Jon

Magically stay healthy.

We do? Even Vedran has had about four bad games in a row. Carmody said he was going to try to focus on the inside game since they can't hit a three to save their lives, but that didn't work out all that well last game, either. And considering that there's no inside/rebounding presence, unless something changes, 9th is optimistic. I am thinking along the lines of Vucusic, who is leading the big ten in scoring. I still think you guys are too good to lose to either Purdue or Penn St. As much as I love him, he looks tired out there the past few weeks and in the practice I saw. As expected, he's wasting too much energy in the low post. When he should spend more time outside of the lane. But now that Mohamed Hachad is out 2-3 weeks after an emergency appendectomy, I'd imagine we'll drop the Big Ten opener against Purdue at home. Then probably lose to Penn State a week later.

Two new reasons to dislike USC: 1) The cover of today's USA Today. Front and center is a picture of the USC football team with an article titled something along the lines of "The USC sideline is the place to be for Hollywood celebrities." 2) A real freshman seminar offered at USC: Beer and Belly Rings: Facts and Fictions About Today's Youth.

Because that's what they do. After Sutton carried the ball 32 and 29 times to open the Big Ten season, Walker didn't want to use him that heavily since he was just 18 (turned 19 a couple of weeks ago). But they did the same thing against ASU in week 3 (15 carries). But in the third Big Ten game, he had just 13 carries.look at his stats this year: 9/3 Ohio W 38-14 17 104 6.1 20 2 2 23 11.5 9/10 Northern Illinois W 38-37 30 214 7.1 9/17 @Arizona State L 52-21 15 98 6.5 9/24 Penn State L 34-29 32 112 3.5 10/8 Wisconsin W 51-48 29 244 8.4 10/15 @Purdue W 34-29 13 89 6.8 10/22 @Michigan State W 49-14 21 109 5.2 10/29 Michigan L 33-17 10 50 5.0 11/5 Iowa W 28-27 17 65 3.8 11/12 @Ohio State L 48-7 14 93 6.6 11/19 @Illinois W 38-21 34 212 6.2 Sun Bowl @UCLA L 50-38 18 84 4.7 And those limited carries can't just be explained by fumbles. NU's record in those games? 2-4. And that game against Purdue was nearly lost because the offense shut down in the second half and the one against Iowa featured no offense by Northwestern until the final two minutes. I thought the fans who were saying that the offense could be better next year since Basanez will be gone and they'll focus on the run were crazy, but now, I don't know. Not better, but they could be more consistent. Not only could a win have made it just the 9th time that Northwestern has finished in the AP top 25, but with just one bowl victory, it would've been one of the biggest wins in the history of the program. A team has to be better prepared than that in that kind of game. :(

I said it shouldn't come down to FGs and yet...sigh. Demos better be good. Despite how poorly they played, if he does what he's supposed to do, the 'Cats likely win. 2 missed PATs + one short-range FG blocked when nobody even jumped + one chip-shot FG attempt not made because of how bad Howells was = a sad me. That doesn't even include the opening kickoff out of bounds. Of course, it wasn't just him. Pederson was horrible (punts of what, 18 and 22 yards?), Hamlett botched two kickoff returns, and Philmore went backwards 5 yards on a punt return. Yeah, the defensive line was dominated and the linebackers were pretty bad, but Olson did more harm than good. And Maurice Drew was a non-factor. Even the 299 yards or whatever it was on the ground by Markey and Bell didn't make up for it. The game came down to Northwestern's offense and they were just dominated by the UCLA defense. The key stat of the game was ZERO touchdown drives for Northwestern over 36 yards until just minutes left in the game. Holy crap is that pathetic. Like I said earlier, they never bothered to establish a run game and that was my fear. Basanez throwing 70 times is absolutely ridiculous, especially when the offensive line was letting them beat him up. This is what happened in the Arizona State blowout. They started to fall behind, panicked, and completey gave up on the run game. It all comes down to the coaching, though. UCLA completely out-coached Northwestern, especially if you include the lack of a special teams coach on the team. But they made no adjustments. UCLA knew what to look for in the option and screen pass and stopped it. They knew what to look for in the passing game and stopped it. They brought pressure successfully and still were able to cover up guys downfield. But they didn't try to switch things up. Sure they gave up 416 yards through the air, but on 70 freakin' attempts with just 2 TDs to match 2 picks. And like usual, Northwestern's offense couldn't get it done in the red zone. Abandoning the run game was death, especially considering the performance of the WRs. UCLA had less time to prepare and get healthy. Northwestern hadn't played in over a month and had finals 1-2 weeks before UCLA. And the coaches were able to start preparing for UCLA at least a week before the USC game. There really isn't an excuse for the way the game played out. If they had lost in a shootout, fine. But not that way. That was a worse special teams performance than Huffman vs. TCU last year. And a top-ranked offense should not be shut down like that, nor should they decide not to run the ball against a defense that is ranked at the bottom against the run.

