Oct. 30, 2014
When is Enough, Enough?
I’ve taken a full week to remove myself mentally and emotionally from
the events that had transpired during the game between the Nebraska
BugEaters and the Northwestern Wildcats on October 18th, primarily for
a chance to collect and compose my thoughts without influence from the
deep-rooted sentiment that flooded over me as the contest progressed
and, in particular, the high angst I felt in the game’s final
minutes. In retrospect, it was a very good strategy to exercise,
because, at the present time, I truly feel that I can ruminate upon the
game with some semblance of objectivity and pragmatism while analyzing
those activities that occurred on the green grass of Dyche’s
Ditch.
Simply stated, the outcome of this game hinged primarily on the health
fortunes of a single playmaker: ‘Cat QB Trevor Siemian. Right
there, the very act of hitching your win-loss fortunes on an individual
player’s wagon, specifically with respect to a gridiron characteristic
as volatile as that player’s consistent health is nothing less than a
recipe for disaster. And that’s exactly where a this hard-fought,
ultra-decisive conference division championship-deciding game went
terribly wrong, in one big hurry. Other internet blogs dedicated
to reporting and commenting upon Northwestern sports, and on football
in particular, have taken a relative apologist point of view regarding
the NU coaching staff’s strategic decision to put all their competitive
eggs in that one playmaker basket. However, I will not.
Laying all of NU’s thin hopes for contending towards a division
championship on whether or not TS could buck-up and fight through the
monumental discomfort of his well-chronicled bad ankle sprain to
perform at peak levels for an entire 60 minute game when facing the
division’s prohibitive favorite team was just plain stupid – very
stupid. And unfortunately, the devastating consequences of that
damned stupidity reared its ugly mug on the scoreboard as the game
clock hit 0:00.
This team deserves better.
How the BugEaters Stuffed the ‘Cats
Like a Turkey-Day Bird
Selective Enforcement
I have commented profusely in previous game commentaries on Fitz’
commendable player substitution policy of “Next Man Up.”
Enforcing its premise is plain common sense, both for the player being
replaced and the player who replaces him. Anyone - coach, parent,
fan or casual observer - can straightforwardly acknowledge that a
football team’s best chance for maintaining their competitive profile
against a hard-nosed, talented foe is to keep healthy players on the
field of play at every position, regardless of circumstances. Any
injured player, irrespective of his inherent high value to his team, is
a liability and, if kept in a game for whatever reason(s), becomes a
target for exploitation by that team’s opposition.
And simply stated, Trevor Siemian has been and continues to be damaged
goods. BugEater HC, Bo Pelini and his coaching staff were well
aware of this undeniable fact and put the collective cross hairs of
their defensive personnel squarely on TS. And this strategy to
target Siemian for concentrated abuse was more than warranted, it had
become an absolute necessity in order to capture control of the game,
especially since the ‘Cat O had just scorched the Nebraska D for a
go-ahead TD a mere 2 minutes prior to halftime intermission. On
NU’s next-to-last possession of H-1, Siemian still followed his pattern
of opening the game with a strong, effective passing motion off a
“relatively” healthy ankle that showed little to no ill-effects up to
that juncture. He was in good form as the Wildcat’s balanced
offensive attack efficiently matriculated the bean from its own 12
downfield to the Nebraska 23 yard line with 2:06 left. On 3rd
down & 6, Trevor set-up behind his pocket protection and fired a
sweet strike on target and in stride to WR Miles Schuler running a
sideline curl route for a 13-yards pick-up at the Nebby 10.
However, in the process, Siemian absorbed a hand-check to his grill by
a Nebraska DE, and stumbled backwards awkwardly while trying to regain
his balance; but his gimpy right ankle finally gave-out and he did a
butt-plant to the Dyche’s Ditch turf. A roughing the passer
penalty off that hand-check placed the ball in the shadow of the
BugEater goal line for a 1st & goal at the Nebby 5; whereupon Cat
RB Justin Jackson, on the next play from scrimmage, received a hand-off
from TS and juked his way into the endzone for a TD, giving NU a
well-earned 7-point lead. However, despite the resounding
euphoria voiced by the Wildcat faithful at recapturing the lead at the
1:52 mark of the 1st half, the fact remained that Trevor Siemian per
usual sustained damage to his vulnerable ankle once again. And
this is the point where Northwestern’s cheap-suit competitive offense
completely unraveled.
Reacting to NU’s go-ahead TD score, Pelini shifted his passing attack
into overdrive as QB Tommy Armstrong Jr., doing his best impersonation
of Denver Bronco QB Payton Manning running a 2-minute offense, calmly
eviscerated the ‘Cats’ now-somnolent secondary - completing a 46-yard
explosion pass play followed promptly by two additional double-digit
yardage connections covering 88 total yards - for a TD that knotted the
score at 14 points apiece, all in 38 scant
seconds.
