Oct. 4, 2018
H-2 Blues
Holy Cow, Jack Brickhouse... Fitz and his DC, Doc Hankwitz, had
the Michigan Dazed & Blue Horde offense right where they wanted
them. Riding an H-1 wave of the most impressive offensive field
play display of the 2018 season to date, coupled with an equally
extraordinary defensive performance, the Wildcats retired to the
halftime locker room sporting an unimaginable 17-7 lead against the
prohibitive favorite Dazed & Blue Horde from Annie’s
Treehouse. Indeed, it was as much a thing of unexpected awe as it
was of bewildering beauty. How in the world of Pappy Waldorf
could the same team that got thoroughly humiliated by an Akron Zippity
Doo Dah squad in their previous game take the fight to the No.
14-ranked Meat-Chicken Horde, with their 2-deep roster populated with 4
& 5-star recruits and led by uber-flamboyant HC, Jim Hair-Ball… er,
I mean… Harbaugh, and literally neutralize the visiting team’s
vast array of overpowering weaponry on either side of the LOS with what
appeared to be utter disregard towards the ‘Cats’ rightfully deserved
“lowly place” in the natural rankings/order of B1G Dog power
programs?
However, that euphoric feeling of superior gridiron field play glory
built-up throughout H-1 died a slow, painful death in H-2 as the ‘Cats’
all-too-familiar Ghost of Post Halftime Ineptitude reared its
ugly head once more in the form a “Bad CT” offense that failed to
execute even the most basic of offensive plays against a swarming,
not-to-be-denied Dazed & Blue D that sacked Clayton Thorson 5 times
while it stoned the Purple O for a mere 56 total yards gained in
H-2. Talk about wallowing in your own fetid cesspool of
playmaking failure.
This schizophrenic situation of an unstoppable H-1 offense
transitioning into a completely incompetent H-2 offense of mismanaged
play calling and outright assignment failures is both bewildering and
confounding to coaches, players, parents and fans alike. What
else can I say?
How the ‘Cats Succumbed to the Dazed & Blue Horde
Large Human Beings
One undeniable characteristic that anyone seated in the stands watching
events unfold on the green grass of Dyche’s Ditch was the imposing
physical size of the Dazed & Blue linemen. On offense in
particular, the unimaginable mass differential between the individual
OL players wearing the blue helmet with the iconic yellow wing on it
and the ‘Cat DL facing them was beyond daunting, it appeared freakishly
intimidating. Simply stated, these early 20-something players are
enormous human beings, especially the Meat-Chicken OC, No. 51, Cesar
Ruiz, and his adjacent teammates, LG, No. 74, Ben Bredeson, and RG, No.
50, Michael Onwenu. One could thread a yardstick through the
backside belt loops of the football pants of any of these three
players, then stand in front of them and never see either end of the
measuring stick. Talk about wide-bodies.
In fact, RG Onwenu is so thick and muscle bound, he can’t assume a
traditional, level-back 3-point stance; but is forced to literally
assume a squatting position (like he’s gonna take a power dump
cathartic), with his butt a full foot lower than his shoulder pads in
order to compensate for not being able to bull his neck/head far back
enough to lift his face/eyes to view his blocking target
properly. Although that squat position looked downright
uncomfortable and limited his initial reaction off the snap of the
ball, once he got his meat-hook hands, powered by his Popeye muscled
arms, under the sternum pad of his blocking target, he physically
manhandled that DL like he was a rag doll. However, despite the
point that all three Dazed & Blue middle OL, the OC & his OG
wingmen, controlled their Purple DL counterparts with noted regularity,
that workload came with a high price tag.
Over the course of a 60 minute game, large human beings constantly
exercising physicality of that high level exacts a demanding toll in
sweat equity fatigue and exhaustion by both parties: as the
Meat-Chicken OL struggled to maintain their blocks against a lighter,
more mobile, very reactive and highly motivated ‘Cat defensive front 7;
while the Wildcat DL kept their focus towards gaining separation from
these Silverback Gorilla-styled behemoths then pursuing/closing-in on
the ball carrier. When comparisons are made between linemen from
these two units, the relative cost of such consistent, unrelenting
physical field play is higher on the defensive front 7 because, instead
of knowing the current play’s point of attack and having the associated
luxury to adjust/modify your requisite energy expenditure just enough
to fulfill your individual blocking assignment, as an OL routinely
does, a defensive player must always react to his reads then locate,
pursue and close on the ball to limit yardage gains at every moment on
every down. Any drop-off in this defensive effort at any time,
and the competitive advantage shifts to the offensive squad in an
eye-blink.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to Wildcat DC Doc Hankwitz’ defensive front 7.
Worn Down & Out
Having exhausted most of their collective energy reserves throughout
H-1in what this writer felt was their most commendable field play
performance of the 2018 season, Doc’s defensive front 7 was THE major
contributing factor responsible for building the Wildcats’ surprising
17-7 halftime lead against a prolific Dazed & Blue offense that had
made minced meat of a Nebraska BugEater defense the previous
Saturday. Ignoring the white noise wisdom from collegiate
football pundits who predicted that the Big Bad Meat-Chicken O would
steamroll the “Mildcat” D into virtual roadkill 7 days later, Doc’s
troops rose to meet the challenge and prevailed for the first 30
minutes of the game. However, that laudable H-1 effort would
become moot if, over the course of the contest’s final 30 minutes, OC
Mick McCall’s O couldn’t deliver time-consuming scoring drives of their
own which would have provided valuable recovery time to their defensive
teammates and relieved the pressure on them to compete against and/or
neutralize those huge human beings populating the Dazed & Blue OL
and limit the visiting team’s yardage production and scoring
potential.
