Northwestern University Athletics
Quickly Now: Skip Myslenski's Illinois State Game Recap
9/11/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 11, 2010
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By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
• There is no fixed formula, no magic number, no prescribed time to meet when the 'Cats unfurl their giddy-up offense. "It's more important that we go out and execute," explains their coach, Pat Fitzgerald. "This great coach named John Wooden once said, 'Be quick, but don't be in a hurry.' So we want to go as quick as we can, but we don't want to hurry through things so we miss the little details. I guess I could pull out the playbook and give you coach-speak. 'We want to snap it exactly at 29 seconds.' But that's not reality. There's a lot of variables that go into it."
There is no fixed formula, no magic number, no prescribed time to meet when the 'Cats unfurl their giddy-up offense. But, says their linebacker Quentin Davie, "We saw it all summer, all camp, so we definitely know how the opposing defense's feeling. Then, once you see the defense bending over, you kind of get that feeling in the back of your head, 'We've got 'em now.'"
"Right away," says the quarterback Dan Persa, "they're not so much tired as they don't get lined up exactly right. So (first) you take advantage of little line-up problems. But as the game wears on, it definitely wears on defenses."
There is no fixed formula, no magic number, no prescribed time to meet when the 'Cats unfurl their giddy-up offense. But Saturday at Ryan Field, in their home opener against Illinois State, they used it early and efficiently and effectively, and simply wore out any defense the Redbirds threw at them. Here their plays arrived quicker than a hiccup, faster than a heartbeat, snappier than a one-line retort, and that catalyzed them to the 27-point halftime lead that made a mere formality out of this game's final 30 minutes.
On their first possession, they drove 89 yards in 15 plays for a touchdown. On their second possession, they drove 68 yards in 10 plays for a touchdown. On their third possession, they drove 62 yards in 10 plays for a field goal. On their fourth possession, they were done in by a penalty. But then came a six-play, 60-yard drive and a three-play, 22-yard drive for two more touchdowns.
That is what Persa's offense did in Saturday's first half, but not even those stark-and-superlative figures manifest the full force of the giddy-up here. "We're in great condition as an offense and you can tell, me being an outside receiver, I can look at the cornerback and I can tell when he's getting tired," Sidney Stewart says, explaining what else was at work. "That kind of fuels my energy level and I'll talk to Dan. I'll say, 'Dan, they're getting tired. Let's go. Right now.' I think we understand the implications of our fast tempo and how it gets them on their heels."
Can he remember a specific play when he did that?
"Yeah. It was early in the first quarter actually (more like with just under four minutes remaining in it). I think it was a third down (and five) play. We just ran a simple play. It could have been covered if they had gotten into their right positions. But we saw they were out of position, they blew a coverage, and we capitalized on it (for a first down during their second scoring drive). I would definitely say that was because they were a little bit tired."
• After going 19-of-21 against Vandy, Persa regressed Saturday and ended his day a mere 19-of-23 (82.6 percent) for 240 yards and a pair of touchdowns to superback Drake Dunsmore. "You can't be 90 percent all the time," he said with a smile when kidded about his slippage. "No. My receivers made great plays for me all day and we were rolling pretty well on offense."
• This scribe liked what Stewart had to say when asked if he has been surprised by Persa's performances: "Nah. We saw it in camp. Now the world can see it."
• The freshman Venric Mark had a 21-yard reception. Stewart had a 28-yard reception. Jeremy Ebert had a 45-yard reception. The freshman Rashad Lawrence had a 50-yard reception. The 'Cats, then, played some long ball on Saturday, and would have had one more for the stat sheet if Stewart hadn't dropped what would have been a 22-yard touchdown reception in the back left corner of the end zone. "Other than my drop, we played the deep ball well," he said with a laugh when looking back on that. "No. Such is life. You win some, you lose some. I saw it. It was such an easy catch, I dropped it. So. Yeah."
But then there was that nifty pirouette he did while grabbing his 28-yarder.
"That was a nice catch, wasn't it?" he said with a smile and to a round of laughter. "Like I said, you win some, you lose some. (Wide receiver) Coach (Kevin) Johns talks about having a greenhouse. Basically, no matter what's going on outside, you have to maintain the same temperature. You make a big play, flush it, keep moving. You drop a pass, flush it, keep moving."
• That clearly is a lesson learned by running back Arby Fields, who flushed away his uninspired performance against Vanderbilt by netting 96 yards on his 22 carries (4.4 ypc). Here, unlike a week earlier, he eschewed the jitterbug, kept his nose pointed forward and benefited from some nice work by his line. "I think it has a lot to do with your experiences," Fitzgerald said about that altered approach. "When you go out there and get a feel for the game, get a feel for the speed, the learning curve starts to come down and you start to get it a little bit."
"I think he just stuck his foot in the ground and got north and south," Persa said when asked the difference in Fields between weeks one and two. "The offensive line also played great. Having more confidence in the offensive line and hitting the holes harder definitely helped."
"(Tackle) Al Netter, we talked before the game," Fields himself said at one point. "He said, 'Arby, I'm going to make holes. Just run through them.'"
"I knew we were going to come out and run the ball and I took it as a personal challenge," he would later add.
"We had the mindset that we were going to run it down their throat rather than just trying to run around everybody," he eventually concluded.
• "I wouldn't say it does anything for our performance. We just like to see our teammates do what they do best. Going tempo, going fast and going out there and executing," defensive tackle Corbin Bryant said when asked if the giddy-up has an effect on his unit.
But then, in the next breath, he concluded: "That's what gives us momentum when we go out there."
• His unit, which played basically vanilla, was nicked by a run here, by a pass there. But it held the Redbirds without a touchdown, which makes it clear it did its job, and produced some center stage moments for both him and Davie, who combined for three interceptions.
The linebacker got the first two of them and, on the second, was rumbling toward a touchdown in the final minute of the first half. "I did see the end zone on the second one," he would say. "And then the running back had an angle on me and he caught up to me. It's not that he was faster or anything."
Did that bring back memories of being a high school quarterback, we asked after the laughter died.
"Yeah, definitely," he said. "I felt good with the ball in my hands and I tried to make a little cut. That didn't work too well, but maybe next time."
Bryant, too, tried to make a little cut after picking off a middle screen in the third quarter, which led Fitzgerald to later say, "I question Corbin's running ability. Wow. Looked like a defensive tackle with the ball in his hands. Cut right back into a guy. Awfully interesting. But I couldn't be more happy for a senior in his last opener. That's a D lineman's dream."
"I was just trying to get as far as I could," Bryant himself said, explaining the move his coach found so unusual. "Then I saw the quarterback had the angle on me, so I just tried to go knock him down."
• And finally: Fitzgerald, when asked if there was anything he did not like about Saturday: "Yeah, the rain. Pre-game, I was soaked.
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