I was not all that surprised from our game on Saturday. I think the unlimited transfers and money differences is going to expand the difference between p4 and G5 and G5 and FCS. Week 1 (small sample size) agreed
After seeing us play I think we finish 7-5. Which is not a bad season at all with this schedule. Here is why when I compare to last years 10-2 regular season
one game harder schedule. Essentially replacing home with Del State with at Notre Dame
one game worse team when comparing our losses to our gains. gage, amos, woullard and nicholson were all sorely missed. We will miss some of our dbs as well. I think Brett for all games is an upgrade. Didnt see much from Coldiron
one game worse because of law of averages. If you look at the three closest games last year UC- Ball St and Toledo we went 2-1. I think if you look at the stats and replayed those games we would have gone 1-2 in most scenarios
Ugwu, Suttle, McDonald, and Wise are big time contributor transfers. Dowell was a transfer who helped us immensely last season. McKee was a transfer who keyed our win at UC.
Amos and Larvadain were exceptional transfers who came, contributed and then left for P4.
The staff is doing just fine with the transfers it brings in from the portal.
I think we are all underestimating how good Northwestern is. They were 8-5 last year beating Utah in a bowl game. They also improved at the QB position and we limited his production (had a worse QBR than Gabbert). We had a chance to win and on another day we win that. I see us going 10-2 beating UC by 2 scores losing to ND by <15 and running the table in the MAC
I agree that Northwestern is considerably better than some on the board have painted them.
I also think your prediction is closer than the pessimistic estimate of 7-5.
In the MAC, any of the top six or eight teams can lose to one another. I think @Toledo is a potential pitfall. BG is better, too and we get them in what might be a critical situation at the Doyt on Black Friday. I think 9-3 is quite possible and 8-4 should be our floor if we stay healthy.
I think as long as our defense plays like that year round it’s gonna be really hard for any MAC team to do damage against us unless the offense gives them points via turnovers
For my man YN5: 8-4 is what it looks like to me. Saturday went as I expected. I agree with most on this board regarding RB’s. I think Downing and Brunson can replace Amos. Brett will be great. WR’s will get better every week. Defense is always strong with CM in my opinion. I think losing some incredible assistant coaches in the off season has more of an effect than most people realize. Repeating a MAC Championship is always hard. I do think we have a chance though.
Our special teams coach who went to Pitt was special. At the time I remember thinking that one could hurt. I have a few tricks up my sleeve for the next two games.
There were obviously a few plays that really hurt us, plus some suspect decision-making.
One was not calling for a fair catch on a couple kickoffs.
Like Blues and Nescadad and others notes during the game and afterwards, running a tentative Mozee up the gut 4 times for no gains or losses really hurt our momentum on a couple of drives. After Mozee essentially gave himself up twice, I found it inexplicable that they let him try again later in the game (w the same result). If he doesn’t see a big hole, he just slows down until he is wrapped up.
Lastly, another small point is that we tried to get the ball to Coldiron a couple times and the ball slipped off his fingertips…completing those plays would have been very helpful as they were well designed plays.
Again, in themselves these weren’t necessarily big deals, but in a tight, low scoring game they hurt our chances to win.
Some Miami humor from The Athletic handicappers Greenberg and Jackson:
“But one thing we can always count on: Brett Gabbert will be quarterbacking the Miami RedHawks. This guy has been there so long, he coined the phrase “cradle of coaches.” He hosted Big Ben on his recruiting visit. Gabbert is good, though not good enough that Alabama wanted to steal him up, like Chuck Martin’s old kicker.
That’s why I’m taking Miami (Ohio) +3 at Northwestern. Fun fact: Miami is 7-3 all-time against the Wildcats. (I covered a 44-14 beatdown back in 2003 when Roethlisberger lit them up.)
Northwestern had a shockingly good season after the Pat Fitzgerald turmoil, but it also had a ton of roster turnover. David Braun is the reigning Big Ten Coach of the Year, but you’re not truly a Northwestern coach until you lose at home to Miami (Ohio). After this one, Braun will be channeling his uncle Lloyd and yelling, “Serenity now!”
