Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: Northwestern vs. Michigan Preview
11/7/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Motivated to return to the win column, Northwestern will take to Ryan Field at 2:30 p.m. CT Saturday against an equally hungry Michigan squad. Skip Myslenski provides the week's final glimpse of Wildcats' mindset and the challenges posed by the Wolverines.
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The 'Cats, from Pat Fitzgerald on down, say always that it is not about the other guys, it is about them. It is about how they prepare and how they perform and how they respond and how they go about their business, which was not very good at all last Saturday at Iowa. They owned that fact all through this week as they prepared for Michigan's imminent visit to Ryan Field, and also admitted that their performance had consequences. "It's hard to come off a loss like that with a lot of confidence," said senior tackle Paul Jorgensen, who is one of the team's captains.
"I'm not going to say Saturday didn't hurt," said senior safety Ibraheim Campbell, another of its captains.
"You hate that feeling. That's really what it is. You hate it," said center Brandon Vitabile, one more of its captains. "I was as tired as could be (on the bus ride home from Iowa City), but I could not fall asleep because your mind keeps racing about, `Move my feet here, block this guy a little better there.' You've just got to hate that feeling. You've got to hate losing more than you like winning. That's what it is. Just motivate yourself, motivate the guys around you, to not want to be in that place again and be in a much better place."
But how to get to that much better place?
"It's really not anything magical," said Fitzgerald, and his players certainly knew this was true. For after admitting they had been shaken by their loss to the Hawkeyes, they detailed the prosaic ways that would rehab their shaken state. "We've got to use the outcome from Saturday as motivation, as fuel," is how Vitabile put it. "It's not what we expect of ourselves. That's the bottom line. We've got to learn from that and move on, but know we're a lot better than that."
"We still know what we're capable of," echoed Campbell. "We haven't lost sight of that and we're working just as hard as ever to try to get back where we need to be to win a game. You have to trust yourself. Saturday obviously didn't start out great (as the Hawkeyes rushed to a 24-point first quarter lead). But guys have to realize things can turn around as quickly as they can go wrong. So guys have to keep trusting the system, trusting themselves, and know if you go execute as hard as you can that good things can happen."
"You've just got to believe," Jorgensen himself echoed. "There has to be an inherent trust in everything we do. There's got to be a belief in every play no matter what we're facing. Whether it's a third-and-ten on offense or a third-and-one on defense. You have to believe you're going to stop them if you're on defense or that we're going to get the first down regardless. Either way, we're going to win the game in the end. That's a belief you have to have deep inside of you. Regardless of the situation, you have to believe it."
But how do they keep from pressing in those dire situations, which some `Cats admitted doing last week.
"You've got to get back to what you do," Jorgensen concluded, here bringing the solution right back to the `Cats familiar refrain. "You've got to believe in the system. You've got to get back to how you planned to play the game. No matter what, you can't press. It's easy to say here, but it's hard to actually do it. You've just got to believe. It's comes down to that. . . . We've seen it work. We've seen success in previous weeks. Big wins (against) Penn State and Wisconsin, then the first half (against) Nebraska. Our stuff works. We've just got to keep grinding at it."
QUICKLY NOTED: The Wolverines (4-5, 2-3) are coming off an impressive win over Indiana. But, notably, they have yet to win back-to-back games this season.
• The Wolverines won last year's meeting in triple overtime after tying it up with a field goal as time expired in regulation. That followed their overtime win in 2012, which they managed after a game-tying field goal with two second remaining in regulation. "They've been great games," Fitzgerald said of them. "Hopefully we'll show up (this Saturday) and find a way to win. That'd be great."
• Speaking generally, but perhaps offering a glimpse of what will be on Saturday, Fitzgerald this week said, "All teams have weapons offensively. But when you get into these (last) four, five weeks of the season, it's whose defenses can rise to the occasion, who can keep people off the scoreboard. That's what it comes down to at this time. When you get into the meat and potatoes of conference play, that's typically what it is."
• The Wolverines rank ninth nationally in total defense, allowing an average of 304.9 yards-per-game, and 13th nationally against the run, allowing an average of just 3.15 yards-per-carry. They also have a conference-best 66 tackles-for-loss, with a dozen of those coming last week against the Hoosiers.
• Frank Clark, their 6-foot-2, 277-pound defensive end, is a big reason for that last stat. He has 11 tackles-for-loss, recording at least one in eight of his team's nine games. "He's as good as you're going to see. A very active young man," Fitzgerald said of him.
• But their big disruptor is 6-foot-3, 236-pound senior linebacker Jake Ryan, who has had double-digit tackles in three straight games.
• They've been running-back-by-committee through much of the season. But 6-foot-1, 211-pound sophomore Drake Johnson had a breakout game against the Hoosiers, torching them for 122 yards and two touchdowns on just 16 carries. "Really impressed with their No. 20. He popped out in tape," Fitzgerald said.
• The Wolverines receiver to watch is 6-foot-5, 230 pound Devin Funchess, who's averaging a half-dozen catches per-game. "He's a matchup nightmare," said Fitzgerald.
AND FINALLY, 'Cats defensive end Ifeadi Odernigbo, on the team's confidence level: "That's a hard question. The confidence isn't low. Everyone still has a great attitude. Everyone still has their heads up. It's more frustration. We had a lot of expectations coming into the season and we're not fulfilling them. Now's the time to change that."
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