However, as had been the case in each of NU’s previous 3 games, the
Clayton Thorson-led Wildcat O literally got punched in their collective
chicklets by the opponent’s D and knocked flat on their behinds early
& often in H-2. When the Dazed & Blue defense stoned
Thorson & Co. on NU’s first possession of the 2nd half, game
momentum clearly had shifted to the visiting team. HC Jim
Harbaugh capitalized on this momentum shift and rolled-out his
ground-n-pound attack, directing his Very Big Uglies to beat-up on the
Purple defensive front 7 over an 11-play offensive series that featured
7 rushes augmented by a 36-yard explosion pass completion that
re-positioned the LOS at the NU 10 for a 1st-&-goal scoring
opportunity. Despite the fact that Doc’s defense regained their
composure to limit this red zone possession to a FG, the chinks in the
Wildcat’s defensive armor began to show.
As the Wildcat O never proffered anything approaching appreciable
respite to the ‘Cat D from their Herculean effort to stem the rising
tide of continuous yardage gains by the Meat-Chicken offense in H-2,
Doc’s troops plainly transitioned into a squad that truly had been
“ridden hard and hung-up wet” by mid Q4. When the Dazed &
Blue offense finally scored that go-ahead TD at the 4:06 mark of Q4,
the game’s outcome was nothing less than a fait accompli because the Thorson & Co. offense remained a total “no show” in the 2nd half.
The Wildcat defense deserved better – Much Better!
Playmaking Delta
Anything I might say or write regarding the reason(s) why Clayton &
Co. failed miserably once more to execute their effective H-1 offensive
game plan into and through H-2 would be pure speculation. As a
Purple dyed-in-the-wool Northwestern University football fan, I cannot,
for the life of me, come close to identifying the causes that
contribute to the increasing playmaking delta of the Wildcat offense
between H-1 and H-2. Whatever the causes, something is clearly
very wrong with NU’s offensive brain trust and its ability to lead, to
instruct, to develop a comprehensive, effective game plan and make
appropriate halftime adjustments to improve that game plan in real time
H-2. It’s an ongoing plague that, if not addressed sooner than
later, eventually will cut the competitive heart out of this
team. The exact same scenario was endured by the Moo U (Michigan
State) football program in 2016, when the Green Meanies stumbled and
bumbled their way to a woeful 3-9 record with notable losses to the
Indy WhoZits (L 21-24 OT); to the Maryland Twerps (L 17-28) and, in
their most damnable failure of that forgettable season, to the
Ill-Annoy Ill-Whine-I (L 27-31).
If the Fitz-and-McCall-led ‘Cat offense doesn’t pull their collective
noggins out from their moons and get their “merde” together, this team
most certainly will duplicate Moo U’s 2016 season of utter failure in
2018.
You have been warned! ‘Nuf said…
Conclusion
Despite all the doom & gloom above, I’m not quite ready to press
the panic button… yet; but I definitely have flipped its safety cover
up & off and exposed it. The Dazed & Blue Horde was
positioned for their own great letdown against the upstart 15-point dog
Wildcats; yet when it came to crunch time, Big Blue took complete
control of the proceedings and sealed the deal with minimal trepidation
in mid Q4. Good teams do that to mediocre teams on a regular
basis.
So this week leading up to next Saturday’s impending grapple with Moo
U, I’m still carrying a torch that this 2018 version of the football
‘Cats can prove themselves to be much more than a mediocre, also-ran
team in the grand scheme of things, especially given that the B1G West
Division isn’t populated with dominant B1G Dog football programs that
perennially seem to exist in the B1G East Division. Hell, even
the Perdue Broiler Chickens handed the Nebraska BugEaters and their
newly installed “Second Coming of JC” HC, Scott Frost, an embarrassing
42-28 “L” in Lincoln, NE, no less. However, the gild most
definitely is off Clayton Thorson’s lily, so to speak, and there is a
program imperative for OC Mick McCall’s prized pig Senior QB to rise
like a Phoenix from the ash heap of his numerous H-2 failures and
confirm that he possesses the offensive playmaking leadership chops to
take the Wildcats to the next level of gridiron competitiveness.
If “Good CT” can come out from the shadows of NU’s halftime locker room
skull sessions and stand front and center on the H-2 stage under the
glaring spotlight of critical evaluation and perform like he often has
demonstrated in H-1, this season is his redeem and recoup.
The potential to do so is there. Just reach-out and grab that
damn brass ring of gridiron respectability and bring home the “W” flag
from East Lansing.
The Waterboy
“Win with Grace, Lose with Dignity”
|
The Waterboy is a former football player
and a Northwestern
alumnus. Aside from these facts, he has no affiliation with
Northwestern University. The commentary he posts here is his
own, and does not necessarily reflect the views of HailToPurple.com.
