[NU Sports] It's over

[Beamsley, Jeff]

I was reacting to the suggestion that losing the bowl game was going to damage NU's football future.
 
I'm as tired of "moral" victories as the next guy.
 
I'm also just as tired of the suggestion that the NU football program is either fundamentally or fatally flawed.
 
Neither is the case.
 
The team isn't perfect, but very few teams are.
 
We could use more talented players, but that's true of virtually any team. The real question is are we getting the most out of the players that we have.  I think the answer there is yes.
 
Our bowl loss this year was the norm for the BT.  We were matched up against a better team as was the case with most of the BT teams this year.  The last three years that we've played in bowl games the BT overall has a losing record.  The BT IS the most powerful conference in the country in terms of money, but it's not where the best football is being played.  
 
It would be nice to have an "easy" win to get the bowl game monkey off our back.  The reality for us in the BT right now is that we are a middle of the pack team playing in a very competitive conference.  That means we get beat up during conference play.  The good news is that we get to go to a bowl. The bad news is that we get matched up with a middle of the pack team from another powerful football conference and are often the underdogs.  You don't have to be a statistics wonk to realize that you are going to have a losing record if you consistently play teams that are better than you.  
 
NU will have a much better team next year that it did this year.  The team next year will benefit from the "near misses" this year and hopefully learn how to put opponents away when they have the chance and finish games when they have a chance to win.  Those two qualities were lacking in this young team and it showed yesterday.  What they have already clearly learned is that they can overcome significant adversity and that's what will make them a dangerous team next year.  
 
Jeff
 
 


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From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com on behalf of Eric West
Sent: Sun 1/2/2011 12:31 AM
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] It's over



On 1/1/2011 4:21 PM, Beamsley, Jeff wrote:
> We lost.
> Big deal.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you overall, but I have to take issue with
that. Not winning a bowl game is a big deal, as it is basically the
team's primary goal each year.

> Nobody at halftime would have given this team a snowball's chance in hell to have the ball with a chance to win at the end of the game. Yet there they we were.

I'm also tired of the "moral victory" angle. I bet the team is tired of
that too. We're in a better place than that, and have been for 10 years
if not 15. If anything, their (not-quite) comeback today made it more
frustrating, because it suggested that once again our team only played a
partial game.

The great news is they can still get better. For today, we have a right
to be sad. I just want a bowl win.


Eric West
e-west at northwestern.edu

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