Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: 10 Things to Know Following win over BGSU
9/18/2017 11:05:00 AM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
TEN THINGS. . . .
1. The Wildcats did what good teams do on Saturday night at Ryan Field. They beat up an overmatched foe, here pummeling Bowling Green by 42.
"Defensively, I think it was a confidence boost today," defensive tackle Tyler Lancaster later said. "We just need to take that momentum into the Big Ten."
"The way we played today is a little bit of a confidence boost," echoed the superback Garrett Dickerson. "It was something we needed after last week."
2. The previous week, of course, the 'Cats themselves had been pummeled, losing at Duke by 24. Still, said Pat Fitzgerald on this Saturday night, "You're going to think I'm nuts. But when I left you (after his postgame press conference) last week I walked in the locker room and I didn't feel like I was walking into a funeral. I thought the guys' attitude was, 'OK. We just got our fanny whipped. Everything that happened in the game can be solved, but we're going to have to go out and do it this week in practice.'
"The credit goes to our guys. They did a terrific job coming back. I think they responded really well. I thought they had a great week of practice, and it showed up. I talked to them at the end of the week, especially today, about getting up off the mat. We got knocked down last week. It happens. We played a team that's 3-0 and they played very well against us and we didn't play well. So we had the perfect storm. The only thing we could do was get up off the mat and tonight was about coming out swinging. It's one thing to get up. It's another thing to go out and make plays. I thought we did."
3. Clayton Thorson, off a miserable afternoon against the Blue Devils, was one Wildcats who made plays, finishing the evening 23-of-30 for 370 yards and two touchdowns.
"You always go into a game thinking you're going to do well. If you go in timid, then you're going to do poorly," he said. "I felt confident going in last week against Duke and obviously didn't get it done. I felt confident going into tonight and knew we were going to be able to move the ball."
"Probably of anybody on the squad, his response was outstanding," Fitzgerald said of him. "He can't have back last week's game, but he can do something about it and obviously he did. He really bounced back well."
4. Justin Jackson was another who bounced back, netting 121 yards on 18 carries after going for just 18 on seven against Duke.
"Happy to get the run game going," Fitzgerald said of this performance. "We've been really close. I thought the backs, we talked to them about trying to do too much. We were jump cutting too much in the hole and trying to bounce the ball too much instead of just lowering our shoulder pads and getting three, getting four, getting two, getting four, getting six. Taking the nickels, so to speak. I thought we did a much better job of that today."
5. Their receivers also did a much better job of getting separation, and this was especially true of Dickerson and the sophomore wideout Bennett Skowronek. Here the superback was the 'Cats meat-and-potato guy, gathering in a game-high nine passes for a career-high 150 yards.
"A lot of it was what the defense was giving us," he said. "It was my opportunity to make a play and I was doing my best to go out and do that."
Skowronek, in turn, made the more spectacular plays, hauling in a fly down the left boundary for a 58-yard touchdown and a back-shoulder throw in the end zone for another of 18 yards.
"He does that all the time in practice," Thorson said of the latter effort. "I remember his true first year (last year). He caught a ball over someone in seven-on-seven, and (linebacker) Anthony Walker came up to me and said, 'This guy's going to be really good.' He even said, 'He's the best guy on the roster right now.' We had (Biletnikoff Award finalist) Austin (Carr) too and I'm like, 'Anthony. All right. Just chill out.' So we've been seeing that since his true first year. It's fun to see him do well."
6. Shout outs also to the 'Cat defense, which shut out the Falcons over this game's last 48 minutes. And to corner Montre Hartage, who put the wood to Darin Guyton after the Falcon receiver caught a shallow cross. And to safety Godwin Igwebuike, who collected the resultant fumble and raced 45 yards to set his offense up at Bowling Green's 18. And to backup quarterback Matt Alviti, who relieved Thorson at 8:58 of the fourth and, on his very first snap, scampered 68 yards to set up his team's final touchdown.
7. The 'Cats, after totaling just 191 yards of offense against Duke, would this night total 678. But—reality check, here—that was against a winless team that had been gouged for 990 yards in its losses to Michigan State and South Dakota.
8. More reality checks: The 'Cats first three possessions of the second half ended with a punt, a fumble lost by Jelani Roberts after an 11-yard run and another fumble lost (on the Falcon's two-yard line) by running back Jeremy Larkin after he had carried a dump pass 39 yards.
"That's a horrible way to start the half," Thorson would accurately note. "It doesn't matter if you're winning, losing. If we play like that, we're not going to win games."
"In a different kind of game," said Fitzgerald, "those (turnovers) could have been deadly."
9. Next weekend the 'Cats are off and then, on Sept. 30, they open their Big Ten season at Wisconsin. Looking ahead, even after big win, Fitzgerald would say, "Fundamentally we have to get more consistent. I still see some fundamental issues and for us to win Big Ten football games, you have to be close to 100 percent there. We can't turn the ball over. Then we've got to get a better pass rush, we've got to effect the quarterback more. We've basically seen three straight RPO (run-pass option) teams. That makes it very challenging to get home (sacks). But you can still effect them with tipped balls, knocking them down. Today was probably our best of the first three games. But, still, we got to get more production."
10. The final word shall go to Tyler Lancaster, who late Saturday evening concluded:
"It's definitely a high coming off a great win, going into the locker room being confident like that. But we've got to respond whether we do poorly the week before or whether we do great the week before. We need to treat the next game like it's our Super Bowl. We've got to treat every week like that. It's going to be important to respond to positivity. We can't dial it down."
