BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – While the Wildcats’ offense was unstoppable, their defense kept things interesting in Northwestern’s 59-38 victory over Indiana on Saturday.
NU racked up 616 yards of offense and scored its most points in a game since 2000, but still allowed Indiana (1-8, 0-5 Big Ten) to gain 488 yards of offense and match its highest point total of the season.
“It feels great to win,” coach Pat Fitzgerald said. “(This is) one of the more efficient days our offense has had since I’ve been the head coach. Defensively, for a lot of the game we had some things pretty well adjusted, but when we make a call and we don’t execute that’s when we get into a little bit of trouble.”
The Cats (3-5, 1-4 Big Ten) scored points on seven of their eight red zone possessions, with six of them ending in touchdowns. The biggest winner in the red zone was senior Drake Dunsmore, who caught three of his school-record four touchdown passes from inside the 20. With his second touchdown grab on the day, Dunsmore became NU’s leader in career receiving yards by a tight end, ending the day with 1,373.
Dunsmore was not the only player to take advantage of the seven freshmen starters on Indiana’s defense. Senior running back Jacob Schmidt broke through for his first 100-yard game of his career, gaining 110 yards on 15 carries. In addition, sophomore quarterback/wide receiver Kain Colter amassed his first 100-yard receiving game of his career with 115 yards on six receptions.
“We saw that they’re kind of switching to a younger defense,” Colter said. “They’re getting prepared for the future right now. It will be good giving them some experience, but we took advantage of it.”
While NU’s offense had its way with Indiana’s young defense, the Cats’ defense had no such luck with the Hoosiers’ offense. Indiana gained 319 yards on the ground thanks to two 100-yard rushers, running back Stephen Houston (151) and quarterback Tre Roberson (127).
Coach Kevin Wilson said Indiana’s offensive line hardly merited such gaudy numbers, but his running backs were frequently able to gut out more yards.
“(Houston) was good,” Wilson said. “He got more (yards) than what was blocked. He definitely took some one- and two-yard plays and got six, seven, eight, nine or even 10 a few times.”
Many of the Hoosiers’ long running gains were the result of missed tackles. NU repeatedly failed to tackle on first contact, and those players that were able to get their arms wrapped around the runner were often unable to make the tackle. Fitzgerald said the team works on tackling for 18 minutes a day in practice, and it’s “embarrassing” to miss as many tackles as it did.
Sophomore linebacker Damien Proby was not immune from the tackling woes, but he finished with a game- and career-high 14 tackles. He said the tackling issues go all the way back to the basics of playing defense.
“We made too many mental mistakes,” Proby said. “We just go back to fundamentals, back to the stuff we do at practice each and every day. Just the mental lapses that we can’t let happen to us at this level.”
The small NU crowd at Memorial Stadium reserved its loudest cheers of the second half for when sophomore punter Brandon Williams emerged from the sidelines to punt for the only time in the game. The punt came with almost 11 and a half minutes left in the game, after Colter overthrew sophomore receiver Mike Jensen on third and five from the NU 18-yard line. Other than the one punt, the only two times NU didn’t score on a drive was when it kneeled to end both halves. Schmidt said the team was not focused on how the crowd reacted to the punt, but on the fact that it didn’t put points on the board.
“I don’t even know if we even noticed it,” Schmidt said. “We were disappointed when we had to punt, our goal was to score every time we touched the ball and we were pretty damn close to doing that. Obviously, (the cheering) means we were playing well, and we were executing well and putting points on the board.”
NU now turns its attention to Nebraska. Though both Colter and Fitzgerald have turned the page and started thinking about the Cornhuskers, Schmidt is going to savor the Cats’ first win in six tries.
“It’s been a while,” Schmidt said. “A little too long since we got a win, so we’re going to enjoy it, but we’re coming right back tomorrow afternoon to get back at it and start working on Nebraska in the film room, getting our bodies right, so we know what the next week brings and what the rest of the season brings too.”
