The Big Ten Football season officially began on Thursday with the 2011 Big Ten Media Days in Chicago. While the two days were certainly overshadowed by the upcoming Ohio State sanctions and the arrival of Nebraska; each team had the ability to present their best face to the world. NU could not have been better represented than All Big-Ten QB Dan Persa; Humanitarian and three-year starter Al Netter; and the Big Ten leader in passes defended, Jordan Mabin. And of course, Fitz.
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If you follow the EVR twitter feed, you received the summary of the Fitz press conference, but here are the highlights, with EVR commentary.
Opening Statement: Excited about the experience coming back. Arguably the most experienced team we've had since I've been the head football coach, a group that's won as many football games as any other class in Northwestern football history. Looking forward to them reporting here in a couple days. Summer school wraps up and we'll get going next weekend.
Fitz was strangely simple with his opening remarks, apparently preferring to address the media questions. This is a testament to his comfort and experience with the position. EVR hopes that this translates to his on-the-sideline decision-making in 2011.
On non-Persa injuries: Based on the reports of our athletic training staff, we're as healthy as we've been. When you go through spring practice, you have 22-year-old young men on the field, there's a higher risk guys are going to get banged up. We take a pretty conservative approach in the offseason to where if we think a little bit of rest might be a better decision for the long term, we'll shut them down.
The Cats have been ravaged by injuries, especially on defense, at the beginning of 2009 and at the end of 2010. Traumatic injuries such as Persa’s cannot be avoided, but those based on fatigue and lack of conditioning can be.
On his advice to Persa: Number one, I wanted to talk to him about being patient, dealing with the rollercoaster. The first aspect is dealing with the fact that you're hurt and you can no longer play, what you're passionate about it's taken away from you. We dealt with that. Then he had to deal with the surgery, the initial rehab process of being immobilized. Kind of the steps you have to take.
The fact that Fitz had to come back from a season ending injury in his junior year is going to help him to prepare Persa for the season. Persa is going to have some setbacks in the next four weeks. Fitz will be the voice in Dan’s head that keeps him moving forward.
On the O-Line: To have 137 starts coming back in our offensive line, four returning starters on papers, then you talk about (Neal) Deiters who started games, (Doug) Bartels who started games for us, then the young depth that we have, I'm excited about that group. I challenged Adam Cushing, our O-line coach, that's great to have that experience coming back, but six months from now we'll have the youngest line in the Big Ten. It's important for him to develop that next group so we're ready for the future. It's going to come fast and furious.
The benefit and the curse of the experienced offensive line. On paper this group should be one of the best in the conference, but they need to be significantly better than 2010, or there will not be anything for the 2012 line to learn from.
On the non-conference schedule: We go on the road in the opener against a team at Boston College, 11 straight bowl games. There's no question in my 10 years as a head coach, this will be our most challenging opener. We've got to have a tremendous sense of urgency in camp, not only to improve and get to where we need to be, but to get to Boston College. A few weeks later we go back on the road to West Point to play the option, to play that kind of football team, the physicality, the effort level they play with, how well they're coached. The discipline they play with is going to be a challenge for us. A different set of circumstances from scheme.
Fitz realizes that this is the most important August of his young career. Not only do the Cats face a challenging opponent, but the team has expectations unlike those that he has faced before. A loss to BC on its face is not the end of the world; but combined with the rest of the schedule – a loss to BC makes a seven-win season very difficult.
On the running back position: I like the way they progressed through spring practice. Mike Trumpy enters fall camp as our starter. The way that he finished the season is encouraging to me. Mike has good size, good speed, understands the concepts we're trying to do. He's going to be pushed by Adonis (Smith). Then Jacob Schmidt comes back off injury. As I look at the group as a whole, we have solid depth. We have to be more consistent there, number one, and start faster than we did a year ago. I would love to have a bell cow, no question about that. You go back to when we had Tyrell (Sutton), two-headed monster in Jason Wright, Noah Herron. Going back to my days with Darnell (Autry). I could go on and on with our great running back tradition.
Fitz is desparate to get back to Northwestern’s great running back tradition. From 1995 to 2005 the Cats had ten 1000 yard rushers. Last year, Trumpy had 530. Getting production out of both Trumpy and Smith will be important and this potentially could resemble the Wright/Herron duo.
