[NU Sports] Whew!

[Chris and Lori Patterson]

First off, congrats to the Wildcat players and coaching staff on the W. The
CATS are now 15-3 in their last 18 games decided by 7 points or less. The
defense picked it up noticeably on the third and fourth down plays in the
fourth quarter.  The bend, but don't break philosophy worked and held the
Dookies to 5 of 16 third-down conversions. Not too many blitzes as I know
one resulted in a 29 yard gain for Duke.

 

I really liked Barnett's simplification that to win a game you've got to
outdo your opponent in 2 of the 3 areas of offense, defense and special
teams.  The NU offense was flat the entire game and unlike the Syracuse game
never, never, never got into a rhythm. Certainly an area of concern because
I don't think 24 points will win many games in the Big Ten. But special
teams and defense were fine. In fact, I was impressed that the NU D found
energy in the tank in that fourth quarter, especially on the big plays!! I
could really see them take it up a notch. My hat is off to them. Did anybody
notice that the time of possession was Duke 39:15 to NU's 20:45?  Ouch.  And
it felt that bad too. The D played a lot and held them! Good job. NUs
special teams play are noticeably improved and I believe the D is improved
also.

 

Now for some comparisons; I was at the game in Durham this year and the Duke
game last year in Evanston.

 

I'm not sure I can quantify how much better Duke is this year over last!
Last year they were bad. They didn't have an offense. Those of you at the
game last year know that Duke probably couldn't move the ball even if
opposing team played only 10 on defense. They were inept, terrible, etc.
Last year's Duke's defense couldn't stop NU and it was NU stopping
themselves. This year it was totally different; Duke is a good team. We'll
all know more in a few weeks. But, I expect Duke to surprise several teams
this year and certainly not to be blown out.

 

I was impressed with Duke. They were actually fun to watch. Their offense
clearly was capable and vastly improved! At times, their offense looked like
NU's (last year). Nice play calling; seemingly moving the ball at will.
Duke's D seemed noticeably faster than last year too. I had heard that
Cutcliffe had improved the conditioning regiment of the team and that seemed
apparent. Bacher threw a couple passes in the middle to players that maybe
weren't quite as open as maybe they should have been as the D laid some
serious hits on our receivers. Hits that didn't occur last year.

 

The stadium was probably about two thirds full, probably twice as many fans
as the last NU-Duke game. The fan atmosphere was good. The Duke student
section rocked. The Duke players on the sidelines were jumping up and down
and raising their arms to engage their fans. The NU contingent was strong
and rose to their feet during the critical 3rd and 4th down plays right in
front of us. I would guess that there were maybe five times as many NU fans
this year than at the previous NU-Duke game in Durham (can't remember what
year that was, but I was there for it too).

 

Keep an eye on Duke this year.  This game was a flip-flop from last year's
game in many ways.

 

Chris Patterson

Knoxville, TN

 

PS.  Previous stop of Cutcliffe (was OC at University of Tennessee)

 

PPS. Notes below on questions.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of CHerron604 at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 12:01 AM
To: sjtruog at yahoo.com; nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Whew!

 

Not sure if this was apparent on the radio or webcast, but something looked


odd in the last possession of the first half.

 

- on the first play, it looked like Sutton got out of bounds.  Yet the  

scoreboard clock appeared to keep running.

 

Correct. We noticed that from the stands. As I recall he was not tackled,
but pushed out of bounds, too.

 

- on the next play, Sutton got the first down, and still the clock kept  

running.

 

Yup. Maybe the time keeper was on a bathroom break. Or really trying to help
out the home team!?

 

- It looked like the first clock stoppage was when we called a time  out.

 

 

- Also, did anyone think we should've tried a really quick pass with 6  

seconds to go in the half ?  Was the CJ slide play simply to get between
the 

hashmarks ?  Or did we have time for one quick pass to the corner  ?

 

>From my perspective, I don't think the endzone was too far away to
comfortable run a pass in 6 seconds. CJ's slide to the middle looked like it
was totally planned. He did not look down field.

 

I also didn't hear at the game - was it a Big Ten crew ?  Duke has  mostly 

brought (incompetent) ACC crews to their games in Evanston.  Did  Eanet say 

which kind of crew we had ?

 

It was pretty dry out there - the sun was out and it was hot much of the  

day.  It must've been 80 degrees and 80% humidity during the game - and not
even 

a hint of a breeze.

 

Great NU contingent at Wallace Wade, by the way - maybe 20% ?  We  occupied 

almost one quarter of the stadium, though we were kind of spread out,  and 

contributed a lot of noise.

Chuck Herron   Tech '85

 

 

In a message dated 9/6/2008 10:33:58 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  

sjtruog at yahoo.com writes:

 

Didn't  get to see the game but I saw the webcast highlights on the BTN -
not 

pretty  in many ways, but kind of fitting given how we were down there and 

couldn't  score at the end last year.

 

I think Duke is a better team than last  year ... but we still should have 

won by more. Still, get the win and get  home. We'll take it.:)

 

Around the league, Minnesota's win was  impressive. Not so much the offense 

(we knew they'd be decent) but the  defense. Hard to get much of a read on 

teams like Purdue and Indiana with the  competition, but it looks like the
middle 

of the pack in the Big Ten is going  to be quite competitive this year.

 

Next week things step up for the  league with the two big games in
California 

for the Bucks and Bucky, Big  Blue's Notre Dame game and the intriguing 

Oregon @ Purdue matchup.

 

As  for us, just get the win. The Ohio game the following week will be  

interesting, but we can't look ahead of the Salukis.

 

GO  CATS!!!

-SjT

 

* * * * * * * * *

STEPHEN J.  TRUOG

sjtruog at yahoo.com

GO CATS!!!