[NU Sports] Iowa?

[Jonathan Hodges]

I believe the NU defense has missed McManis this year more than any other
player in a long while; and I agree with the statement that he was one of
the best players in NU history.

With him, they could play man-to-man defense a LOT, even against top flight
receivers, and give either safety help to the other side or put more guys in
the box.  I believe Brad Phillips really benefited from this as he could
stay close to the box and put nice hits on ballcarriers without worrying
about dropping into coverage.  This also gave DC Mike Hankwitz many more
defensive options as he didn't have to resort to deep zone coverage on a
routine basis.

That is really apparent this year, particularly against Michigan State.  NU
kept the LBs close to the line to stop the run game, which they did very
well.  But, since they didn't have McManis to cover one of MSU's quality WRs
one on one, they had to drop the DBs into zone, and MSU did a great job
picking that apart throughout the second half.  I believe the scheme was the
right option; unfortunately the DBs just weren't good enough to be able to
move to a better option.

Cover corners sure don't come every day so hopefully NU can develop some
guys going into next season.

Jonathan

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 8:56 PM, <neonrye at aol.com> wrote:

> Well said, Tom.? I have been saying same thing about McManis.? We don't
> have that aspect of key moment turnovers that he brought to the turf.? I
> keep waiting for a big pick and it never seems to come.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Maycock &lt;tkmaycock at yahoo.com <lt%3Btkmaycock at yahoo.com>&gt;
> To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
> Sent: Thu, Nov 11, 2010 5:56 pm
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Iowa?
>
>
>
>
> &gt; they haven't always gotten the big play
> &gt; they needed to  win the close ones, either, like against MSU.
>
> Yep.
>
>
> There's an alternate universe somewhere where Peters makes that
> interception in
> the endzone against MSU (and we win), and either an O-lineman doesn't hold
> on
> the big run against Purdue (and we punch in a TD and win) or Demos makes
> the
> kick to tie (and we win in overtime).  Maybe even one where Trumpy makes a
> spectacular TD grab on 4th down to pull within 7 against PSU, making the
> last
> drives for both teams much more interesting.
>
> Of course, there's another alternate universe where we lost to Indiana,
> Minny,
> and Vandy in addition to the 3 other Big Ten teams.
>
> So, it's basically just like the last two years--we're good enough to be in
> every game we play, but not good enough to win them all.
>
> Don't forget that last year we were getting absolutely blown out by both
> Indiana
>
> and Purdue, playing some of the worst football I've seen from NU in years.
> We
> were very fortunate to come back and win both of those games. And those
> teams
> were a lot worse than this year's MSU and PSU squads in my opinion.
>
> I think the one real "playmaker" we haven't replaced is Sherrick McManis.
> Plug
> him into this year's team and I'd bet we're +1 or 2 wins easily. But then I
> think McManis belongs on a very short list of all-time great NU players, at
> least in the 25 years or so I've been watching the Wildcats. We don't see
> his
> like very often in Evanston.
>
> Tom
>
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