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Game Thread: Northwestern vs. Purdue

Awesome to have the win, but I don't see the Cats getting another one this season. Too many mistakes and too many holes.
 
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Many criticisms to go around, but great playmaking by our boys at the key time to win a game and two excellent play calls dialed up by Lujan there
 
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I have to say...Ryan Walters is just not a head coach...absolutely not a single thing he says or does screams head coach.
 
Very undisciplined team. Poor time management and penalties galore. Poor coaching. That game shouldn’t have been close.
 
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Development, though

Like I said, you have no clue what you are looking at when you are watching football games. Stop focusing on each individual play and take a look at the bigger picture. If you can't step back and see what a huge step forward Lausch took today, then you are hopeless. You should just go out and enjoy the weather because you are wasting your time watching NU football.
 
Very undisciplined team. Poor time management and penalties galore. Poor coaching. That game shouldn’t have been close.

And yet so many good things coming out of this game from the standpoint of player development. We have a young team and a young staff that are making a lot of mistakes but getting better.
 
And yet so many good things coming out of this game from the standpoint of player development. We have a young team and a young staff that are making a lot of mistakes but getting better.
Maybe the most impressive thing about Lausch today is that he was working without a lot of help. His OL struggled with penalties and especially snaps. He was missing one of his top WR threats. His best deep ball was dropped. And he couldn’t just run all over this team. He had to pass to win. And he did.
 
Maybe the most impressive thing about Lausch today is that he was working without a lot of help. His OL struggled with penalties and especially snaps. He was missing one of his top WR threats. His best deep ball was dropped. And he couldn’t just run all over this team. He had to pass to win. And he did.

Purdue has significantly more skill position talent on offense than we do. Under normal circumstances, a guy like Lausch would still be learning while on the bench this year. He has been thrown into the deep end, before he is ready, with a shaky OL, only a handful of starting caliber skill position players and with a very young and inexperienced offensive coaching staff. Despite all that, he has taken some huge leaps this year. I was ready to bench him and put Wright back in after the 1st quarter at Indiana but he really started taking some huge steps since then. It won't be linear progress and many times it will be two steps forward and one step back but the QB that just lead NU to a win today is light years ahead of the QB that started his first game against EIU. Let's hope that progress continues, that we can bring in more talent to surround him next year and that the offensive coaching staff grows into the job.
 
Like I said, you have no clue what you are looking at when you are watching football games. Stop focusing on each individual play and take a look at the bigger picture. If you can't step back and see what a huge step forward Lausch took today, then you are hopeless. You should just go out and enjoy the weather because you are wasting your time watching NU football.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to look at his development or steps forward at this point. He looked good against awful Maryland too, and has looked bad against the good teams. That’s been a trend, I won’t read anything more than that into today.

Will I WILL take from today is he was part of making two excellent plays at the end of the game at winning time. Purdue is bad, but I’ll take that.
 
Purdue has significantly more skill position talent on offense than we do. Under normal circumstances, a guy like Lausch would still be learning while on the bench this year. He has been thrown into the deep end, before he is ready, with a shaky OL, only a handful of starting caliber skill position players and with a very young and inexperienced offensive coaching staff. Despite all that, he has taken some huge leaps this year. I was ready to bench him and put Wright back in after the 1st quarter at Indiana but he really started taking some huge steps since then. It won't be linear progress and many times it will be two steps forward and one step back but the QB that just lead NU to a win today is light years ahead of the QB that started his first game against EIU. Let's hope that progress continues, that we can bring in more talent to surround him next year and that the offensive coaching staff grows into the job.
Exactly keep in mind he was missing both Covey and Kurtz
 
I don’t think it’s reasonable to look at his development or steps forward at this point. He looked good against awful Maryland too, and has looked bad against the good teams. That’s been a trend, I won’t read anything more than that into today.

Will I WILL take from today is he was part of making two excellent plays at the end of the game at winning time. Purdue is bad, but I’ll take that.

Disagree. He has got to prove to himself that he can do these things in a game, even if it is against mediocre competition, before he can make these type of plays against top end competition. It is a process. Hopefully by the start of next season in Lausch we'll have an experienced starting QB who understands who he is as a player and is confident in his ability to play winning football regardless of the competition.
 
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That was a BS call. Plenty of BS calls and missed calls today seemed to largely go against NU.

Agree it looked weak, but it's hard to say if it was BS or not unless we know what Johnson said. Some words = automatic flag. The official was standing right there, so he heard whatever it was.
 
Agree it looked weak, but it's hard to say if it was BS or not unless we know what Johnson said. Some words = automatic flag. The official was standing right there, so he heard whatever it was.
If those flags were thrown for things said on the field, there would be a flag thrown on every play. He didn't get in the guys face and was jawing while walking back to the sideline. An good ref lets that go, especially at that juncture of the game.
 
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If those flags were thrown for things said on the field, there would be a flag thrown on every play. He didn't get in the guys face and was jawing while walking back to the sideline. An good ref lets that go, especially at that juncture of the game.

There are certain words you cannot say, especially not to an opposing player. You're right that during a play, the officials are too busy calling the actual game to police what the players are saying. But after a play is over, if you say one of those words while jawing at an opponent, and you do it directly in front of an official who's watching you say it, you're getting flagged no matter the game situation.

Again, though, I have no idea what Johnson said. If it was just routine jawing, then the flag should not have been thrown. But if he said something stupid, it's his own fault. Thankfully, it didn't end up mattering because we won. (And won easily, it was a lot like the Minnesota OT last year)
 
A win is a win is a win. I'll take wins any way we can get them. Just need to try to find a 5th to get into a bowl through the APR route.
 
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