Northwestern Takeaways

Mavric said:
Northwestern currently the #3 defense in the Power 5 in terms of yards per play allowed at 4.5.  We averaged 5.0.
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Yep. As the hangover from the frustration of losing another close game wore off for me from this one, my takeaway is that missed field goal we had really hurt us more than most fans probably recognize.

If we had only been down by 5 instead of 8 in the fourth quarter, Scott might have not called that pass play for Luke on 2nd & goal from the 4. Maybe we kick a field goal there, and then on the last drive we just need to kick one more to win.

This is Big 10 football; it's how other teams play - just play good special teams, good run defense, and try to keep it close by the end of fourth quarter. Northwestern's good run defense doesn't let you just waltz into the end zone on handoffs.

 
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Husker in WI said:
Maryland is averaging 7.3, Iowa 5.3. Those are 8.5 and 6.0 excluding their games against NW - everything is still a really small sample size, but that is a very good defense. 
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Look who else maryland and iowa has played. NO ONE. 

You can say what you like. It is Northwestern. Some of you guys look for anything to make yourself feel better. I would rather live in reality. The last 15 years has been exhausting trying to believe in all these little bulls#!t stats like this. Thinking it means we are close to back and we are not as bad as it seems. It is as bad as it seems until they prove otherwise. 15 years of disappointment has taught me that. 

 
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Huskers93-97 said:
Look at Northwestern schedule for this year. They play 1 tough team the entire year. 
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And? They're an elite defense, and if YPP isn't your cup of tea there are other stats controlling for who they played and not just raw numbers. We could flip schedules and they would still have a very highly ranked defense when controlling for the teams they played. No one is saying that makes it fine for us to only score 13, but pretending the only reason their defense looks good is who they've played is ridiculous.

 
Husker in WI said:
And? They're an elite defense, and if YPP isn't your cup of tea there are other stats controlling for who they played and not just raw numbers. We could flip schedules and they would still have a very highly ranked defense when controlling for the teams they played. No one is saying that makes it fine for us to only score 13, but pretending the only reason their defense looks good is who they've played is ridiculous.
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Actually who you have played is a very good indicator. You mean to tell me your quality of competition is not a good indicator of how good you actually are?

 
Huskers93-97 said:
Actually who you have played is a very good indicator. You mean to tell me your quality of competition is not a good indicator of how good you actually are?
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It is a large factor in how good you look, I'd say a pretty small factor in how good you are. They wouldn't be giving up 4.5 YPP if they had played Ohio State, Alabama, and Clemson. They would be giving up a lot less per play than those teams average though.

 
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