Undaunted by their defense’s failure to hold-onto that short-lived
lead, Siemian and Co. set themselves to the daunting task of answering
this impressive quick-strike BugEater TD with an equally extraordinary
eye-blink quick-score opportunity of their own on the Cats’ ensuing and
final offensive series of H-1. However, now TS began to display
obvious signs of his debilitating reoccurring injury. Trevor’s
1st pass was to an open WR Tony Jones running a curl pattern into the
deep sideline zone - overthrown due to poor drive off his
plant-foot. His 2nd pass also to Jones, running a middle-zone
crossing route, was thrown behind his target (poor plant-foot drive #2)
and would have been picked-off had his cover DB not focused on
delivering the PBU – instead, the play was flagged for pass
interference, setting the LOS at the NU 49 with 49 ticks left.
His 3rd pass was an out-&-out drop by WR Kyle Prater. Then TS
bucked-up to ignore his plant foot pain and delivered a laser beam pass
into a basketball-sized window to WR Cameron Dickerson running a deep
middle-third crossing route for a 15-yard gainer. TS’ next pass was a
simple flat-footed 7-yard pitch-n-catch to RB Treyvon Greene who ran
into and through the right “B” gap at the LOS, broke free and clear on
a 3-yard square-out to the sideline away from his Nebby cover MLB who
slipped on Greene’s cut motion, then grabbed the pill and bolted to the
BugEater 13 for a 1st down with 26 seconds left. On the next
play, Siemian was flushed-out to his left from behind his protection
umbrella, running slowly but smoothly, then, instead of setting his
plant foot prior to the throw, he hop-kicks off his plant foot (to
avoid the pain), and makes a remarkable toss into another pail-sized
window just off the fingertips of a well-covered Dickerson in the end
zone who made a diving attempt at a circus catch. The next pass
was the back-breaker where Trevor avoided setting his back plant foot
altogether and threw directly off his lead foot (piss-poor passing
motion), which forced his toss to miss low and behind its intended WR:
a wide-open Miles Schuler running a skinny post free and clear of his
cover SS in the end zone. Trevor is clearly hurting following
these 7 consecutive pass attempts where he tried his best to suck it up
and grunt through his distress.
Now comes the most significant play in this game-deciding offensive
series. On 3rd and 10 with 13 ticks before the half, Siemian
receives the center snap in standard shotgun set, scans for his primary
receiver then abandons his scan progression, running gingerly to his
right straight towards the NU sidelines with a Nebby DT in hot
pursuit. As the QB and chasing DT cross the sideline, they
continue as a tandem, one behind the other, onto what looks like a wide
ground-covering plate or board, and when both try to dig their cleats
into the cover board to slow down, their momentum carries the tandem
further still, especially the pursuing DT, whose feet slide out from
under him straight into the heels of Siemian. Siemian virtually
gets de-cleated with the slide into his heels as his left leg goes
airborne horizontally a full 3 feet in the air and plows into a female
spectator while his already injured right foot crashes in a heap into
some hard objects (equipment boxes?) beyond the line of
spectators. Afterwards, sideline cameras show Siemian getting
back to his feet and clearly limping as he walks.
From that moment on, Siemian’s day as an effective, healthy playmaker for Northwestern was over and done.
The problem was: neither Fitz nor his OC Mick McCall exercised their
“Next Man Up” paradigm to replace the injured Mr. Siemian with a
healthy, fully functional QB. I truly cannot fathom the
underlying mindset of NU’s coaching staff regarding their selective
enforcement of their own “Next Man Up” mantra when it comes to their
starting QB. Without a doubt, Siemian was damaged goods after his
up close & personal introduction to those hard objects on the
Wildcat sidelines. However, I am at a loss when attempting to
justify, on any level, how a one-legged Trevor Siemian could ever be a
better, more effective playmaking QB option than the “Next Man Up” QB -
be that backup QB Zack Oliver or Matt
Alviti.
Fitz may hold onto his personal pigskin coaching philosophy that
“statistics are for losers”; however, 2nd half stats don’t just tell
the story, they bellow out the message very loudly and very clearly –
the Wildcat offense was Dead On Arrival in H-2, collecting an
embarrassing zero points off 28 total yards with a 2-to-1 TOP
(time-of-possession) in favor of the BugEaters in the game’s last 2
quarters. Fitz and McCall’s turkey-on-the-run O was rudely and
summarily cornered, beheaded, dressed, plucked, stuffed, trussed and
slow roasted to fall-off-the-bone tenderness by a Nebraska team against
whom they had beaten over the course of H-1.
These single half-game statistics were worse than anything I can recall
from any one game during the accursed Dark Ages of Northwestern
University football.
