Northwestern Takeaways

Huskers93-97 said:
It depends. But that evaluation is what coaches get paid the big bucks for. Determining who will give you the best chance to win. 

Say you have a senior is a 6 out of 10 in raw ability. But he has been in the program so he knows where he is supposed to be on his assignments. 

Then you have a freshman who is a 9 out of 10 in raw ability. He does not have the mental side down so he may have some busts- but he may make plays the senior is not capable of making due to his talent restrictions. The raw talent might make a play and win you the game. 

So if I was the coach it would come down to how often do the mental mistakes happen in practice. Weigh risk reward. If that senior knows where he is supposed to be but he cant make plays because he is too slow that is as much a liability as the freshman in my mind.

When you are talking Alabama and Clemson it might be easier to play that freshman who makes more mistakes. The reason I say that is because they have 10 other guys on the field who are badass. They are erasers. What I mean by that is, if you remember Lavonte David. He was an eraser. He was so good he could erase and make up for other players bad play or he was fast enough to get back where he was supposed to be because he made a bad read. So Clemson and Bama can play a risky freshman because they have 10 other erasers on the field with him. We dont have that luxury. If 1 guy misses an assignment we are typically f#&%ed.
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I agree with your post.

Now imagine instead of it being a single position that the coach has to make that decision on, what if it's half or a third of the team? That's the situation I think we're in. Most of the talent on the team is from the last two recruiting classes, so either true freshman or second year players. Having a bunch of raw players making mental mistakes is totally different than a single player surrounded by more experienced players.

I think we're getting there talent-wise, but still need time for those players to be ready physically and mentally. While we have talent, it's not yet getting on the field because the coaches don't want to throw them all out there at once. So we don't have more talent on the field than most of the B1G, which is the point I've been trying to make.

 
Mavric said:
Northwestern currently the #3 defense in the Power 5 in terms of yards per play allowed at 4.5.  We averaged 5.0.
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Yep. As the hangover from the frustration of losing another close game wore off for me from this one, my takeaway is that missed field goal we had really hurt us more than most fans probably recognize.

If we had only been down by 5 instead of 8 in the fourth quarter, Scott might have not called that pass play for Luke on 2nd & goal from the 4. Maybe we kick a field goal there, and then on the last drive we just need to kick one more to win.

This is Big 10 football; it's how other teams play - just play good special teams, good run defense, and try to keep it close by the end of fourth quarter. Northwestern's good run defense doesn't let you just waltz into the end zone on handoffs.

 
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Husker in WI said:
Maryland is averaging 7.3, Iowa 5.3. Those are 8.5 and 6.0 excluding their games against NW - everything is still a really small sample size, but that is a very good defense. 
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Look who else maryland and iowa has played. NO ONE. 

You can say what you like. It is Northwestern. Some of you guys look for anything to make yourself feel better. I would rather live in reality. The last 15 years has been exhausting trying to believe in all these little bulls#!t stats like this. Thinking it means we are close to back and we are not as bad as it seems. It is as bad as it seems until they prove otherwise. 15 years of disappointment has taught me that. 

 
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Huskers93-97 said:
Look at Northwestern schedule for this year. They play 1 tough team the entire year. 
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And? They're an elite defense, and if YPP isn't your cup of tea there are other stats controlling for who they played and not just raw numbers. We could flip schedules and they would still have a very highly ranked defense when controlling for the teams they played. No one is saying that makes it fine for us to only score 13, but pretending the only reason their defense looks good is who they've played is ridiculous.

 
Husker in WI said:
And? They're an elite defense, and if YPP isn't your cup of tea there are other stats controlling for who they played and not just raw numbers. We could flip schedules and they would still have a very highly ranked defense when controlling for the teams they played. No one is saying that makes it fine for us to only score 13, but pretending the only reason their defense looks good is who they've played is ridiculous.
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Actually who you have played is a very good indicator. You mean to tell me your quality of competition is not a good indicator of how good you actually are?

 
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