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Game Thread tOSU at NW'ern, Oct 5, 8 ET, ABC/ESPN/ESPN2

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NFBuck said:
Well, they've lost their best offensive player. Also, sometimes teams blow their wad, so to speak, in big/emotional games and never really recover. I think that's what happened here. They went all in againt tOSU and came up bust. Sometimes, it's hard to recover from that. Especially when you lose a player like Venric Mark.
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This. The Ohio State game was the 'Super Bowl' for them.
 
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Taosman said:
Was Northwestern always a "Paper Wildcat" this season?
Were they just being hyped by ESPiN?
Did we just "steal their mojo"?
Or were they crippled by injuries?
Or some combination?
I wonder because after we beat them, they were never the same team. It seems like strange circumstances in retrospect.
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FWIW, they easily beat Cal (0-8) and Syracuse (3-3)... neither of those is very good, though the latter says a lot about B10 vs. ACC conference imo. Syracuse is effectively Purdue or Illinois here; but can win 3 games in the crap ACC.
I think it's a combination of the double-whammy delivered by an emotional let-down against us, and then Wisconsin running roughshod the next week.
Follow it up with injuries sustained against Wisconsin to 2 of their best players (Colter and Mark), and I think they just crumbled.
Looking at the weeks following Wisconsin and they've
- mounted a 4th quarter comeback against Minny; but just couldn't get them off the field in the final minutes and lost by 3
- Lose to Iowa in overtime
- Lose to Nebraska on a hail mary
- Lose to uM in overtime

Consider their first 5 games against Cal, 'Cuse, Western MI, Maine, and us ... they averaged 39 points on offense. Since then they've averaged a pitiful 13.2 points in regulation (not counting OT points). Their offense looked hopeless against scUM. I thought they might pull it off with an extra week to prepare and come back from injury, and the blueprint to beat scUM being laid bare for 2 weeks straight... but... nope... their offense managed to be even worse than scUM's. And for some unimaginably stupid ass reason, they gave up on the defensive blueprint in the final minutes of the game and in OT. Rushing just 3, playing prevent defense & allowing the Gardeners to get into field goal range on the final offensive play of the game.

That said, their injury log looks to rival that of Florida and Georiga, including multiple RBs and key defensive players. Venric Mark is applying for a Medical Redshirt; meaning we are the only team who will have faced him for a full game this season.

Twenty-one different players nursing injuries for Northwestern, RB Stephen Buckley out indefinitely
http://voices.suntimes.com/sports/i...hwestern-rb-stephen-buckley-out-indefinitely/
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Northwestern like many teams at their level can have a very competitive starting lineup. Where they usually fall short is depth of talent. They only have to lose two or three players and they have a tough way to go after that. That is exactly what happened to them. The defeat handed to them in the Buckeye game in and of itself wouldn't have done them in, but the fact that they played Wisky the following week and lost key personnel really put them in a desperate place and now their season is pretty much done. They may not win another game.
 
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