So tell me Fitz… How‘s your “Next Man Up” mantra working for you now, eh? For shame!!!
3 and O-U-T
Let’s see… Of 6 offensive series in H-2, the ‘Cat O had four
3-and-out possessions. Oh yes, and BugEaters beat the Wildcats in
the TOP sweepstakes: 20:11 to 9:49 in H-2. That means for every 2
minutes the ‘Cat D was getting their collective azz handed to them,
Nebraska possession after Nebraska possession; the ‘Cat O and its
totally ineffectual injured starting QB was stretched over a barrel and
brutally, mercilessly assaulted from behind for a full minute by a
wholly motivated Nebraska defense.
So tell me Fitz… How‘s your “Next Man Up” mantra working for you now, eh? For shame!!!
Conclusion
I recall a script line from the Tom Hanks / Geena Davis film retelling
the inaugural season of the Women’s Professional Baseball League during
World War II: “A League of Their Own,” where a play-by-play radio
broadcaster stated: “I have seen enough to know that I have seen too much.”
And I, as a died-in-the-wool Northwestern Football Program supporter
and fanatic, can only reference that quote in my head so many times
before I mentally begin to see red. This Siemian situation as
Fitz’ Untouchable Irreplaceable QB” is not only not right, it is
totally wrong. If it doesn’t change and soon, the rest of the
season will be a wash. And I do not say that with any malice or
vindictiveness to Fitz, his coaching staff or NU’s Athletic
Director. However, intervention regarding this untenable QB
situation is needed – badly.
The Waterboy
“Win with Grace, Lose with Dignity”
He’s a Lumberjack
This week’s Lumberjack Trophy is awarded to ‘Cat LB, Drew Smith.
In actuality, I nearly awarded the trophy to the ‘Cats defensive front
7, including every one of their rotational substitution players, for
the utterly amazing job they did in keeping the BugEater’s
do-everything RB Ameer Abdullah bottled-up and stoned to approximately
half of his standard rushing yardage production over the first 3
quarters of the game. To limit the versatile, prolific Mr.
Abdullah to 39 total yards rushing on 9 carries for H-1 is doing one
hellova job. To continue with the Abdullah stoning through Q3
while the ‘Cat O went into fetal position, limiting him to 69 total
yards on 15 rushes, was just as outstanding. Unfortunately, the
Wildcat D got thoroughly gassed in Q4, or perhaps the final score might
have been more respectable. But without a team’s O doing its job to
deflect and reduce PT from their D counterparts, the defensive granite
rocks will wear-down and crack eventually. And this is exactly
what transpired for Doc Hanwitz’ troops.
However, that is a subject for another time and another discussion all together.
The red-letter hit I wish to highlight is the stone-cold de-cleating
lumber shot that Mr. Smith laid flush into the grill of Abdullah in
Nebraska’s first offensive possession of H-2. On same play in
which the ‘Cat secondary bumbled-away a gift-wrapped opportunity to
convert an underthrown Armstrong pass into a score-saving INT at the NU
4, Smith drew first blood on the BugEater QB by rushing him hard on a
delayed blitz then bringing his own brand of heavy lumber to bear on a
good, clean hard-as-nails swing into the QB’s midsection just as he
released the bean downfield – which undoubtedly contributed greatly to
the underthrow of that pass. However, that big-boy blast that was
merely the appetizer. Smith’s entre’ lumber course came on the
play immediately following his bomb against Armstrong. With the
‘Cat D facing a 2nd & 10 down, the BugEater backfield lined-up in
their standard “I” formation with Abdullah set 3 yards behind Armstrong
set in shotgun formation behind center. At the snap of the ball,
Armstrong immediately hands-off to Abdullah who sprints up to an open
hole in the right B-gap at the LOS. As Abdullah approaches the
LOS, ‘Cat LB Chi Chi Ariguzo recognizes the POA (point-of-attack) and
sprints hard upfield to fill the hole. Ariguzo lassoes Abdullah
around his waist, halting the immediate advance of the Nebby RB.
But just as the resilient Abdullah appeared poised to shed this first
NU defender, Drew Smith recognizes the POA as well, follows Ariguzo and
completes his own hard 8-yard run-up with heavy lumber in hand to meet
and greet the RB in the hole. And his subsequent swing is
dead-red on the center of his scope’s cross-hairs trained directly on
Abdullah’s grill. As the crack of Drew’s lumber smack
reverberated throughout the packed house of Ryan Field, as Abdullah was
de-cleated and sent flying backwards 2 full yards. Man, I could
feel that lumber pop in my chest – and it felt soooooooooooo
gooooooooooooddddd.
Congratulations, Drew. You will get many more similar
opportunities to lay the high hard one on an opposing ball carrier
throughout your NU career, to be sure.
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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.
