[NU Sports] Our last play

[Weinbaum, Willie]

Thanks for sharing the link - one thing the fine Tribune story missed is that the last/only time NU won a Bowl game, the decisive score was on a trick play, too.  

It wasn't a fake field goal, but a deception play in which the ball was snapped through the QB's legs directly to a halfback, with the fullback decoying as if he'd receive a pitch from the QB and going left...the halfback with the ball delaying and then sprinting right behind blockers.  Ed Tunnicliff's 57-yard TD was the winning score vs Cal.

Such a shame y-day's play devised by Walker didn't work out as the Rose Bowl play did in '49. 
>From Blackberry - please excuse typos

W. Weinbaum
Producer
212-916-9864 (24-hour voicemail)
willie.weinbaum at espn.com

----- Original Message -----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com <nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com>
To: Jim Leonard <jleonard518 at yahoo.com>
Cc: Northwestern Wildcats <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
Sent: Sat Jan 02 15:21:33 2010Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Our last play

Regarding the last play, everyone should read the article below, which
describes the way the play should have worked.  As reported earlier,
it was an old play from Walker.  It had worked for us once in 2005,
and apparently several other times for Walker.

It was really a trick-trick play.  A fumblerooski.  On TV, we could
hardly see what happened.  And the announcers called it a direct snap
to Markshausen.  In fact, the ball was snapped to Persa.  As the
backup QB, you could expect the defense to be keying on him as he's
not usually on our field goal team.  Persa then deposited the ball
between Markshausen's feet, and ran left, as if he were running an
option play to the left.

Markshausen was then supposed to pause about 2 seconds before picking
up the ball and running right.  He picked it up almost immediately,
and as we all know, Auburn wasn't fooled.

We can second guess the call all year, but I think it was a great
call.  We just didn't pull it off.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/chi-02-haugh-northwestern-jan02,0,6066456.column


On Jan 2, 2010, at 12:10 AM, Jim Leonard wrote:

> Fellow Wildcat Faithful,
>
> I'm trying to savor what a great game we saw today, but I am truly
> disappointed by the last play of the game. If Demos were healthy
> then maybe this works, but with an untested kicker no one was
> fooled. To me this seemed like a time where you give Kafka the ball
> and let Brewer, Markschuasen, and Dunsmore get open.
>
> I know that Fitz has said that it was a team decision and that he'd
> do it again. That's somewhat comforting, but I still think it was
> the wrong call. Regardless, it's in the books and we can all be proud.
>
> Victory & Honor,
> Jim
>
>
>
>
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