In a ten minute span, Dan Persa single-handedly gave new hope to the Wildcat season and re-opened the door, slightly, to a New Year’s Day Bowl game. But he paid a mighty price for his play, which both made Persa a martyr and thrust #25 Northwestern back into the national spotlight.
First, my bold statement of the day. Northwestern and Iowa is the best rivalry in the Big Ten over the last 10 years, and it will only continue to get better. With the small exception of a few Bielema-esque blowouts by Iowa, every game has been close and meant something to either or both teams. Iowa fans have finally gotten over the “just Northwestern” stereotype of this game; making it must see TV for fans of both schools now. Additionally, with both teams now competing annually for the West-ish Division Title, the games will take on even more meaning. No other matchup in the Big Ten has provided as many thrills over the last ten years – not even OSU-Michigan.
Fitz was cited this week by Adonis Smith, who is gaining an odd reputation for talking out of turn, for saying that he hates Iowa. He, of course, deflected the comment publically. But in his off-the-field interview with Sam Valenzisi after the first half, he screamed in the voice of a man on a mission, “there are no moral victories in red-letter games.” Yes, Iowa does mean more to NU, and this goes back to the early years of the Expect Victory Era. Gary Barnett always said that NU should strive as a program to be as successful as Iowa – a reasonable goal, which did not raise the expectations to the level of OSU, Michigan, or PSU – but to a level where wins are expected, but still appreciated by a fan base that is loyal through thick and thin. Randy Walker, and now Fitz have continued this mantra, and today Iowa is a “red-letter game.”
Like him or not, I have some new-found respect for Kirk Ferentz after Saturday. In the handshake after the game, you could specifically hear him ask Fitz how Persa was doing. This was a class move for Ferentz, who could have easily done the typical shake and turn. The mutual respect that Fitz and this team have gained across the conference is infectious.
Which brings us to the obvious: Dan Persa’s achilles. It is one of those injuries that truly only occurs on a freak play, like the one we all saw on Saturday. But Persa’s surgery was “textbook” and he is scheduled to be at full strength by late spring. Teddy Greenstein reports in the Trib about the status of the situation. Also, you can follow a humorous (or humerus perhaps?) account of the recovery at www.twitter.com/dannysachilles. For what it is worth, Persa was named the Walter Camp National Player of the Week for his performance and finishes the season as the Big Ten’s all time leader in completion percentage for a season.
So who is Evan Watkins, and do the Cats stand a chance? He is described as having great speed "for a guy his size", but will certainly not be as quick as Persa. He can throw on the run pretty well and he rushed for 750 yards in 24 high school games. He is 6'6" 245 -- which is 5 lbs. lighter than Cam Newton and 10 lbs. heavier than Terrell Pryor (both 6’6”); so yes, he is an enormous man. Our offense is pretty plug and play for quick passes, so as long as he is at least competent with reading defenses, that should work. Other than the 3rd&11 against IU, he has not completed a pass yet that was needed. He also threw a brutal pass into double coverage on the next drive. Evidently, Evan has a strong arm, but less touch, which may open up the vertical game in a way NU has not experimented with this year. All in all, it sounds like Evan is more similar to Mike Kafka than Persa.
In short, one of the biggest advantages is that Illinois has absolutely no film on Watkins (think Kafka vs. Minnesota 2008). I would look for a few Newton/Tebow-style planned runs early to get him comfortable with the hits and the carries and also to open up Trumpy and the intermediate passing game. I would also look for more read-option instead of straight run-option like NU has been doing (with limited success). As long as the defense keeps the Cats within a touchdown, I would look for a pretty tight playbook until at least mid-way through the fourth quarter; both to get his confidence raised and also to limit the film on him in the event that the Cats win easily. Obviously, Fitz and McCall will have to open things up if the Cats are down or close in the second half. Good luck Evan!
In case anyone is wondering, McCall is preparing both true freshman QB’s, Kain Colter and Trevor Siemian, to serve in the backup role should something happen to Evan.
Which brings me, finally, to the game itself. Without question, the defense played admirably and finally played tough for the entire game. I would attribute the Iowa scores to a matter of, “it was bound to happen eventually,” rather than any sort of systemic lapse of focus. The Cats missed an opportunity to stop Iowa on fourth day which led to the first half field goal. Iowa’s first touchdown was set up by a pass to McNutt; Iowa literally ran the same play from the same formation – just to the opposite side for the touchdown. So there were definitely some coverage issues for the Cats that the Hawks were exploiting. Similarly, the DJK touchdown was one-on-one coverage with no safeties – and a four-man rush. What the other six defenders were doing at the time is unknown.
