Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: 10 Things about the 39-0 win over Minnesota
11/20/2017 1:59:00 PM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
1. Pat Fitzgerald obsesses over the weather. "If you ask our coaches, I'm a freak about it," he admitted Saturday afternoon. "I check it when I get up in the morning before I brush my teeth. I take a look at it again at lunch just because I want to get our guys prepared. If I'm going to say this is what's important to us, the way that we prepare, then I've got to be sure I give our guys every opportunity for that. Sometimes you get lucky, like we did this week. The Chicago weather really prepared us. We were out every day this week. We were out Wednesday. It was nasty. If we could have played Wednesday, we would have put 80 on the board. That's no disrespect to Minnesota. But the way that they came out to practice on Wednesday morning— it was cold, it was nasty, it was raining, it was like a bunch of eight-year olds jumping in puddles at a youth football practice. Their attitude was phenomenal."
"It was raining pretty hard Wednesday," superback Garrett Dickerson soon added. "We knew it was pretty game-like, so we knew we had to attack practice like it was the game. We executed really well in practice. That got us prepared for today."
"We were freezing our butts off to start practice," concluded safety Godwin Igwebuike. "But one thing about this team is we're always looking for an opportunity to get better. So regardless of the elements, we came out with the mindset that we were going to take advantage of the weather because it was going to be bad today. So we came out with great energy. We had fun on Wednesday, which made if easy today. Saturdays are a lot more fun than practice. So when we came out today, we brought that same energy and it paid off."
2. Today was Saturday, was Senior Day, was a day of wind and rain and snow, was a day that numbed the hands and stung the skin and kept all but the hardiest away from Ryan Field. But, remembered Fitzgerald, "I got out on the field for our early warm-up and the guys were just embracing the suck. I mean it was awesome. They were just jumping around going nuts. Then we came out as a full squad, there was no doubt our guys really embraced it. You have to on days like today. It goes the other way if you don't. We knew it would be a tough-guy day. Today was going to be a Chicago, blue-collar day. You just have to show up and impose your will and I thought we dominated."
3. That domination, as it must, began up front, along the lines, in that nasty workplace so aptly known as The Pit. The 'Cat defenders have shone here throughout the season and now again, even on a day so raw, they shined through once more. Five times they sacked Goph quarterback Demry Croft, who completed a pair of passes on his team's first possession and none of the other nine he would attempt in the game. They also harried him into throwing three interceptions, and catalyzed a unit that short-circuited an offense that had put up 54 on Nebraska a week earlier.
This day it was not only shut out by the 'Cats. It was virtually kept off the field, its first 10 possessions lasting 2:50, 2:33, 37 seconds, 2:02, 1:18, 26 seconds, 26 seconds, 1:37, 2:43 and 14 seconds. The score now was 32-0. "The defensive line has been really our hardest-working group, our most-consistent group all year long," Fitzgerald would later say of his pit workers, and then he turned his attention to his defense as a whole.
"We're not a sexy scheme team. We don't do a million things. But what we do fundamentally gives us an edge," he said now. "We spend so much time on the little things. Playing with your feet apart. Playing with your hands. Being gap sound. Understanding where your help is. Understanding how to properly separate and shed a block. When we do make formation adjustments, why are we doing it, where's the weaknesses, where's the strength. Then I think we tackle pretty well. We work at it every day. We pride ourselves in being a fundamentally-sound defense that's going to make you earn everything. A day like today, the elements were like our 12th defender."
4. Here's a fun factoid that shows the full dominance of the 'Cat defense. In the first half Minnesota totaled 21 offensive plays while Justin Jackson himself had 24 rushing attempts.
5. The line that Jackson runs behind has lacked the consistency of its counterpart. But it has improved as the 'Cats winning streak grew and on this day they just owned their workplace, which is why the 'Cats average five yards on their 55 carries and Clayton Thorson had to throw just 13 times. (He completed nine for 86 yards and three touchdowns.) "Today," said Fitzgerald, "was a base offense day. We talked after the one series, we threw it a couple times to try to get them off balance, Mick (McCall, the offensive coordinator) goes, 'All right, that's done.' I laughed. I said, 'Yeah, I think we're done throwing unless we have to.' It had nothing to do with Clayton. Catching the snap was hard enough. So it was a base offense day. A base offense day."
"It's a lot of fun to run the ball," the center Brad North said when asked how an O lineman feels about that kind of game plan. "As an offensive lineman, as much as I love Clayton, I like to run the ball, I like to maul the guys in front of us. Just glad we could do it today."
6. The superback Dickerson would catch a pair of Thorson's touchdown passes, but for him that was dessert. His main course in this game was blocking, which he often did out of a double tight end set that saw him and his backup Cam Green on the field together. "We've used it more as the season moved along," he said of this formation. "We just knew, with some our our match-ups, that Cam and I would have a pretty big part in our offensive game plan today. We knew we needed to come in and make our blocks, catch the ball when it was thrown to us, help our offense in any way possible."
