** 2020 Opponent Previews : Northwestern (Game 3) **

KCBuc said:
NW isn’t Clemson. They aren’t Ohio State. They are pedestrian. NU SHOULD win. If they don’t, it’s broke and will be another long year. 
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1. We are underdogs in this game. According to the experts in Vegas, Northwestern SHOULD win this game by 3 points. ESPN FPI gives Northwestern a 68% chance to win this game. While you personally might expect to win this game, the oddsmakers and at least one computer statistical model show that Northwestern is supposed to win on Saturday.

2. I actually wholeheartedly agree with you that Northwestern isn’t a world beater, and I am hopeful that NU can win this game. The challenge, like others have laid out, is we need to play clean, fundamental, sound football without mental gaffes and turnovers. When was the last time Nebraska played a truly “clean” game? Especially on the road? Even against Ohio State we had 2 fumbles, one of which was returned for 6, and had 8 penalties for 90 yards and two guys got ejected from the game.

3. While we didn’t “quit” against the Buckeyes, we definitely mentally unraveled at the end of the first half, and I’d argue we never really fully bounced back. We scored 3 points in the second half and lost by 35. A road win over a team that has given us fits for the last 9 years that is currently 2-0 in league play, leads our division, and just won @ Iowa would be ENORMOUS for this program. Don’t undersell how much of a challenge, and how big of a reward, a win vs Northwestern will be for this team and Scott’s rebuild of this program.

 
We need alot to happen to feel confident about beating anyone in this conference. We can run the football, but we can't only run the football. We need more threats to emerge in the passing game or this offense is going to be limited. 

We seem to be able to stop the run fairly well which is a very encouraging sign. That said, we need to continue to do so consistently. Thats been a major issue over the last few years. I'm holding out hope for the pass defense because I think Fisher is a good coach and OSU is definitely the best pass offense we will see for the rest of our scheduled games, but it didn't look good Saturday. There is obviously plenty of room to improve there. 

Special teams looked ok but its one game. We need to see some consistency. Thats the key word in the areas where we are already succeeding and we still have questions.  It's not a forgone conclusion we are going to figure out the passing game against NW. I think we definitely could, but I've been hopeful for receiving threats to emerge outside of Wandale since Frost got here. I'm confident these young guys will develop and we will get some great players out of the bunch, but we need help on Saturday. Are any of them ready? I'm not so sure. Same can be said for the secondary. Alot of questions to answer in one game. It's possible. It's possible we can win without answering all of the questions. But it's not something to be confident in. NW is a solid team that has always been pesky every time we play them. Are they a great football team? Absolutely not. Can they beat us? Absolutely. 

Now I think we will win on Saturday but I'm also a bit bias. But I don't think that win won't be hard earned, regardless of the margin of victory. The thing that gives me hope this year is this is a run/stop the run league at the end of the day. We looked pretty solid in those aspects. That is going to be why we win this game but we need to evolve into more than that, especially on offense. 

 
Nebfanatic said:
We need alot to happen to feel confident about beating anyone in this conference. We can run the football, but we can't only run the football. We need more threats to emerge in the passing game or this offense is going to be limited. 

We seem to be able to stop the run fairly well which is a very encouraging sign. That said, we need to continue to do so consistently. Thats been a major issue over the last few years. I'm holding out hope for the pass defense because I think Fisher is a good coach and OSU is definitely the best pass offense we will see for the rest of our scheduled games, but it didn't look good Saturday. There is obviously plenty of room to improve there. 

Special teams looked ok but its one game. We need to see some consistency. Thats the key word in the areas where we are already succeeding and we still have questions.  It's not a forgone conclusion we are going to figure out the passing game against NW. I think we definitely could, but I've been hopeful for receiving threats to emerge outside of Wandale since Frost got here. I'm confident these young guys will develop and we will get some great players out of the bunch, but we need help on Saturday. Are any of them ready? I'm not so sure. Same can be said for the secondary. Alot of questions to answer in one game. It's possible. It's possible we can win without answering all of the questions. But it's not something to be confident in. NW is a solid team that has always been pesky every time we play them. Are they a great football team? Absolutely not. Can they beat us? Absolutely. 

