Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report - Northern Illinois in Review
9/7/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Skip Myslenski presents the takeaways from Northwestern's loss at the hands of Northern Illinois Saturday at Ryan Field.
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By Skip Myslenski NUsports.com Special Contributor
QUARTERBACK Trevor Siemian was not seriously injured. That's the good news coming out of the `Cats eight-point loss Saturday to Northern Illinois. Late in that affair, as he was getting sacked for the fifth time on the afternoon, he right knee had buckled awkwardly, and after the play ended he had remained seated on the ground. He would eventually hop off the field with his arms draped around a pair of trainers, but later he said, "I'm thankful it wasn't worse than it is. I'll be fine. The bye week's good for us. (The `Cats are off next Saturday.) So I'll be fine."
Had that been a scary moment for him?
"Yeah. It was scary. But it wasn't as bad as I thought. So I'm thankful."
So much for the good news.
Pat Fitzgerald's press conference after his team's second straight loss lasted a little over 11 minutes. The most-significant sentence of the analyses he offered up during that time was this one. "I thought from the standpoint of discipline and poise, we failed dramatically today."
A WEEK EARLIER, in their season-opening loss to Cal, the `Cats only penalty was intentional-grounding on Siemian. But on this afternoon they would be hit with nine, and two others called on them would be refused by the Huskies. Some of those penalties killed their own drives, others prolonged drives by Northern and the last one resulted in the ejection of defensive tackle C.J. Robbins, who was slapped with an unsportsmanlike conduct call for throwing a punch. "I don't know. I didn't see it," Fitzgerald said when asked about that play.
"It must have happened under the pile. They said he threw a punch. If they said he did, he did. That's incredibly disappointing. He's usually a very disciplined young man who let his emotions and frustrations get the best of him. It was one of those days. There were 17 penalties (Northern itself had eight). Obviously, we have to be a lot more disciplined."
SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS is the label coaches familiarly drape on penalties, and here are some examples of why that is so true. Late in the first quarter, with the game tied at zero, the `Cats churned out of a pair of first downs after starting a drive on their own two. But now, on first-and-ten from their 25, a five-yard gain by running back Justin Jackson was negated when NU was called for a chop block, and soon enough this drive fizzled.
Then early in the third quarter, with the Huskies facing a second-and-12 at the `Cats 37, their running back Akeem Daniels was held to a four-yard gain, which would have left them with a third-and-eight. But here the Wildcats were called for a face-mask, and the Huskies got an automatic first down, and four plays later Tyler Wedel put them up 3-0 with a 32-yard field goal.
The `Cats soon climbed out of that hole with an efficient drive keyed by Siemian, who found Kyle Prater for 22 yards, then Cameron Dickerson for 18 yards, then Prater again for 19 yards and the touchdown that put them up 7-3 with 4:51 remaining in the third. Now the Huskies, on their next possession, faced a third-and-five on their 37, and were stopped short when middle linebacker Collin Ellis stuffed Drew Hare on a quarterback draw. But down the field, away from the play, a `Cat corner was called for hands-to-the face, and the Huskies had another automatic first down, and seven plays later Hare found Da'Ron Brown for an 18-yard touchdown pass that put them up 10-7.
Finally, with the score the same early in the fourth quarter, the `Cats drove from their own 22 to a first down at the Northern 33. Here Siemian found Pierre Youngblood-Ary for a short gain, but it was wiped out by a holding penalty. That effectively killed this drive, which ended when the `Cats failed on a fourth-and-six, and five plays later Hare again hooked up with Brown, this time for a 59-yard touchdown pass that pushed the Huskies' lead to nine (the extra-point attempt was blocked by Nick VanHoose). "I saw a lot of things in the second half that right now we've got to eliminate from our game," Fitzgerald later said, reiterating the theme that cut through his press conference.
"From a character and poise standpoint, I thought we lost our poise, which obviously led us to allowing Northern to do the things that they wanted to do. So a lot to fix there from a penalty standpoint, from a poise standpoint. We obviously beat ourselves by doing those types of plays. Every time it seemed we made a play, we did something penalty-wise offensively which killed any sort of momentum."
MOMENTUM was not something the `Cat offense generated on Saturday. They did have that one drive keyed by Siemian and then, after he went down, they also got a 54-yard touchdown pass from Zack Oliver to Youngblood-Ary. But on their other 10 possessions their drives went for 22, 16, 31, 19, 33, 34, 14, 14, 50 and minus-six yards, and included these wounds they inflicted on themselves.
Early in the second quarter, with the score still at zero, a wide open Miles Shuler dropped a 44-yard beauty from Siemian on the goal line. Then on the first play of the fourth quarter, with the `Cats down three, the speedy freshman running back Solomon Vault beat his man on a fly down the sideline, but let another beauty by Siemian go right through his hands. "When we take shots down the field," Fitzgerald later said, "we've got to win it. I think we were 0-for-today."
"We haven't played well. That's nobody's fault but our own," Siemian himself soon said. "As quarterback, I've got to take a lot of responsibility for that to get us going. We just haven't played well."
AND SO the `Cats are unexpectedly 0-2 as they enter a bye week, and surrounding them are any number of questions (lack of consistency, lack of discipline, the inability to defend explosion plays). Yet about them still is a not-unexpected sense of defiance. "There's no doubt in my mind we can turn it around," declared Prater, who Saturday had a breakout game (seven catches for 87 yards and a touchdown). "We have an unbelievable team, we've overcome a lot in the off-season. We're going to keep moving on. We're just getting hit with a little bit of adversity right now, but it's nothing we can't overcome."
"Yeah, it's frustrating," Siemian would soon conclude. "But I've still got a lot of hope for this team. I think this team still has a lot of fight in it. We're two games into the season, so there's plenty of room to turn this thing around. I think we will."
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