Northwestern’s defense put up its most impressive display of the season Saturday, holding Nebraska’s star running back, Rex Burkhead, to 69 rushing yards and limiting mobile quarterback Taylor Martinez to just 53 yards on the ground.
Coach Pat Fitzgerald said after the game that the Wildcats did a better job of fitting their gaps against the Cornhuskers than they had in past games, but Martinez said Monday that there was more to NU’s success than fundamental play.
“They were looking at our sidelines to see what plays we were running and they were doing stuff like that, so maybe they caught on to what we were doing,” Martinez said at Nebraska’s press conference Monday. “They were looking at our sidelines for every single play.”
Asked about Martinez’s accusation that NU was stealing signals, Fitzgerald said the Cats noticed that Martinez was inadvertently revealing the Cornhuskers’ plays.
“There were some things that we saw from our film study of them that [Martinez] gave away that we thought we could take advantage of,” Fitzgerald said. “When they were confirmed I think we took advantage of some of those things.”
Stealing signals is not illegal in football, and Nebraska offensive coordinator Tim Beck was quoted in the Omaha World-Herald as saying that it’s not uncommon for a team to try to decode the opposition’s signs. While Beck said that he thought the Cats were “trying” to read the Cornhuskers’ signs, he also said that wasn’t what decided the contest.
“It’s not like they’re changing necessarily to stop a specific play,” Beck said. “They may just be changing a coverage or a blitz from one side to another or something. But nothing to a point where we got ‘got’ during the course of the game.”
The Cats have struggled to find an identity on defense this year, and four players have lost their starting jobs amidst the turmoil. On Saturday, though, the Cats’ defense kept NU in the game, holding Nebraska to three first-half points and forcing a pair of red zone turnovers.
“We didn’t do anything different than we do at any other game of the year,” Fitzgerald said. “If we could steal their signals and get lined up, we’d be undefeated. We’d shut everybody out.”