This was my biggest gripe during the game. Everybody in the house knew that when Brett was making the read option decision ( maybe directed to hand off) he was going to give it to the back. If we had run some other running play instead of all those calls we would have been more successful, maybe enough to win the game.
The defense met my high expectations. The offense wasn’t good, but I saw enough to think we’ll be fine once we make the RB change, Gabbert shakes off the rust, and we start going up against weaker defenses.
The big problem for me was special teams. Obviously losing Nicholson and Bronowski was going to make things tougher, but we were significantly worse across the board.
We got no defensive pressure on the punts and field goals. We didn’t return any of Northwestern’s punts. Our kickoff returns went to the 19, 25, and 15. We had a shanked punt. The missed field goal from 50 was well short and would have struggled to be good from 45.
The difference between being the number 1 special teams unit and something like the number 80 special teams unit is the equivalent of about 10 places in the national rankings.
Some of the game is hard to evaluate because I’m not sure how good NW will be this year.
I personally wasn’t impressed, but time will tell.
As far as we go, I think I grossly underestimated the impact losing the guys in the portal we lost would have. Which I’m feeling fairly dumb about. Not so much Amos (he had 3 carries for 10 yards in a game Ole miss scored 76 points by the way, didn’t have a carry in the first half), but man could we have used another pass rusher and a deep threat receiver.
Many have pointed it out, but I expected more from the o line. We got pushed around too often and had essentially no run gam.
As far as Brett goes, he can still thread the needle. Arm is there, but man it’s painful watching him. Not because of his play but because I’m terrified he’s going to take a bad hit at all times. Which is tough because he’s always had wheels. His legs basically won us the UC game and now he just cant move.
And on the coaching, the two games at that turned me around on Chuck were the UC game and the second Toledo game last year. He coached his nuts off in those games. Against UC he was aggressive, pushed the right buttons and had a great plan. Same for Toledo. To win that game against a more talented team with Aveon at QB was damned impressive. I say all that to say I don’t think he coached a good game against NW. He admitted as much in the post game. Something to the affect of we should’ve opened things up sooner. Our two best drives in the fourth quarter came when we went up tempo and started slinging it around. Not saying that should be who we are moving forward - especially against mac teams - but in that game I wish he’d recognized sooner that our offensive plan wasn’t working.
I cant remember if it was in the post game presser or the weekly presser from yesterday but Chuck sort of said something like he feels like he has to run the offense we are going to run all year in the non conference (even if it doesnt work) vs having a specific game plan for the power 4 mon conference games
That to me says that he is again most focused on winning a MAC title
Some of you may say of course that is the focus
BUT that was not the talk last December when everyone was coming back. I remember the last hawk talk before the bowl game (and before the transfer rule was changed) we were actively discussing making the playoff.
I assume that somewhere between Last December and this August we realized making the playoff was not a realistic goal
Not that anyone asked, but: I say we beat UC in a close one, lose to ND by 3-4 TDs, and blow out UMass. I’m seeing one, maybe 2 MAC loses (at Toledo, and perhaps someone upsets us. BSU?). 8-9 regular season wins still a legit goal.
I wish I were optimistic like you NW played like a team ranked around 51-75, and we played like a team ranked in the 76-100 range. I am guessing we’ll go 8-4 this season, with losses to UC, ND, and Toledo.
Fact is that the MAC gets very little national respect, even 2016 WMU only became the NY6 frontrunner after it was clear that the other conference champs would have 2+ losses. We were always going to have an uphill battle and need some luck for the committee to consider us even if we went 11-1 with a bunch of blowout wins and a respectable loss at ND. Unfortunately from what we saw on Saturday we’ve taken a step back from the end of last season due to transfers out and coach departures, to your point Chuck knows it.
NW played like a team ranked around 51-75, and we played like a team ranked in the 76-100 range. I am guessing we’ll go 8-4 this season, with losses to UC, ND, and Toledo.