And what does he find more fun, a touchdown pass or a pancake block?
"I'd say a pancake block. We knew we were going to run the ball and we were really trying to hone that in. Up front we knew we had to move those guys off the ball. So springing Justin for a big gain, it really pumps you up."
7. North, the center, is asked how it feels to have such a dominant game after catching criticism early, but before answering he himself has a question. "Can I first give a shout out to somebody real quick?" he asks, and when assured he can comes this. "Can I give a shout out to women's soccer for making a heck of a run in the (NCAA) tournament (where they lost to UCLA in overtime on Friday night in the Rounds of 32) and having a phenomenal season. And to (goalie) Lauren Clem for having a phenomenal season and career. Just wanted to put that out there."
8. As for the answer. "We were struggling at the beginning of the season," North admits. "But we just had to make a concerted effort— there was a conscious decision to flip the switch and be better. Obviously it's paying off and it's very satisfying to see 266 yards of rushing. (Actually 277). I don't know if that's a season high. (They had 303 against Bowling Green, but it was their best performance in a Big Ten game.) But it shows all the work we put in."
"I think they've worked really hard. They've improved, they've gotten better," Fitzgerald finally says of his O line. "We didn't play well down in Durham (in a Week Two loss to Duke). Then we played poorly in two quarters against Penn State and a quarter against Wisconsin (both defeats). Outside of that, I thought we fought pretty hard up front every game."
9. Justin Jackson went over 100 yards on Saturday early in the second quarter and finished his afternoon with 166. That put his season total at 1,010 and made him just the second Big Ten player (after Wisconsin's Ron Dayne) to pile up 1,000-plus rushing yards in each of four seasons. It also pushed his career total over 5,000, a figure reached previously by just five other conference backs. "The superlatives are endless with Justin," Fitzgerald said of him, and that said it all.
10. And finally this from Fitzgerald, whose 'Cats will carry a six-game winning streak into Champaign for their Rivalry Game Saturday against Illinois: "Our guys have confidence right now. Again, this is a byproduct of our preparation. This is not some all-of-a-sudden Houdini trick play. This is power, Chicago football. We're running the ball. We're stopping the run. Our quarterback's being efficient. Our young receivers are growing up. We're playing 25 first-time players between redshirt freshmen and true freshmen. This is a young squad even though we've got some high-profile experience. This is a very young squad and they're really growing up and understanding the process of being a dominant football team. Today was our most dominant performance in awhile."
NUsports.com Special Contributor
1. Pat Fitzgerald obsesses over the weather. "If you ask our coaches, I'm a freak about it," he admitted Saturday afternoon. "I check it when I get up in the morning before I brush my teeth. I take a look at it again at lunch just because I want to get our guys prepared. If I'm going to say this is what's important to us, the way that we prepare, then I've got to be sure I give our guys every opportunity for that. Sometimes you get lucky, like we did this week. The Chicago weather really prepared us. We were out every day this week. We were out Wednesday. It was nasty. If we could have played Wednesday, we would have put 80 on the board. That's no disrespect to Minnesota. But the way that they came out to practice on Wednesday morning— it was cold, it was nasty, it was raining, it was like a bunch of eight-year olds jumping in puddles at a youth football practice. Their attitude was phenomenal."
"It was raining pretty hard Wednesday," superback Garrett Dickerson soon added. "We knew it was pretty game-like, so we knew we had to attack practice like it was the game. We executed really well in practice. That got us prepared for today."
"We were freezing our butts off to start practice," concluded safety Godwin Igwebuike. "But one thing about this team is we're always looking for an opportunity to get better. So regardless of the elements, we came out with the mindset that we were going to take advantage of the weather because it was going to be bad today. So we came out with great energy. We had fun on Wednesday, which made if easy today. Saturdays are a lot more fun than practice. So when we came out today, we brought that same energy and it paid off."
2. Today was Saturday, was Senior Day, was a day of wind and rain and snow, was a day that numbed the hands and stung the skin and kept all but the hardiest away from Ryan Field. But, remembered Fitzgerald, "I got out on the field for our early warm-up and the guys were just embracing the suck. I mean it was awesome. They were just jumping around going nuts. Then we came out as a full squad, there was no doubt our guys really embraced it. You have to on days like today. It goes the other way if you don't. We knew it would be a tough-guy day. Today was going to be a Chicago, blue-collar day. You just have to show up and impose your will and I thought we dominated."
3. That domination, as it must, began up front, along the lines, in that nasty workplace so aptly known as The Pit. The 'Cat defenders have shone here throughout the season and now again, even on a day so raw, they shined through once more. Five times they sacked Goph quarterback Demry Croft, who completed a pair of passes on his team's first possession and none of the other nine he would attempt in the game. They also harried him into throwing three interceptions, and catalyzed a unit that short-circuited an offense that had put up 54 on Nebraska a week earlier.