On the linebacker corps: Two years ago I stood up here and was asked how I was going to replace our receiving corps. I said we had a no-name wide receiver corps. I'd like to put that to our no-name linebacker corps and I'm not going to mention any of their names. At the end of the day you have to go out and prove it, do it on the field. We got a lot of work to do. We have a young group. Guys like Bryce McNaul and Ben Johnson have played a lot of football for us. It's time for that group of guys to step up. When they do, I'll start talking about them a little bit more.
Yeah, Fitz is just as worried about the linebackers as we are.
On the Wide Receivers: Jeremy Ebert is if not the top wide receiver, he's in that conversation in this conference. You can't forget about Drake Dunsmore. Drake has battled through a bunch of injuries. He's persevered. I know how excited he is. He was at dinner with our leadership council for kind of that last supper. I can see the look in his eye. Drake would be the weapon with the most experience.
I like the spring that Charles Brown had as a senior. He's been a special teams player for us, but I thought he had a tremendous spring. Then Demetrius Fields had a very solid spring also. Lot of competition there. Pretty deep group. Add a pretty talented group of freshmen to it. We'll see how things progress in two-a-days. We play a lot of wide receivers. So we'll see how those guys progress.
And Fitz does not even mention Venric Mark, Tony Jones, or Rashad Lawrence. This crew is stacked and Dan Persa is going to have a lot of targets.
Overall, Fitz said a lot without really saying much. It is clear where he is confident and where he has concerns. There was no discussion of the D-Line, the Secondary or Special Teams, all of which have significant players to replace; so it will be interesting to see where Fitz thinks these positions are going. Additionally, Fitz added some detail in his Friday interview with Teddy Greenstein. Fitz discussed how “scary-good” Persa could be; basically named Kain Colter the backup quarterback; and admitted that he did a terrible job in his first few years of coaching. EVR was not able to find any good reports on discussions with Persa, Netter, or Mabin. Most of these quotes will be saved for feature articles during the next month. But Skip Myslenski offered the following report, which basically suggests that Big Ten Media Days, and especially the Cats, are as popular as ever.
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Speaking of Dan Persa, NU unveiled a unique and brilliant marketing campaign over the weekend, which overtly seeks to develop Dan Persa as a Heisman candidate – but in reality is designed to increase awareness of the program and eventually increase attendance and bolster recruiting. EVR thinks that the #persastrong campaign (note the use of the twitter hashtag, more on that in a second) will do as much to market the program than any of the prior efforts and is further evidence that the athletic department knows what it is doing. The likelihood of Dan Persa even being invited to the Heisman ceremony is remote, let alone his winning. But the fact is that it will force the media to talk about Northwestern football and that means people will watch.
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Among the early aspects of the #persastrong campaign includes the twitter hashtag, which will allow users to create a database of Persa facts on the Twitter timeline (please note the @persastrong twitter account is a fake and is not an NU property); seven-ounce (as in his #7, and not Hunter Bates) dumb-bells sent to football writers; and billboards taken in Chicago and in Bristol, CT – home of the Worldwide Leader (not New York City, another stroke of brilliance). See these stories to catch the Chicago media take on the campaign. Akouris, Greenstein, Willhite, Myslenski. Which leads EVR to its first position preview of the month, the quarterbacks.
Last year, EVR said the following about Dan Persa:
Persa may be the best runner of the dual-threat quarterbacks that NU has seen over the last 10 years. But for him to be effective, he is going to need to be able to throw. He seems to have an accurate arm, even where his arm strength is lacking. The big question is whether his timing and ability to read defenses will be up to par with what is expected in the NU offense.
Turns out EVR completely undersold Persa in every way. He seems to have an accurate arm? How about a Nation’s best 73.5 completion percentage – good for NU and Big Ten single-season records. Ability to read defenses? Four interceptions in 302 attempts – two of which were tipped. Dan averaged 258 yards per game. Dan does not fit in to what is expected of a QB in a Wildcat offense – he is redefining what is expected.
Persa biggest attribute, however, may be his leadership and his demeanor. He never panicked, and always lead his offense well – even when it was struggling. When he was not on the field (in the fourth quarter against Indiana, as well as the Illinois, Wisconsin and Texas Tech games), saying the offense sputtered is an understatement. When the offense was not scoring, Dan at least kept the turnovers to a minimum and turned the field around for the defense. Something his backups were unable to do.
