Throughout the year, our fearless correspondent Rose Bowl Dreaming will tour the Big Ten and give you the inside scoop from his bird's eye view in the press box. He will also be providing live Twitter updates at www.twitter.com/sftfame all season long. First up: Ill-ANNOY.
Well it was obvious that the season would be mediocre after the loss to Army. But of course Northwestern had to lose their second game in a row in the most painful, Northwestern way possible. They opened up a seemingly insurmountable 28-10 lead and blew it. Then they were given new life and took the lead again thanks to (what else?) an Illini fumble. Then they proceeded to blow that lead in about a minute as Illinois scored the winning TD with almost no time remaining.
You guys all saw the game. Persa got hurt and the offense wasn't the same after that. (Sound familiar?) But of course when you score 35 points you can't blame Colter or the play-calling, although both were thoroughly mediocre.
You can certainly blame Matthews and Campbell. They were putrid. A.J. Jenkins did the impossible, he made Mike Williams' performance against NU in 2009 seem pedestrian (268 yards and 3 TD's for Jenkins...and that seems low). But this time there are no injuries in the secondary we can blame.
But I blame something else: the Northwestern football culture. This program takes pride in playing close games and consequently they lack a killer instinct. It's been a repeatable offense. When you are up by the score of 28-10, you have to put the team away. The only team they show killer instinct against is Iowa. Their one blowout Big Ten win in the Fitz era was Purdue in 2008. That's it. Everything else has been close, and still in doubt in the fourth quarter. This team thinks way too highly of their ability to win close games. The coaching staff has a certain arrogance about it that is absolutely unjustifiable. NU should have learned from the big leads they blew against PSU and MSU last year that you can't just sit on a lead. You have to keep your foot on the accelerator. They think they can keep Dan Persa out "unless there's an emergency" against Army and as a "precaution" against Illinois in the second half.
You can't do that. Not when you're Northwestern. This team is not talented enough to win games against even decent competition (BC and EIU are both terrible) without Persa. But if it was absolutely necessary not to play Persa, you have to trust your backup QB to throw the ball. Lose the game via his arm, fine. But don't tighten up and think you can run it (they were without their best RB in Trumpy as well). It's a strange combination of arrogance that they think they will win the close games and fear when something happens that's unexpected.
Persa nearly single handily willed NU to victory when he was in the game. Assuming he is healthy next week, expect him to nearly lead the team to victory again. But they won't win. Not against Michigan, who put up 58 points Saturday. I could see this team beating Iowa because, again, that's the only game the coaching staff seems to bother actually making the #finish theme relevant. I could see them beating IU, Rice, and Minnesota. But that's it. Prepare for a lot of early leads that get blown...that's the Northwestern way. That's six wins. Maybe you get the "Pizza City Bowl" as Fitz described what he did not want to go to this year with that record. Maybe.
Pat Fitzgerald talks a good game. He's a brilliant salesman. Anytime you hear him speak you think to yourself that you would run through a wall for that man. But the team's inability to put away an opponent leaves one seriously questioning him and his entire staff. It's not individual players. This has been going on since 2007 (I don't count 2006). "Every game we play is going to be close, and no problem, we'll get the win!" They were handed a gift by Jason Ford in this game and still didn't prevail.
The law of averages has caught up to NU. The coaching staff must adjust their team's mindset. The Cardiac Cats mantra is dead.
And barring some sort of miraculous turnaround, so is Northwestern's season.
