI

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate & Unix Guru.
Computer Applications & Support Associates
--------------- Also ---------------------------
Retired Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician [R]
Commissioner Delaware American Legion Baseball
Northwestern University - Sp 1974
==========  Go Cats -  Beat 'em All  ===========
"The American Experiment will succeed until the
masses realize they can vote themselves largesse
from the public purse." -- attributed to
Adam DeToqueville - 18th cent. 
=============[How True, How True]===============


-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Mike Nolan
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2008 11:52 PM
To: WildElk2 at aol.com
Cc: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Polls

> 24th in ESPN/Coaches Poll; 27th in AP, unranked in BCS.   A win vs.
Illinois 
> and we'll be ranked going into our bowl.

Have we won a game this season when we've been ranked in any of those polls?
It seems like that's been the kiss of death for us.
--
Mike Nolan

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