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Illinois Preview and Prediction
By Eric Cockerill
Matchup: Purdue Boilermakers (6-4, 4-3) at Northwestern Wildcats (1-10, 1-7)
Date: Saturday, November 26th, 2:30 p.m. CST
TV: BTN
Line: Northwestern (+14.5), O/U 38
Recap:
The story from last week beyond another loss was Cole Freeman.
Considered the fourth string quarterback and the first walk-on to start
in the Fitzgerald era, Freeman gave a gutsy performance. That’s
not to say it was “good” per se. Two lost fumbles and an
interception with less than 80 yards passing is not exactly successful,
but NU was only down one score throughout the fourth quarter without
being assisted by hellacious weather conditions (i.e. Penn State and
Ohio State), which is better than most expected.
The second story was how NU tried to generate that offense with little
to no passing threat. Bajakian called up five direct snap
plays to Porter or Hull, including three in a row at one point.
At least they tried something I suppose, but I would have gone another
direction.
Outlook:
The Wildcats host the Illini today for Senior Day. Northwestern
will finish 1-11 for its worst record since 1989 when the team was
0-11.
Why am I confident in a loss? Illinois is VERY good
defensively. Iowa received a lot of in season hype for their
defensive performance, but Illinois is better. Currently, they
are 3rd for all FBS programs and 7th for both pass and rush defense.
Offensively, they remain slightly below average and lean heavily on
their running game to generate yards, which works well with their
defense. It’s helpful to remember that their head coach is Brett
Bielema and you’ll see parallels of Wisconsin when he was leading that
team.
We can expect NU to struggle to generate any consistent yards with no
real passing threat, which allows an already strong defense to stack
the box.
Look ahead:
It’s hard to be optimistic about next season. To be frank, it has
looked like the coaches’ game plans have been a step behind their
competition all year. Never a plan that appeared to take
opponents by surprise, and always slower to adjust than the other
team. Certainly player execution has been poor as well, but it
only takes a review of the non-conference losses to see where the
season went off the rails and never really recovered.
There is some cause for optimism. Fitzgerald has at least
acknowledged that changes need to be made in the offseason, though he’s
been typically silent on what those could be. Defensive
Coordinator O’Neil has received a lot of criticism, but by the numbers,
NU is ranked 49th for Scoring Defense (slightly above average) but
104th for Scoring Offense (out of 131), albeit both impacted by those
two weather impacted games. There are problems on both sides of
the ball.
This season was also impacted by injury problems, most notably in the
defensive backfield at the start of the season and at QB later in the
season. Next year, we can hope for a reduced impact. In
addition, NU is rumored to have another good recruiting class which
suggests reinforcements may be coming in time for the new stadium (RebuildRyanField.com).
Current plans involve the team playing all next season in the existing
stadium, when finding a temporary home for the 2024 season (and
possibly beyond).
Prediction: The Illini win the Hat for a second year by stifling the NU running game and grinding down the Cat defense.
Pick: Illinois 27, Wildcats 10. Illinois covers
Season to date: Straight up: 7-4; ATS: 4-7
The Lowes Line is an
e-mailed description of NU's
next
football game, with an invariably fearless prediction of the outcome
and
how NU will fare against what the other "experts" predict. Our
good
friend and Brother Marcus Lowes began the broadcast mailing in 1996.
The crack Lowes Line Staff (alumni Lone Star Cat,
GallopingGrapes, P.S. O'Briant, Eric Cockerill, Joel Kanvik, Charlie Simon, and
MO'Cats) have continued the Line in memory of Marcus.
For
the 2022 season it has returned to HailToPurple.com,
for anyone to enjoy. Thanks to the gridiron brain trust at the Lowes
Line!
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