“They’ve played the full 60 minutes, and we haven’t.”
That was Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz’s analysis last Monday of Northwestern’s success against his team over the past two seasons.
But Saturday, it was NU head coach Pat Fitzgerald’s turn to speak on his team’s inability to close games. The Hawkeyes came to play for 60 minutes Saturday, leaving Ryan Field with a 28-17 come-from-behind victory over the Wildcats.
“You’re playing 60 minutes for a reason,” Fitzgerald said. “Back-to-back weeks, we’ve played 50 or so. That’s not going to get it done in Big Ten football games.”
For 15 minutes, NU was the superior team. With the support of a stingy defense that held Iowa to 12 yards on a trio of three-and-out series, the offense was off and running in the first quarter.
On the opening drive of the game, junior running back Tyrell Sutton proved he was back at full speed, scoring on a two-yard run up the gut. Sutton’s early success set the stage for another long first quarter drive, as junior quarterback C.J. Bacher found superback Mark Woodsum on a two-yard play-action pass, giving NU a 14-0 lead.
Little did the Cats know that was the last time they would see the end zone.
Iowa sophomore quarterback Jake Christensen injected his team with some life near the end of the first half, connecting with wide receiver Trey Stross on a 20-yard fade pattern for a touchdown, cutting the lead to 14-7.
With 49 seconds remaining on the clock, NU attempted to respond on offense, streaking 48 yards in 45 seconds to set up a last-second, 34-yard field goal attempt. But junior Amado Villarreal’s kick was blocked, giving Iowa the confidence edge heading into the locker room.
But momentum meant nothing in the Hawkeyes’ locker room.
“(Ferentz) was pretty angry at halftime,” Christensen said. “He wasn’t happy at all. He told us we were lucky to be down (14-7) at halftime, which we obviously were very lucky.”
That momentum carried into the third quarter, as the Hawkeyes engineered a 71-yard drive out of the locker room to knot the score at 14. Senior running back Albert Young’s 16-yard touchdown run was his longest of the day, as NU’s defense held Iowa to 70 yards on the ground.
The Cats’ backfield pressure was the best it had been all season, registering six sacks in the game. They had nine through nine games coming into Saturday.
“(Defensive line coach Eric Washington) calls it a violent act,” junior defensive tackle John Gill said. “You have to give it all your effort. That’s what we did today.”
Most dramatic of those six sacks was a forced fumble by senior defensive end David Ngene in the fourth quarter, which gave NU the ball on Iowa’s 32-yard line, with a three-point lead.
But even a key turnover was not enough to propel the offense out of its late-game stupor. The Cats ended up losing 12 yards on the ensuing drive – supported by a 9-yard sack on Bacher and 10-yard holding penalty by senior center Trevor Rees.
After registering four yards in the fourth quarter against Purdue, Bacher was 4 of 14 with two interceptions in the final period. After not seeing the ball once in the fourth against Purdue, Sutton was limited to one yard on two carries.
“We weren’t running the ball really successfully, I didn’t feel at all, in the second half,” said Fitzgerald, regarding the late commitment to the pass. “We were having glimpses of it but we weren’t having the ton of success that we did early.”
With two games remaining, NU’s ability to overcome its mistakes is running short. The Cats fell from seventh to ninth in the conference standings, and will likely need to win out to reach a December hot spot.
If the 2007 team fails to reach a bowl, it will look no further than its fourth-quarter struggles. NU has now lost three games this season when leading with 15 minutes to go.
“It’s frustrating,” Sutton said. “This is one of the pillars of our program, and we’re not standing on it right now.”
Reach Chris Gentilviso at [email protected].
