Good read, indeed....especially for the players!!
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Northwestern is the S&P+ #119 offense. That offense, for your own edification, is almost identical to that of Minnesota—that's right, the same Minnesota that everyone is pointing and laughing at.
The defense, for its strengths, pounced on average Stanford and Duke offenses but showed weaknesses against the zone-read against Duke, something which the ‘Cats will need to shore up immediately before facing the Big Ten schedule. I'm sure someone will be along, as well, to claim that Stanford essentially beat Northwestern because of the number of passes they dropped. While I find that argument facile, it nonetheless begs the question of whether better offenses (and I'm not counting Duke in that) will be able to get separation or move the ball against the ‘Cats.
I understand Northwestern fans want to be quick to give ourselves the pass and the pat on the back for "turning it around" and finding ways to win just a year after 5-7 happened for the second consecutive season, but there's a difference between excitement over a win at home against a ranked team and a good road win against a fine P5 team and losing your minds and talking conference championship appearances or taking it to Wisconsin.
This is a fine team; probably a 7-5 or 8-4 team. But this offense could continue to sputter. Against Nebraska, against Iowa, against Wisconsin, a sputtering offense is going to give way to a defense that will get pounded down by better teams and bigger offensive lines than Duke. And then we turn from conversations of "Can Northwestern make it to Indianapolis?" to "Let's just beat Purdue and get bowl-eligible, OK?"
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VERY well said.