Three INTs including two returned for TDs. And the third set up a short field for the offense to score on a reverse. But it would be wrong to say that they stopped playing, 'cause they never started.

-Bad game for Basanez, mostly because of not having any protection and the fact that he had to throw over twice of his normal attempts. -Horrible game for the offensive line. Couldn't stop the pass rush or open up any running holes. -Horrible, horrible game for the receivers. Not just the drops, but they couldn't get open. The UCLA secondary either played a great game or had to do very little. -Bad game for Sutton, but mostly because they abandoned the running game pretty early. -Worst kicking game in the history of football. Pederson was really bad and Howells cost the team 22 points. -Bad game by the defensive line. -Bad game by the linebackers. -Okay game by the secondary. -Terrible, terrible game by the coaches. No adjustments at all and the playcalling was mindnumbingly bad. But again, the defense at least gave the offense a very good chance of winning the game. They just didn't show up. And do you think you might finally need a special teams coach, Randy? Weren't in it at all in the second half. This kind of blowout was a horrible way for the seniors to go out.

Easily the most embarrassing game of the season. Didn't show up at all.

That's 22 points Howells cost the team.

Way to cap off a great game, Howells. A terrible onside kick that gets returned for a TD that ices it.

man i feel for my friend. He goes to church with Joel (Joel lives in a neighboring town) and pretty much the only reason he likes NU is because of Joel. An awful day for him and for Northwestern so far. Yeah, I've heard he's pretty religious. But he's had all season to figure out how to kick the ball higher and simply hasn't done it. The defense has given up 36 points, with one of the touchdowns coming on a short field, but also scored 2 touchdowns. That means all the offense had to do was put up more than 22 points on the 111th ranked defense. Instead, they hit an early FG and a TD run on a short field in the first quarter. They added a FG later and that's been it. Horrible.

On behalf of myself, Mizzou, and CPatt, we feel your pain. You don't have a top-ranked offense that scored ONE touchdown all game. And that was on a short field.

This is really embarrassing.

3 quarters of no offense. It's going to take more than just 1 quarter of great offense to have a chance to win. Playcalling and execution have been terrible all around. UCLA knows exactly what's coming and Dunbar hasn't tried to change it up at all. Of course, the offensive line hasn't really allowed much to happen, anyways.

And the bad red zone performance continues.

And there's the fumble that could cost them a shot at this game, especially since the offense has done nothing.

This seriously sucks. The Thompson suspension has been costly so far and Howells and Pederson have been bad beyond imagination.

Desperately need an actual TD drive to start the second half. Some blocking might be good, too. But that's only if they don't fumble the kickoff.

This is pathetic. Howells has cost the team 8 points already thanks to 2 missed PATs, one blocked FG, and one chip shot FG attempt that Walker didn't want to take b/c he's sucked so much. Should have the lead. And what a horrible job by the offensive line so far. They haven't established any running game.

And now Baz is hurt... Again, I hate you, Howells.

Those holes in the defensive line can't get much bigger than they are.

Baz with a really bad mistake on the offbalance pass. And they still haven't established the run.

Spoke too soon about Heinz... Now would be a good time to get the run game going.

Yay for 18 yard punts...

Heinz and Smith are looking quite good in the secondary so far. Too bad Henderson couldn't hang on to pick #4.