It wasn’t exactly Clark Kent going into a phone booth and becoming Superman, but somehow quarterback C.J. Bacher transformed into Superarm three weeks ago.
Bacher accounted for five touchdowns (four passing and one rushing) in Saturday’s win over Minnesota, giving him 14 touchdowns and zero turnovers in NU’s four wins this season and zero touchdowns and 10 turnovers in the Cats’ three losses.
That shows that the rest of the Cats’ season hinges on the performance of their starting quarterback. As for the rest of the team – other than the wide receivers, who have done a good job catching most of what Bacher has thrown at them – it doesn’t really matter.
The running game doesn’t matter: NU ran just 28 times out of 87 offensive plays in the game and is 91st nationally in rushing.
The defense doesn’t matter: The Cats gave up more than 450 yards for the second-straight game and are 84th in the country in total defense.
Even special teams don’t matter: Kicker Amado Villarreal has missed his past three field-goal tries, all of which were 37 yards or fewer.
In other words, it’s all on Bacher.
“With C.J., we know we’re going to score points as an offense … They have been saving us the past couple weeks, but as a defense we need to step up,” said junior linebacker Malcolm Arrington, whose third-quarter interception and return turned the game around and put the outcome in Bacher’s hands.
The ball being in his hands hasn’t always been a good thing (see the five turnovers in the loss to Michigan), but at least for the past two games Bacher has shown he can lead the Cats to the post season – that’s right, it’s time to talk bowls.
Could Friday’s game against Eastern Michigan at Ford Field be the first of two trips to the Motor City for the Cats this season? Could NU end up in Arizona or Florida for the holidays? Or could the Cats be doing thumb exercises changing the channel from bowl game to bowl game as they watch at home? This may look repetitive, but since the defense has proven to be unreliable every year in recent memory and the coaching staff refuses to run the ball, the answers to those questions will be determined by Bacher.
With a 4-3 record and five winnable but losable games left, the Cats could end up anywhere from 9-3 (yes, they seriously could) to 4-8 (which should lead to a staff shakeup).
If Bacher, seventh-leading passer in the country, continues this torrid pace, my guess is NU will end up 7-5 and in the Insight Bowl in Tempe, Ariz. If Bacher gets a little help, 8-4 and the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, Fla.
Worst case scenario for the Cats is obviously home for the holidays, but at this point it looks like they’ll at least be headed back to Detroit for the Motor City Bowl (Yes, it’s way too early to put NU and bowl in the same sentence, but it just happened multiple times anyway).
After being what could only be described as terrible in NU’s three-game skid, Bacher has been brilliant of late. It’s still unclear whether he will be brilliant more often than he is terrible, or if he’ll even out and be average, but what is clear is that Bacher has to have a 400-yard, five-touchdown performance in each of the last four Big Ten games for the Cats to win any of them.
Bacher shouldn’t be expected to keep throwing for the insane yardage and points that he has in the past two games – 79-of-106 passing for 990 yards and nine touchdown passes – but his teammates have proven he has to carry them to get a win.