This day it was not only shut out by the 'Cats. It was virtually kept off the field, its first 10 possessions lasting 2:50, 2:33, 37 seconds, 2:02, 1:18, 26 seconds, 26 seconds, 1:37, 2:43 and 14 seconds. The score now was 32-0. "The defensive line has been really our hardest-working group, our most-consistent group all year long," Fitzgerald would later say of his pit workers, and then he turned his attention to his defense as a whole.
"We're not a sexy scheme team. We don't do a million things. But what we do fundamentally gives us an edge," he said now. "We spend so much time on the little things. Playing with your feet apart. Playing with your hands. Being gap sound. Understanding where your help is. Understanding how to properly separate and shed a block. When we do make formation adjustments, why are we doing it, where's the weaknesses, where's the strength. Then I think we tackle pretty well. We work at it every day. We pride ourselves in being a fundamentally-sound defense that's going to make you earn everything. A day like today, the elements were like our 12th defender."
4. Here's a fun factoid that shows the full dominance of the 'Cat defense. In the first half Minnesota totaled 21 offensive plays while Justin Jackson himself had 24 rushing attempts.
5. The line that Jackson runs behind has lacked the consistency of its counterpart. But it has improved as the 'Cats winning streak grew and on this day they just owned their workplace, which is why the 'Cats average five yards on their 55 carries and Clayton Thorson had to throw just 13 times. (He completed nine for 86 yards and three touchdowns.) "Today," said Fitzgerald, "was a base offense day. We talked after the one series, we threw it a couple times to try to get them off balance, Mick (McCall, the offensive coordinator) goes, 'All right, that's done.' I laughed. I said, 'Yeah, I think we're done throwing unless we have to.' It had nothing to do with Clayton. Catching the snap was hard enough. So it was a base offense day. A base offense day."
"It's a lot of fun to run the ball," the center Brad North said when asked how an O lineman feels about that kind of game plan. "As an offensive lineman, as much as I love Clayton, I like to run the ball, I like to maul the guys in front of us. Just glad we could do it today."
6. The superback Dickerson would catch a pair of Thorson's touchdown passes, but for him that was dessert. His main course in this game was blocking, which he often did out of a double tight end set that saw him and his backup Cam Green on the field together. "We've used it more as the season moved along," he said of this formation. "We just knew, with some our our match-ups, that Cam and I would have a pretty big part in our offensive game plan today. We knew we needed to come in and make our blocks, catch the ball when it was thrown to us, help our offense in any way possible."
And what does he find more fun, a touchdown pass or a pancake block?
"I'd say a pancake block. We knew we were going to run the ball and we were really trying to hone that in. Up front we knew we had to move those guys off the ball. So springing Justin for a big gain, it really pumps you up."
7. North, the center, is asked how it feels to have such a dominant game after catching criticism early, but before answering he himself has a question. "Can I first give a shout out to somebody real quick?" he asks, and when assured he can comes this. "Can I give a shout out to women's soccer for making a heck of a run in the (NCAA) tournament (where they lost to UCLA in overtime on Friday night in the Rounds of 32) and having a phenomenal season. And to (goalie) Lauren Clem for having a phenomenal season and career. Just wanted to put that out there."
8. As for the answer. "We were struggling at the beginning of the season," North admits. "But we just had to make a concerted effort— there was a conscious decision to flip the switch and be better. Obviously it's paying off and it's very satisfying to see 266 yards of rushing. (Actually 277). I don't know if that's a season high. (They had 303 against Bowling Green, but it was their best performance in a Big Ten game.) But it shows all the work we put in."
"I think they've worked really hard. They've improved, they've gotten better," Fitzgerald finally says of his O line. "We didn't play well down in Durham (in a Week Two loss to Duke). Then we played poorly in two quarters against Penn State and a quarter against Wisconsin (both defeats). Outside of that, I thought we fought pretty hard up front every game."
9. Justin Jackson went over 100 yards on Saturday early in the second quarter and finished his afternoon with 166. That put his season total at 1,010 and made him just the second Big Ten player (after Wisconsin's Ron Dayne) to pile up 1,000-plus rushing yards in each of four seasons. It also pushed his career total over 5,000, a figure reached previously by just five other conference backs. "The superlatives are endless with Justin," Fitzgerald said of him, and that said it all.
10. And finally this from Fitzgerald, whose 'Cats will carry a six-game winning streak into Champaign for their Rivalry Game Saturday against Illinois: "Our guys have confidence right now. Again, this is a byproduct of our preparation. This is not some all-of-a-sudden Houdini trick play. This is power, Chicago football. We're running the ball. We're stopping the run. Our quarterback's being efficient. Our young receivers are growing up. We're playing 25 first-time players between redshirt freshmen and true freshmen. This is a young squad even though we've got some high-profile experience. This is a very young squad and they're really growing up and understanding the process of being a dominant football team. Today was our most dominant performance in awhile."
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