Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Football: Despite 27 points, offense needs work, too

Statistics can be misleading, perhaps none more so than the 27 points Northwestern scored against Illinois in Saturday’s loss at Wrigley Field.

Reading the box score, the casual observer might assume the Wildcats played well offensively and were simply let down by their defense. That assumption would be incorrect.

In the first half, the Cats turned the ball over three times, a season high, and were lucky to be down just 27-24 heading into the locker room.

One of those turnovers, a fumble by redshirt freshman quarterback Evan Watkins, led to a touchdown that put the Fighting Illini up 14-0 not even five minutes into the game.

“It was pretty bad,” Watkins said. “We didn’t execute very well, so only being down three at the half, we’ll take that.”

In the second half, the offense was stagnant, scoring just three points.

“We just couldn’t get anything going in the second half,” coach Pat Fitzgerald said. “We thought we made some adjustments to call some plays that we thought would be successful and we didn’t execute there.”

A significant portion of NU’s points came in spite of the offense, rather than because of it. The first Cats touchdown came on a 59-yard interception that junior safety Brian Peters took to the house, while NU’s first field goal was set up by freshman wide receiver Venric Mark’s 58-yard punt return.

The Cats’ offensive woes shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given that they were playing without junior quarterback Dan Persa, who accounted for more than 85 percent of the team’s yardage last week.

In his first collegiate start, Watkins completed just 10 of 20 passes for 135 yards with an interception, and other than one 24-yard run, he proved to be decidedly un-Persa-like when it came to scrambling ability.

“We’ve got to give credit to Illinois, they out-executed us,” Watkins said. “There are a lot of plays I wish I had back and now we just got to go forward this next week, work on those things, correct them, and come stronger next week.”

He said afterward that going from practice to game speed was a difficult adjustment to make.

“Obviously the speed of the game is much faster,” Watkins said. “(It was) my first time with actual experience seeing things in front of me at that speed, at that level, and just understanding the timing of our routes and getting the ball out on time.”

The Cats tried putting in a second quarterback, Kain Colter, to spice up the attack, but the freshman failed to get anything going, recording just 10 yards on three carries. Fitzgerald had no regrets about burning Colter’s redshirt, however, in Saturday’s game.

“He’ll be better in the future,” Fitzgerald said. “There’s no question in my mind that we had to get another quarterback ready. You can’t just go in there with one quarterback. We felt we’d be burying our heads in the sand.”

Oddly, the offense never warmed up, even as both quarterbacks gained valuable experience. After putting up 196 yards in the first half, the Cats racked up just 122 total yards in the second half.

There was one positive that emerged out of Saturday’s game. Redshirt freshman Mike Trumpy had another solid game, rushing for 129 yards and two touchdowns. His effort marked the second time this season he has cracked the 100-yard mark, something NU failed to do all of last season.

The vast majority of those yards, however, came on one 80-yard run down the left sideline, NU’s longest run from scrimmage since 1986 and one of its few offensive big plays of the game.

“It was an inside zone play,” Trumpy said. “I just read it and cut outside and the receivers did an outstanding job blocking down the field. Without Jeremy’s block, I would not have scored that touchdown.”

Without that play, the Cats accumulated just 318yards of total offense, compared to 559 yards from the Fighting Illini.

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Football: Despite 27 points, offense needs work, too