Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: Michigan State Upon Further Review
10/9/2018 4:24:00 PM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Upon further review. . . .
*NORTHWESTERN led Michigan State by eight at halftime, but in their locker room the elephant could not be ignored. They had not, in three of their four previous games, scored even a single second-half point.
"Back-to-back weeks I haven't had to bring it up. The guys bring it up before I do. Older players," Pat Fitzgerald said Monday when asked if he had done just that.
"I think from the standpoint of, especially in Big Ten play, teams are going to respond. They're well coached. There's great talent. There's a lot of pride with every program. We knew both teams, Michigan (a week earlier) and Michigan State, would respond and"— here he chuckled softly— "we can't turn the ball over. We just can't do that. We've got to eliminate those self-inflicted wounds. But I really liked the way our offense responded there at the end. We were able to finish it the way we needed to on the road in a hostile environment against a really, really good football team."
*THE 'Cats, three weeks earlier, did score 13 second-half points against Akron. But that afternoon, in those same 30 minutes, quarterback Clayton Thorson threw a pair of pick sixes and suffered a strip sack that delivered the Zips six additional points. Now, after the Spartans have cut their deficit to two, he is intercepted at his own 33, and two-and-a-half minutes later the 'Cats are down five.
"In a game there's pressure at all times," the superback Cam Green will say when asked if the offense felt that here.
"Whether you're up big or whether you're up a little, any team can come back and make plays. So, yeah, there's pressure. And we knew that we hadn't scored that many points in the second half. But it was more continuing to try and finish the game. Try to get more points on the board. We were just trying to win the game. But of course there's pressure. There's pressure at every level."
*THIS time the 'Cats, and Thorson in particular, stared pressure down and spit in its eye and unfurled a nine-play drive that ended with Green making the catch in the end zone that put the 'Cats back up three after a two-point conversion.
"We ran the play earlier in the game and it opened up a little bit. I came to the sideline and talked to Clayton a little bit, said, 'Hey, be ready for that play again. It was opening up,'" Green would recall.
"When we called it and ran it again, I just went through the motions of running my route, having a guy trying to knock you off your route, swiping by it, going vertical, and the ball was in the most perfect spot. I don't know if it could be placed better than that, which is what Clayton was doing all day. Honestly, I'd love to say I did something out of the normal. But it was the perfect call at the right time. So our coaches did that well, and then the offensive line gave Clayton enough time to throw the ball, and Clayton threw a beautiful ball."
*THORSON, in fact, threw beautiful balls through most of this game, which he ended 31-of-47 for 373 yards and three touchdowns. One of his completions went to wideout Flynn Nagel on the boundary.
"That's an NFL throw," Fitzgerald said of it. "Moving to your left. Throwing before the guy is out of his break. Putting it on the money. Clayton is continuing to get stronger and stronger and it shows. It shows."
"People can see that on the field. But what I've noticed the most is off the field. He's been a tremendous leader," Green would add. "He walks us through film sessions. He talks to everybody, tries to get on the same page as them so we understand what he sees as well as what we are able to see."
*BUT again the 'Cats had no running game, Solomon Vault netting six yards on 10 carries and young first year Drake Anderson netting 12 on five.
"We're going to be a running back by committee until someone evolves to take over the reins and we have positive rushing yards," Fitzgerald said on this subject at one point during his Monday presser.
At another he said, "I think they pretty much kicked our ass up front. i think they're really good. I think we lost some one-on-ones. I think we made some adjustments at halftime. We've got some young backs who didn't tempo the run well enough. They didn't use their blocks well enough. So we're a little bit station-to-station right now running the football. It is what it is. It's painfully obvious. I'm not giving away any trade secrets here. We just kinda suck at it right now. It's amazing. You go from the all-time leading rusher (Justin Jackson) to yuck. A lot of work to do. We've got a lot of work to do running the football and it's not going to get any easier moving forward."
*BEFORE this game, safety JR Pace talked of trying to do too much and getting burned for big plays, and the corner Montre Hartage said, "As you mature you realize you can't take any play for granted or be out of position for even one play. That could lead to, who knows? A first down. A touchdown. Those little things, making sure you're on point on each play, that's critical."
Now, in this one's fourth quarter, Pace played within the plan and the defense reflected Hartage's wisdom and that unit just stiffed the Spartans while protecting their team's narrow lead.
"Down the stretch, we knew it was going to be an exciting ending. With them it always is," the defensive end Joe Gaziano said Monday, and now he offered up an echo of Hartage.
"We figured we need to focus in on what we're doing. Each play matters and each play could be the one that decides the game. So we were out there talking about how we didn't want to let a one-man breakdown or a miscommunication be the deciding factor in that game."
*FITZGERALD, at his Monday presser, described handling success as one of the Wildcats' current tests and noted that "We didn't do it very well last time." So is there a plan to handle it better this time? "I don't think it has to do with anything other than the fact that we have a lot of young guys that don't understand necessarily how hard it is to win every week, and that every week is its own season," he said now.
"That's our job as coaches, to help those guys come along and understand you have to earn success. Now they've practiced hard. I haven't had an issue with their effort level in practice. It's more our execution on game day that's hurt us. Just the sense of urgency. The attention to detail. The making of plays. When we make adjustments, to understand the why. We've got to do a better job of explaining that as coaches to young guys, and get them to play fast and execute."
Then later came this. "Like I told the squad today, it's really hard to win Big Ten football games. We've got to find a way to get consistent. This team. This team. We've had very consistent teams in the past. Some of the guys who sit where you guys are sitting right now (in the team meeting room) have been part of those teams and they know the blueprint to get that done. They've got to bring along their younger teammates (so they) understand just how hard that is.
"Everybody in this league is really well coached. Everybody's got really good talent. Everybody's got rabid fan support. You've got to find a way to get yourself prepared and then go and make it happen in that three-and-a-half hour window."
