After a 47-14 dismantling of Towson, Northwestern’s record is 1-0. But the Wildcats’ real regular season begins now.
While other Big Ten teams like Minnesota, No. 22 Iowa and No. 6 Ohio State struggled to escape week one with a win, NU had its game wrapped up at the end of the first quarter.
Given the Cats’ success and conference foes’ struggles, should NU fans smell a run for the roses?
No, what they should smell is a FCS team that was clearly outmatched in every facet of the game by its bigger, better, FBS challenger. For the Cats, this was nothing more than a final tune-up before facing a Division I opponent, Eastern Michigan, next week.
“Every opponent is going to challenge us,” senior safety Brendan Smith said. “We have to come prepared, whether it’s a Championship Subdivision team or the Rose Bowl. It really doesn’t matter. We have to come out and play our game.”
And that’s exactly what the Cats did. With the exception of a Dan Persa interception, the NU offense was nearly flawless in carving up the Towson defense. The team ran for five touchdowns and 221 yards and passed for 264 yards and a score.
The defense was equally dominant and held Towson without a first down until the final seconds of the first quarter. The Tigers were held to a pedestrian 2.2 yards per rush, and their two touchdowns came long after NU took out its starters.
Of course, no player or coach is going to belittle another team, especially one they just crushed. But when starters need to see limited action before leaving the rest to the second team, it’s hard to justify the claim that Towson is no different from USC.
Coach Pat Fitzgerald and his players wouldn’t say exactly how much of the playbook the team used during the game, but it was pretty clear that it was minimal. The defense rarely blitzed, and the passing game was primarily short and conservative.
“We were pretty base,” senior quarterback Mike Kafka said. “But that was good to go out there and run our base plays and go against some coverages and some stuff that we’ve been practicing against.”
If that’s the case, NU fans can’t take a heck of a lot away from this game.
Without a test against a Division I team, it’s hard to judge just how inflated the offensive and defensive numbers are. Take, for instance, senior wide receiver Andrew Brewer’s 145 receiving yards. From his performance Saturday, you can’t project Brewer to be an All Big-Ten wideout, especially considering that 72 yards came on one pass with Towson bringing the house against Persa.
Statistics and the final score from this game are irrelevant in the big picture. But what can be said is this season’s squad started out the game with no residue from last year’s Alamo Bowl loss and no laze from facing an FCS competitor. The defense was ready from the first snap and forced three-and-outs throughout the first quarter, while the offense methodically scored on its first three drives of the game. The fact that it was the starters making those plays is only more encouraging.
The attitude on the field is there. The motivation is evident in the way the coaches and players talk, act and play. Now it’s time to test this hungry team against a worthy adversary before determining how far their play will take them this season.
Pasadena may be calling for the purple, but after one week that claim can’t be made.
