Let’s take a pre-emptive strike right now against anybody who commences the “Kain Colter/Unionization movement became a distraction and ruined the team” narrative.
You and I and everyone else who follows the team everyday know that storyline (which is coming from somewhere at some point this season) is a bunch of malarkey. And not Tennessee Titans Tight Ends Coach Mike Mularkey. Northwestern Wildcats Football is suffering right now- and it’s due to a lack of depth and talent. It’s the competency of the labor itself (players, coaches, assistants, Pat Fitzgrald) not a labor rights movement.
This may sound like a straw man argument, but trust me, some national writer desperate for a “hot take” (and possessing just an entry level knowledge of the program), or some Big Ten blogger doing a cliche power rankings, lazily typing in the first thing he associates with Northwestern, or an inexperienced student daily scribe, or someone in this vein, will make this flawed assertion.
The team’s best player in Kain Colter has graduated. Then they lost their best player (Venric Mark), their best wide receiver (Christian Jones), arguably your specialized situational best pass rusher (Sean McEvilly), and then two more of your receivers (Mike McHugh, Tony Jones) to boot, this is what you get.
An 0-2 start could very realistically turn into a 3-9 or 2-10 season before you know it. Last year’s “Northwesterning” a 4-0 start and likely New Year’s Day bowl berth into a 5-7 season was the first step downhill. Just remember though, the turning point for the Northwestern Wildcats football program wasn’t CAPA; OSU, on October 5th, 2013, is the acronym.
Since ESPN College Gameday came to town, NU is 1-9. The lone win was over Illinois and Tim Beckman, who is a laughable 5-18 versus FBS teams as head man in Champaign.
Gameday coming to Evanston wasn’t a season turning point; it was a program turning point. Pat Fitzgerald guided the Cats to bowl eligibility every season from 2007-2012.
For those with purple hearts, it’s an inconvenient truth to realize that the program marketing itself as “Chicago’s Big Ten team” is now “Chicago’s declining team.”
It was a close contest for about three quarters today, but overall, Northern Illinois won soundly in the end. They pulled away in the fourth quarter, making a contest that was once up for grabs, a decisive victory. NU’s back-up QB Zack Oliver threw a late TD pass in garbage time to give the final score some “window dressing” as they say on Wall Street.
The NIU faithful made Ryan Field red, as red as it gets for an Ohio State, Wisconsin, Nebraska et al. contest. That gave Northwestern it’s highest attended pre conference game in a very long time.
When the Huskies contingent took the field to celebrate their win they basically conveyed the message of “NIU Huskies football: Chicago’s MAC Team.”
“We have a lot of work to do, Being in the hole we’re in right now, obviously if that’s not dire with these guys then we got a problem,” said Northwestern Wildcats football Coach Pat Fitzgerald.
“We beat ourselves. Every time it seemed like we made a play we did something penalty wise offensively, which kills any sort of momentum,” added Fitzgerald.
“I see a lot of drops and and overthrown balls…self-inflicted wounds with penalties that’s inexcusable.”
He’s right. Fitzgerald did talk in coach speak today; like all coaches do. No better or no worse than anyone else though. However, this tie he didn’t pass the buck on anyone today. He didn’t make excuses.
The margin for error with this Northwestern Wildcats football team is extremely thin. And it’s only getting thinner. Their depth is depleted, and they don’t have the talent to run the spread option (or speed option) with the same prowess that they once did. They can’t play ball control with the short passing game and chew up clock and dictate tempo on more talented opponents anymore. It’s obvious now.
Trevor Siemian is not Kain Colter. Justin Jackson is not Venric Mark. The receiving corps are a shell of what they were in 2012.
“We haven’t changed anything [since 2012 when the spread was more effective]. We took some shots downfield but we missed,” Coach Fitz added.
Just hope that no more players get hurt; then the bottom could really drop out.
Paul M. Banks owns and manages The Sports Bank.net, in partnership with Fox Sports and Yahoo. Read his feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)