[NU Sports] Post-game thoughts?

[wildelk2 at aol.com]

    Point 5:  we lost to Indiana last year?  Try 2 years ago.  Even a York College (Pa) grad knows that!  Regardless, you are correct in that we need to get our feces conglomerated if we are to do anything the rest of the season.    GO CATS!!      Eric

 


 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric West <e-west at northwestern.edu>
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Sun, Oct 10, 2010 8:27 pm
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Post-game thoughts?


  I have many thoughts, and with any hope I will get most of my frustration out on the first one: 
 
1. How do you not get up for this game? Prime time telecast, home game, biggest and most enthusiastic crowd in a while (thanks to an AD that seems to be working his tail off to get greater Chicago to notice us), the easiest opponent left on the schedule, the only game you have to play for two weeks, and this is what you have to show? That sound you heard was the entire metro area shrugging their shoulders and going back to Bears, Hawks, Bulls, and Notre Dame (heck, even the Irish could beat Purdue). I can't even see anyone listening to the exhortations to "stand up and make noise" anymore; what's the point of getting laryngitis and ruining my back if THIS is what I get in return? How do you not get up for this game -- and if you don't, why should anyone else? 
 
(Okay, the worst is over...Coach Fitz, I promise not to say things like this again for at least two more years.) 
 
2. I don't think Demos was the problem. If we're counting on multiple 40+-yard FG attempts, the problem lies elsewhere on the offense. 
 
3. I'd really like to retire the "Cardiac Cats" name, along with the "good record in close games" statistic, because it promotes the notion that things will always work out in the end, so why worry about pulling more than one score ahead? Maybe then we won't play as though we are up by 20 points when we're really only up by 3 or 4. Stop "expecting" victory and focus on causing a victory. 
 
4. The part of the game that frustrated me the most was our drive before Purdue's winning score. We start moving the ball for the first time in a while by doing what's worked all season (short passes, focusing on getting first downs), then on 3rd and 1 we try a running play that hasn't worked all season, never mind all night? Then on 4th and 2, instead of going for it (which we usually do against a tougher opponent), we ask Demos to make a long field goal that would still keep it a one-possession game? Maybe I'd see this in the first quarter, but the fourth? It was the first time all season I was surprised by the play calling, because it just wasn't like us. No urgency, no daring, and ultimately, no victory. 
 
5. Even with all that, I don't think this season is over at all. I was just as disgusted with the Indiana loss last year, and the team still won some great games and made it to the Outback. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were some upsets along the way. I guess I just thought this team was a little different, that it would finally break free of the clichés and do something that an NU team hasn't done in a while. Now I'm back to believing that the 'Cats will have some exciting games, pull off some upsets, make it to a good bowl game, keep it really close against a higher-ranked team...and lose. And our goals for next year will be the same as they were for this year, and for last year. 
 
For the record, I really want to be wrong...but it isn't up to me. 
 
Eric West 
e-west at northwestern.edu 
 
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