As Homer J. Simpson said to Elvis Costello at rock camp, “outta my way nerdlinger!”
Yes, this is Nerd Bowl I for Northwestern in the 2015 pre-conference season. They’ll visit Duke in week three, and they’ll need at least a split of these two games in order to give themselves a good chance of making a decent bowl. If the Wildcats go 0-2 in their battles against similarly elite, privileged institutions, then they’ll need at least a .500 record in Big Ten play to make the postseason.
And yes, we use the term “nerd” in an affectionate way. Geek has been geek chic for several years now. “It’s hip to be square” is a mantra born in the 1980s, but it finally arrived in the 2010s.
Regarding the Cardinal, well, this isn’t your slightly old brother’s Stanford football team. David Shaw’s squad went from the Rose Bowl to the Foster Farms Bowl from 2013 to 2014, but the arrow is pointing back upward in 2015. Especially if they can find legitimate improvement on offense.
Spread: Stanford football -12
TV: ESPN (Mike Patrick, Ed Cunningham, Dr. Jerry Punch)
Back on July 13th, in our Northwestern Never Too Early Season Preview, we wrote:
“Conventional wisdom is that the job is Clayton Thorson’s to lose. He’s a dual threat, and that’s extremely critical to running the Northwestern attack. The reason we had to endure the “quarterback 1a and quarterback 1b” soundbites from Fitz during the Kain Colter/Trevor Siemian regime is because there was just one thrower (Siemian) and just one runner (Colter) in the years since Dan Persa left. (And Persa himself lost a lot of his mobility after the achilles injury, and he wasn’t same guy at all during his final season)
It’s best for all involved with Northwestern football that they find one guy, the same guy, to do both. The QB derby is still officially completely wide open, but this offense doesn’t work well when you have a single threat QB. It can really thrive though when you have a dual threat taking the snaps from center.”
— MOST FBS WINS SINCE 2010 —
Oregon 60
Alabama 58
Florida State 58
NIU 57
Ohio State 56
Boise State 55
Stanford 54
Michigan State 54
LSU 52
Oklahoma 51
Score Prediction: 28-20. Stanford should win this game in a fashion that will be more convincing than the score indicates. Stanford football prognosticators expect the O-Line to be a position of strength this fall, and although NU has a pretty good D-Line, expect the Cardinal to have their way here, paving the way for a fast-moving, grind it out kind of day. Northwestern is a run-first team too; so ESPN’s morning game will be one that moves quickly. I do like Northwestern’s rushing attack, but Stanford’s linebackers are a team strength as well.
Season Prediction: I’m guessing Northwestern ends up 6-6 this season, Stanford football 8-4 or 9-3. (go here to see my 2015 national college football season predictions)
Northwestern Football Preview Series QB1 candidates
Clayton Thorson
Matt Alviti
Zack Oliver
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 the Zone.
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