The Cardinal throttles a ranked UCLA team. Michigan is good, but I can't believe their offense is better than Stanford's. It makes last Saturday's performance even harder to explain. Hope it's just a one-off and we bounce back against the Hawkeyes this weekend. They talk about any given Sunday in the NFL, but college ball is a helluva lot more unpredictable.
Stanford 56, UCLA 35
- Thread starter pawildcat
- Start date
I'd like a second chance against Michigan and I think we are going to get it. Much will be answered tomorrow.
Go Cats!
I'd like a second chance too. I'm not saying we are better than them but we are better than we looked.
To beat a team like UM, Nu needs to get the momentum running exactly opposite of the way it ran in that game. In a hostile environment that is hard to do. Spotting them 7 points and getting the crowd excited makes it impossible.
A few years ago EMU's coach told his team that the way to beat NU was to punch them in the nose out of the gate and they would fold. That is how it looked at UM.
Michigan's offense was nothing special against us and our defense wasn't really as bad as the score would indicate. It was the UM defense that looked stellar and our offense, um, let's be nice and say not so stellar.
I think we knew going in that it would be tough for us to score, but I certainly wouldn't have predicted 38-0. Problem is, we've picked a bad year to struggle on offense as there are several exceptional defenses in the B1G this year. After all those years when NU was a good-offense, no-defense team, it's frustrating to watch them scuffle along on offense now that they can finally play D.
Our 1st team defense only gave up 17 points to Michigan
Not to mention, they literally never get to rest
Our D is fine, nothing about that Michigan game changed my opinion on them
Not to mention, they literally never get to rest
Our D is fine, nothing about that Michigan game changed my opinion on them
When was our offense "good"
Have we been in the top 50 in the last 10 years
Kafka's year I felt like we can put up points, but even with Persa, the play call was frustrating and our run game literally didn't exist.
Since I have been a fan ('08) our offense has never been "good" per say, serviceable yes, but not good
I suspect the transitive property of UM >NU > St would apply because of how good our lines were against Stanford and how much better Mich's lines were against us. Based on the scores I'm seeing coming out of Stanford games, I suspect Stanford has given up on the ball-control run first offense that we saw..
I think the transitive value of beating Stanford has kind of worn off. They have gone off and developed their own identity, and the Cats have too. The Iowa game will go a long way toward further defining this team. Is this going to be yet another "promising start, October crash back to earth" team, or one that continues to grow and improve against good competition? Answers begin tomorrow.
This came up on another thread. Our scoring offense has only been in the top 50 twice in the last 10 years: in 2005, when we were 28th nationally, and in 2012, when we were 42nd.
What happens when 2 teams play more than once? Like let's say we go to the Big Ten Championship and we beat Michigan or Stanford gets into the Rosebowl and we do too at 11-2. Would MU>NU>MU>NU>MU>NU>MU>NU... or NU>SU>NU>SU>NU>SU>NU>SU>NU>SU... Circular logic, circuit boards are corrupting, cannot take it any...beeboop boom!!!
Our 2005 offense was good (realize this was in the dark years all the way back before '08). Obviously 2000. The offenses in both C. J. and Kafka's senior years were good. The 2012 offense scored at a good clip. We scored enough points that year in all three of our losses to win with a better defensive effort. We'd be winning in blowouts this year if we had an offense equivalent to any of those.
They might have been overrated, but Stanford still put up 56 against them vs. 6 against us. That's a little much to attribute to time zone. And that's about the fourth straight game that Stanford has put up 40 points or more.
The offense in CJ's junior year, just before McCall took over, was better than in his senior year. McCall ran a more balanced offense between pass and run than the last year of McGee who had CJ flinging the pigskin everywhere.
As been said many times already, this year's offense does not need to be great for us to win games. It does need to be better than it was against Michigan. We also managed to keep McCaffrey under wraps on the kickoff in the Stanford game and we saw how dangerous he is on the return against UCLA. That opening kickoff by Michigan set the tone and course for the game. Stanford is a damn good team and we dominated both sides of the LOS against them. I had a bad feeling about the Michigan game. But the feeling is different for Iowa, and hopefully we come out and grab that w back.
As been said many times already, this year's offense does not need to be great for us to win games. It does need to be better than it was against Michigan. We also managed to keep McCaffrey under wraps on the kickoff in the Stanford game and we saw how dangerous he is on the return against UCLA. That opening kickoff by Michigan set the tone and course for the game. Stanford is a damn good team and we dominated both sides of the LOS against them. I had a bad feeling about the Michigan game. But the feeling is different for Iowa, and hopefully we come out and grab that w back.
Looking back at the Stanford game, we played very well and they played very poorly. We caught Hogan and their OL on an off day the first game of the season. We would have had our hands very full playing the Stanford team that beat USC in LA and literally ran over UCLA with a bulldozer last night. Conversely, we caught Rudock on a very on day, possibly at his very best. Meanwhile, we played very poorly at the outset and never recovered. How we would do in a rematch with either Stanford or UM is subject to debate but I think we would have a better chance against UM. I hope we get that chance.
Well, we might have caught Stanford on a bad day (although remember that is was NU's first game of the season as well), but it might also be that there are some teams playing fairly good defense in the B1G this year. TCU, since being held to 23 points by Minnesota, has scored 70, 56, 55, 50 and 52 points over the next five games. Stanford might well beat us in a rematch, but I doubt they'd run roughshod over the Northwestern defense as they seem to be doing with some of the Pac 12 defenses.
I do think we can be better than them. Prior to Michigan, I felt that Thorson was playing very good and was actually surprised at how well he looked passing. For a host of reasons only known to Saturday afternoon football, collectively [coaches and players] bad things happened. It happens. Schools like Alabama have these days as well but they are super talented and can get away with it and keep a "W". We can keep the "W" as well against some teams because we are solid, but against Michigan and Harbaugh, we simply can't and didn't get away with it.
Watching the game a second time [thank God for btn2go] I felt that we belonged and had the talent to beat Michigan if we played them again. I've read a lot of press about Michigan and their solid running game, etc., but our defense did quite fine against them after we mixed it up. I don't see Iowa in the endzone tomorrow except for turnovers or special team mishaps. You and I both know that will happen, and Iowa will get a gift INT or fumble and will take that mo into the endzone but not as a direct result of the defense, imo. As poorly as our defense played against Michigan, and as opportunistic as Michigan was, it still only crossed the goal line twice against our first team D. Ruddick was being pressured and sacked by the same D we had grown to be comfortable with the first 5 games.
The problem for us comes down to WR. Thorson puts it on the money and they continue to drop the pill. Even our best wr dropped the pill multiple times last week. Our offense simply isn't going to function with that and it doesn't help that Carr is now out. We have 3 wr who are not playing, buckley, carr, nagel, and we still can't get Long and/or Vault more reps. We simply have to find a way to put two RB's on the field instead of depending upon the weakest unit on the team. It's killing us.
you better watch the game again. you seem to only be seeing what will make you feel good about your team.
Similar threads
