Trevor Siemian’s pass fell to the turf near a wide receiver.
It was a sight all too familiar for Northwestern fans in Saturday’s game against Nebraska. The sophomore quarterback took quite a few shots deep against one-on-one coverage along the sidelines, and nearly every single throw resulted in an incomplete pass. The Wildcats only hit 2 passes for more than 20 yards, a 26-yard touchdown to sophomore Tony Jones and a 24-yard completion to junior Rashad Lawrence at the end of the game.
It is a problem coach Pat Fitzgerald addressed after the game when he said NU probably would have won the game if it had hit just one more deep pass.
It was a common theme that continued into this week’s preparations for Iowa. Siemian said throwing the deep route is something that gets better with repetition.
“Reps are going to be a big difference,” he said. “A lot of them were 50-50 balls, but I need to do a better job at giving our guys a chance. If guys are going to challenge us, we’re going to take some shots like that.”
Siemian did throw a couple of 50-50 balls against the Cornhuskers, and the receivers did a great job working back to break up some potential interceptions. There were a couple of passes where the receivers could have done more, but for the most part the quarterbacks underthrew their targets on the play. After his own film study, Fitzgerald said the blame couldn’t be placed on any one player.
“There were some plays, the throw was there and we’ve got to make the play or we have to stick our foot in the ground and go up to make the play,” Fitzgerald said. “There were a couple that we underthrew where the receivers did a terrific job of knocking down what could have been an interception.”
On the touchdown pass, Siemian got strong protection, and from the start it looked like a good pass as he stepped forward in the pocket to deliver the pass. As Jones approached the end zone, he had enough separation that he was able to slow down and look over his shoulder to see the pass coming to him. Jones got his hands up and caught the ball right at helmet level before taking that last step into the end zone.
Siemian’s best pass of the game came on the 24-yard pass to Lawrence along the sidelines. Lawrence found some space in the Nebraska zone defense and settled about 3 yards away from the boundary. Siemian found the wide-open receiver and gently floated the pass over the Cornhuskers’ linebackers and into the waiting arms of Lawrence, who secured the catch before rolling out of bounds inside Nebraska territory.
“There’s some room for improvement,” Jones said. “That’s on the both of us. When Trevor throws my way, he’s counting on me to make that play. Regardless where he puts that ball, it’s my job to come up with the completion.”
For every other pass Siemian attempted down the field, something went wrong. Either the throw was too short or too long or the receiver dropped the ball. Jones said the receivers need to work on making the plays necessary to help the team.
“Having that deep ball threat will spread the defense out and keep them honest,” Jones said. “We can definitely use a play here or there. Myself and the rest of the receivers, we have to do a much better job tracking the ball and making plays on it.”
