"Best Defense in the Country"
http://www.foxsports.com/college-fo...edium=newsletter&utm_campaign=big-10-football
http://www.foxsports.com/college-fo...edium=newsletter&utm_campaign=big-10-football
FOX on NU
- Thread starter NJCat83588
- Start date
Thanks. Especially liked the quote from Coach Fitz regarding team chemistry and camaraderie.
"Northwestern has the best defense in the country.
What, you think I’m joking? This is a factual statement.
The 3-0 Wildcats are currently allowing 5.3 points per game, No. 1 nationally. Stanford, which put up 41 points on USC last weekend, could not get in the end zone against now 17th-ranked Northwestern in a 16-6 Week 1 loss. Duke, which averaged 46 points in its first two outings, scored just one touchdown in Saturday’s 19-10 loss. Linebacker Anthony Walker and defensive end Dean Lowry have been absolutely dominant in both games.
“It’s the most athletic defense overall that we’ve had, and it always starts up front,” said 10th-year Northwestern coach Fitzgerald, who himself played linebacker on a No. 1-ranked scoring defense (12.7 ppg) in 1995. “The chemistry and the camaraderie is back to where it was when we were going to bowl games every year [from 2008-12.]” "
"Northwestern has the best defense in the country.
What, you think I’m joking? This is a factual statement.
The 3-0 Wildcats are currently allowing 5.3 points per game, No. 1 nationally. Stanford, which put up 41 points on USC last weekend, could not get in the end zone against now 17th-ranked Northwestern in a 16-6 Week 1 loss. Duke, which averaged 46 points in its first two outings, scored just one touchdown in Saturday’s 19-10 loss. Linebacker Anthony Walker and defensive end Dean Lowry have been absolutely dominant in both games.
“It’s the most athletic defense overall that we’ve had, and it always starts up front,” said 10th-year Northwestern coach Fitzgerald, who himself played linebacker on a No. 1-ranked scoring defense (12.7 ppg) in 1995. “The chemistry and the camaraderie is back to where it was when we were going to bowl games every year [from 2008-12.]” "
He may have been referring to during the off season and summer camp, but I get your point.
Our own fans just dont listen. The fans who claimed such things about our defense, AWalk, and a playoff run have been ridiculed by the board nazis.
Some fans are still scarred from the 4-0 start and then the OSU game. Let's see how October goes an usual Achilles heal of fitzgerald's.
I hear ya as something always goes wrong. We had a player pass away that shook up our up and coming program in 2001: had a young coach pass after a very successful building process; had a divided unionization wrench during our 2012-2013 run. All of those set this program back.
Fitz didnt take long but i suppose the unexplained bad luck has many a fan only cautiously optimistic.
Even before the rose bowl fitz and sam have season ending injuries.
^ exactly
Having said that, this team has won in a more convincing fashion than that team
Agree. The big difference is the defense, which is an order of magnitude better than and other PF team. Nothing flukey about how they have played.
My understanding was that the team was torn on some pretty easy to see lines on the union issue.
Don't pretend like you fail to understand lasting impact. Farts in the elevator linger.
Or, to put it lefty activist language for you so you can understand, "it's all Bush's fault" - 8 years later. There. Understand now?
If you want to blame last season's woes on Bush, I'm not going to stop you.
Geez, can there be some refuge from the 'EFFING political stuff? PLEASE.
I think a lot of us see the potential, but we're letting it unfold, because of where the Cats came from last season, because we've been burned before, because a lot of roster is so young....each week the possibilities get a little brighter,
I wonder if Cutty Sark has thought of that one...in this case,,the Bush in question is named Reggie.
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No kidding. I can see the argument for 2013, when the whole season spiraled out of control, but 2014? That was largely down to a long series of devastating injuries. A deeply divided team that doesn't "trust itself" doesn't veer wildly from wins over PSU and Wisconsin to blowout losses to Nebraska and Iowa to stunning upsets over Notre Dame to blowout wins over Purdue to blowout losses to Illinois.
The "football family" thing is an effective marketing and recruiting tool. Of course they're going to play it up as one of the reasons for the team's present success.
No the chemistry is better because we don't have union people disrupting the team and putting themselves ahead of the team and throwing their university and their coach under a bus.
I'm just trying to enjoy this season, as it can be a really special one. But I'm not going to get ahead of myself and talk about the Big 10 Championship game or the national playoffs, or argue pointlessly about being a pollyana or debbie downer. It's a long season, the ball is asymmetrical, there are violent collisions on every play, humans play the game and make mistakes... a lot of random outcomes can happen. Just enjoy.
This screams confirmation bias to me. If you liked the union push, the experience of adversity of getting through the months of headlines is finally paying off now. If you didn't, everyone is finally on the same page after months of wondering who was on what side. For the record, I don't think the union push had anything to do with a freshman Anthony Walker playing more consistently or aggressively as a sophomore, or a finally healthy secondary living up to its potential.
I think some may have misread the statement. The writer is simply referring to a STATISTICAL fact. 3 weeks into the season, it is a fact that NU leads the nation in scoring D. This, however, does not mean that the writer thinks that NU D is the best in the country overall (each team's SoS is different, especially this early in the year).
He makes that clear with the following statements:
"Will the aforementioned statement still hold true in November? Probably not, but then, what do I know? Two weeks ago I thought Auburn’s defense was much-improved and Stanford’s offense was a trainwreck. Wrong on both counts. But now that we’ve got a whopping three weeks of data, you can definitely take the declarations above as gospel."
The above is NOT to imply that NU has a bad D. It is certainly better than many D's NU has fielded in recent years, and good enough for NU to do quite well in the B1G, IF other team units do their part.
Life as you must absolutely just suck. You take a fabulous article about how great our defense is, and yet somehow find a negative in there somewhere. Only you...
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