The National media has taken notice of Dan’s accomplishments and bestowed upon him “watch list” status for the Walter Camp Award, Manning Award, Davey O’Brien Award, and NFF Campbell Trophy. So needless to say, Cat fans will not be the only ones watching Persa this season.
Obviously, the injury has the potential to derail this train. But with hopes of an improved running game and an even more experienced offensive line and receiving corps, Persa’s arm should be much better utilized than his legs in 2011. NU’s offense should survive without his long runs -- especially if he can still evade the rush to create more time or run for four yards on third and three. No doubt that the team will live and die by Dan Persa.
Behind Dan is sort of a mixed bag. Kain Colter has risen to the backup spot – to the surprise of few. It was clear in the bowl game the Kain was simply more comfortable with the offense; and his mobility in the pocket allowed him to make plays and continue drives. Nothing great happened in the three games Colter played in – but along with the emergence of Venric Mark as a potential superstar, the play of Kain was one of the bright spots. Much like Persa in 2009 and Kafka in 2008 – Colter has shown the ability to step in at a time of injury – NU just hopes he will not be needed
Evan Watkins received all of the pre-game media attention before the Illinois game, and he simply was unable to deliver. In five game appearances (including Illinois State and Indiana) Evan threw five interceptions to just two touchdowns. He clearly has a strong arm and runs well for his size. But his decision-making and play-making abilities are lacking right now. He has a lot of time to improve and may well compete with Colter for the starting spot during their last two years. But for now, he will be the number three guy.
Trevor Siemian is a redshirt freshman who impressed a lot of people in the Northwestern Spring game. He is more of the prototype NU spread-offense type quarterback. He is also quite a runner. If Zack Oliver develops into the future starter at NU, Siemian may be converted to WR someday. Oliver is clearly a big get for the NU offense. A big prototype QB, who has run the spread offense in high school. NU is not recruiting a QB right now – so Oliver is the guy.
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Boston College – September 3, 2011 – Chestnut Hill, MA. Boston College comes off a roller coaster season which saw both a five-game win streak and a five-game losing streak. After starting 2-5 with losses in a brutal run of Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, NC State, Florida State, and Maryland, BC won their final five games to advance to a Bowl Game where they lost to Nevada. BC did see great improvements over the course of the year, as even the final two losses of the streak were five and three points respectively.
BC’s offense struggled mightily in 2010. The Eagles were held to under 20 points in 8 games and under 23 points in 11 games. The offense brings its biggest weapon with Montel Harris, who has 3600 yards in his three years at BC, including 1243 in 2010. He is going to need to carry the load as BC’s sophomore QB Chase Rettig is going to need to figure things out pretty quickly. Last year in part-time action he threw nine picks to only 6 touchdowns. This will be a good offense to gauge NU’s defense for 2011. NU should dominate – if BC puts up points, Cat fans know they are in trouble.
BC does have strength at defense, lead by All-Everything LB Luke Kuechly, who may be the best overall player in the ACC. The D starts six seniors and four juniors, making it one of the more experienced defenses that NU will face all year. DB Donnie Fletcher should also make some noise for the Eagles D, as he returns from a five interception season.
This game will be critical for both teams. Both have at least six other “losable” games on their schedules – so the win in Chestnut Hill will be an important step for Bowl eligibility. BC will be looking for a hot start as they finish the season with the following seven game stretch - @Clemson, @Virginia Tech, @ Maryland, Florida State, NC State, @Notre Dame, @Miami. Brutal.
Eastern Illinios – September 10, 2011, Ryan Field. As usual, there is not much information on the FCS schools. Basically, if this is a close game, NU has problems. Here’s what I could find out from their athletic department website:
· Six Players were named to Phil Steele’s preseason All-Ohio Valley Conference team
· The head coach, Bob Spoo has been there for 23 years
· The Panthers last appeared in the FCS playoffs in 2009
· Last season they finished 2-9; and they are returning 15 starters
· The Panthers run a spread offense and a basic 4-3 defense
· Prior to the NU game, EIU will play its 100th game against Illinois State