Fitz has gone on record as saying that the reason for his success against Iowa has been the turnover battle. Well, that was not the case Saturday, as the turnovers were even. Instead, NU’s defense just outplayed Iowa’s offense in the end. The run defense was suffocating at times, and more than adequate at others. Stanzi made a terrible play by throwing the pick to Peters, but Peters still had to be there to make the play. More than anything, the defense finished for the first time all year. What do Vandy, Rice, CMU, Purdue, MSU and Indiana all have in common? They all scored on their last (legitimate) possession against the Cats defense. Congrats on not adding Iowa to that list.
The offense was as efficient as it could have been given the talent of Iowa’s defense. It did have a missed FG, a brutal tipped interception, and two many drops. It also had drives stalled by an illegal touching and an intentional grounding – both of which were good calls, but it was highly entertaining to hear Fitz yelling at the refs – “you guys have been terrible all day.” But NU scored the first touchdown of the game for the 10th game in a row and obviously made the two touchdown drives when it mattered. Kudos to the team for making it a great Senior Day game.
Iowa has to be the biggest disappointment of the Big Ten this year. At 7-3, they are looking 8-4 square in the face; in a year where they were an outside contender for a National Championship. When Stanzi threw the interception, the team looked like it had already lost – and it had a 10-point lead. It was almost as if Stanzi went for the kill shot on that pass because the team had nothing left.
And Iowa’s defense, supposedly full of future NFL talent is an absolute fraud. The Linebacker, #44, James Morris was getting burnt all day – but why was he covering NU’s wideouts? The DBs were giving NU tons of cushion – apparently, to guard against our dangerous vertical attack. And the defensive line should lose their scholarships. If their DE’s cannot play for 60 minutes, they do not deserve to be out there. The team should be ashamed of its conditioning program, because that was one of the primary reasons that the NU scoring drives were so easy. On draft day, rather than showing clips of Adrian Clayborn sacking quarterbacks and blocking punts, Mel Kiper should show clips of him kneeling on the sidelines and keeping the hair out of his face while his mates were letting their Big Ten Title chances slip through their fingers.
Finally, cheers to the Seniors who had big days in their final appearance at Ryan Field:
· Sidney Stewart – 5 catches, 46 yards.
· Nate Williams – 5 tackles, 1 sack, 1 pass broken up, 1 QB hurry
· Justan Vaughn – 4 tackles
· Quentin Davie – 4 tackles
So, what does all of this mean for the Bowl picture? While this win opened up a few more doors to New Year’s Day, winning this game means almost nothing when it comes to Bowl selection – as NU is likely still going to Texas to play in either the Texas Bowl or the TicketCity.com Bowl (formerly the Dallas Football Classic). Why?
Assume that Iowa (OSU, Minny) and NU both finish out 1-1. Iowa, despite having the same overall record and the head-to-head loss, will have a better conference record than NU – thus justifying the fourth bowl slot. Assume PSU also finishes 1-1 (Indiana, MSU). They will also get picked ahead of NU because of the same conference record and the head-to-head victory, notwithstanding the worse head-to-head record – not to mention the potential to host Joe Paterno’s last game. Assume Michigan loses out (Wisconsin, OSU). They would have a worse conference record and overall record, but is certainly the sexier team, especially given that they have not been bowling in two years. The lack of a head-to-head will hurt NU in this situation. In other words, NU gets pushed down to seventh, which is where they would have been had they never beaten Iowa to begin with.
But here is where is gets messed up. What if all of the above happen, except NU beats Wisconsin. The Big Ten would then only score one team in the BCS and the Gator Bowl would have its pick of Iowa (8-4, 5-3), NU (9-3, 5-3), PSU (8-4, 5-3), and Michigan (7-5, 3-5). As a brand new Bowl game for the Big Ten, it has its pick of the litter – but the one person that it may never have a chance to host again is Joe Paterno – and I think that this is the direction it will go. NU would then, likely, end up in Tempe for the Insight bowl. Really the only hope for a “big” NYD game is a complete 0-2 meltdown by both Iowa and PSU.
There is a ton more to talk about this week with the Land of Lincoln game, Wrigley Field, ESPN Gameday and more Bowl prediction talk. So keep checking up on EVR!
Go Cats!
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