Jason Wright hit the trifecta.
The junior running back was named the Co-Offensive Big Ten Player of the Week on Monday after his performance against Indiana. In the Northwestern victory, Wright set career highs in rushing yards (196), receiving yards (59), all-purpose yards (285) and touchdowns (4). He also surpassed the 1,000-yard mark on the season.
It was the third time this year Wright has been a Big Ten Player of the Week. He was named Offensive Player of the Week after rushing for 186 yards and three touchdowns against Navy on Sept. 21, and he received special teams honors for returning a kickoff 101 yards for a touchdown against Texas Christian on Sept. 7.
While he continues to add hardware to his trophy case, the first-year starter, who is No. 12 nationally in rushing yards and third nationally in all-purpose yards, continues to impress NU coach Randy Walker.
“I swear he’s got four eyes,” Walker said. “He’s got one eye in each ear hole. He makes some cuts and decisions and I go, ‘Wow, that was really good.'”
Wright definitely had a good performance against Indiana, but it wasn’t quite as good as the statistics indicated after the game.
The post-game statistics gave Wright 219 yards rushing on 23 carries. But a 23-yard pass from Brett Basanez to Ashton Aikens was incorrectly credited as a rush for Wright.
Even with the correction, Wright still set five career highs in the game, though he did miss out on the first 200-yard rushing performance of his career.
NU media services notified the Big Ten office of the error on Monday, and Sue Lister, an associate commissioner, said Wright’s Big Ten honor “still stands.”
“I don’t usually pay attention to the stats,” Wright said Tuesday after he learned of the mistake. “I have a lot of games left in my career to get 200 yards.”
It’s all about Size: Size does matter for the Wildcats’ defense. When it comes to the playbook, less is more.
After allowing opponents to score more than 40 points in three consecutive games, the defensive coaches decided to reduce the number of schemes and run a more basic defense.
With the reductions, the defense allowed only 30 points and held the Hoosiers to just 3.4 yards per carry after the first quarter.
“It’s helped a lot of people,” defensive tackle Colby Clark said. “With our young defense, a lot of guys go out there, and they’re just thinking too much and not just playing. I think that’s the way our defense needs to be played — to be rough, come off and strike somebody, and that’s what we’re going to get into now.”
Coaches felt the defense was failing to execute all of the schemes. Walker said they needed to make it simpler for the players to ensure the plays were being run correctly.
“A lot of the big plays we were giving up were missed assignments,” Walker said. “Missed assignments are mental breakdowns. My explanation is that there’s either two things going on: Either you’re stupid or you’ve got too much. Well, I know we aren’t stupid. So that means we had too much.”
Danger Zone: The safety position has not been safe for the Cats in the past couple of weeks.
Against Penn State on Oct. 19, Dominique Price suffered a severe ankle injury after being clipped and has missed the past two games.
Mark Roush broke a rib in the third quarter against Indiana and was taken for X-rays before returning to the sideline in the fourth quarter.
Roush, who has played most of the season with a cast on his left arm, which he broke last spring, wore a red “no contact” jersey at Tuesday’s practice.
But Walker said the two safeties will probably play this week against Iowa.
“Mark got something knocked off his rib or something,” Walker said. “That sounds horrible, but there’s about a million guys out there that have had a broken rib and played with it. He’ll play with it.
“Mark plays with everything. He’s got more broken bones, I don’t know, than Basanez I guess.”
Walker said Basanez continues to improve after breaking his left fibula against Minnesota on Oct. 10. Each day his mobility increases, Walker said.
The health of linebacker Braden Jones, who suffered a shoulder contusion against Purdue and missed last week’s game, has also improved. He practiced in full pads on Tuesday.
“Braden Jones went today and looked OK,” Walker said. “I didn’t think he was going to go in full pads today, but he was out there in black (the normal practice jersey).”