Now I think we will win on Saturday but I'm also a bit bias. But I don't think that win won't be hard earned, regardless of the margin of victory. The thing that gives me hope this year is this is a run/stop the run league at the end of the day. We looked pretty solid in those aspects. That is going to be why we win this game but we need to evolve into more than that, especially on offense. 
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I agree with most of what you said.

One thing that I find interesting. Maybe this is just my skewed view of it and it's not based in reality.  But, It seems like so often when one group (WRs) struggle as a group on one side of the ball, the opposing group (DBs) struggle on the other side.  Look at our lines.  We have struggled for years on BOTH sides of the ball.  Now...the BOTH seem to have improved.  Our WRs don't seem to be a threat.  Coincidentally, our DBs struggle to be a good group.

If these guys can see quality talent in practice, it pushes them to be better and it helps them in a game.

 
NW clearly seems better than last year, but they always give us a fight and have won their share. I'm optimistic though - Ramsey is a huge upgrade at QB, but they still have no skill position talent to speak of. Drake Anderson is fun to watch and will probably have a decent cutback run or two, but if we give up big plays passing I will be very nervous about our secondary moving forward. If we keep Ramsey hemmed in and don't completely blow some coverages, I don't think they're scoring a lot.

Defensively, they still seem really good. But I think we'll be able to get a few things going, the silver lining in Wisconsin cancelling early was we could shift to NW quicker. I hope the bye week gave some of the new receivers a chance to work their way into the rotation, otherwise it could be another ugly low-scoring game.

 


I wonder how they're gonna handle the definition of 'freshman' for stuff like this next year. Will it be limited to true freshmen? I mean, next year Luke McCaffrey will still be a redshirt freshman, will he be eligible for Freshman of the Week?

 
Toe said:
I wonder how they're gonna handle the definition of 'freshman' for stuff like this next year. Will it be limited to true freshmen? I mean, next year Luke McCaffrey will still be a redshirt freshman, will he be eligible for Freshman of the Week?
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Yeah, that's going to create a host of issues and oddities.

My understanding is everyone will still be classified as the same class they are this year.  So I would say he would be eligible.

 
Toe said:
I wonder how they're gonna handle the definition of 'freshman' for stuff like this next year. Will it be limited to true freshmen? I mean, next year Luke McCaffrey will still be a redshirt freshman, will he be eligible for Freshman of the Week?
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Good question.  True Freshman, Redshirt Freshman, COVID Freshman 

 
Mavric said:
Yeah, that's going to create a host of issues and oddities.

My understanding is everyone will still be classified as the same class they are this year.  So I would say he would be eligible.
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Wouldn't it be easier to just have 6th year seniors for a while and leave the rest of the names the same as always?

 
We need to get our more athletic wr's involved, force NW to protect the whole field and get some big plays. We tend to have drive-killing errors and while we certainly need to clean those up the more plays a drive requires the more opportunities there are for those goofs. 

We need to press NW's wr's, we can't play-off like we did against OSU,. Hopefully it was just a matter of Chin being exceedlingly respectful of OSU's wr's. NW is a disciplined team that loves to chew clock, play-off and they will gladly nickel-and-dime us all day. 

It's NW, you know it will be a brawl. We need to keep our heads in the game and retain discipline when things get tough. 

We should have gotten a considerable jump in terms of game-prep, hopefully that makes the difference. 

 
Your annual reminder that the series with Northwestern has been close on the scoreboard - which is obviously the only thing that really matters - but significantly in Nebraska's favor everywhere else.  We have completely out-played most of the time but the fact that the games have been close has been much more about us shooting ourselves in the foot than about them playing well.

Until last year, we had out-yarded them by at least 140 yards in all of our wins.  

In 2015, we lost despite out-yarding them by 40

In 2018, we lost in overtime despite dominating the first 50 minutes of the game.

The 2017 game is the only time we've gotten really out-played at all in the last eight meetings.

If we take care of ourselves, we will likely take care of them.

Total Offense Yards vs. Northwestern

2011 (L): NU - 411; NW - 468

2012 (W): NU - 543; NW - 301

2013 (W): NU - 472; NW - 326

2014 (W): NU - 471; NW - 290

2015 (L): NU - 373; NW - 333

2016 (W): NU - 556; NW - 388

2017 (L/OT): NU - 337; NW - 475

2018 (L/OT): NU - 482; NW - 487

2019 (W): NU - 319; NW - 293

 
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