Melvin Gordon ripped off a 58-yard run on his first carry at Northwestern and a 51-yarder on his first rush of the 2nd half. He now has seven runs of 40+ yards this season and 17 in his career. Gordon is now averaging 40.8 yards per carry on his first attempt of the second half.
This Saturday, Gordon and Wisconsin welcome Illinois and their 119th (out of 125) ranked run defense. Yes, believe it or not, there are six teams in the country who are worse at stopping the run than Tim Banks’ unit (Cincinnati, Texas Tech, Idaho, New Mexico, UNLV, New Mexico State).
Purdue ran for 349 yards on the Illini last week. Last season, the Boilermakers rank for 805 THE ENTIRE SEASON.
Couple this with the fact that Wisconsin has absolutely nothing going for it on offense other than Melvin Gordon, and…..I think you see where this is going.
Gordon went over the 100-yard mark in the first half at NU and finished the game with a career-high 259 yards on 27 carries. It was his third straight game with at least 185 rushing yards. The 259 is the eighth-best all-time rushing performance in Wisconsin history.
Before the game, Northwestern Coach Pat Fitzgerald compared Melvin Gordon to Walter Payton. That’s extremely high praise, but Fitz did not back off that analogy when pressed about it after the game.
“{as good} as advertised,” Fitzgerald said after the game.
“I guess I didn’t miss it.” He then went on to describe what makes Gordon do special.
“Number one, he’s got patience. He does a great job setting things up. He’s tough and physical. He ran through some tackles today.”
Purdue’s Akeem Hunt entered the game the Illini game with 287 yards rushing on the season. He had 150 in the first half alone. Nebraska’s Ameer Abdullah had 106 yards rushing on Illinois within the first five minutes.
Here’s what the Illini have given up each week on the ground, courtesy of Hammer and Rails:
Youngstown State – 203 yards
Western Kentucky – 103 yards
Washington – 245 yards
Texas State – 139 yards (gave up 336 passing)
Nebraska – 458 yards
Purdue – 349 yards
The fact that Illinois Defensive coordinator Tim Banks still has a job today is mind boggling. Then again, the fact that he was even brought back this year, after leading a unit that surrendered (emphasis on the word surrender) the most yards in school history last year is inexplicable of itself.
So here’s the formula: 1.) Melvin Gordon is really great at rushing a football 2.) Illinois cannot stop the run if their lives depended on it. Whether it’s a clueless scheme, or being clueless in that scheme, or the scheme is fine they just don’t have size…..everyone can just run straight through and straight ahead on Illinois every week.
Now 3.) is why we could see Melvin Gordon top 300, or 350.
The Badgers have a pathetic passing game.
All the blame falls on quarterbacks Joel Stave and Tanner McEvoy, but that’s not entirely fair. All those talented wide receivers Wisconsin used to have are gone. The Badgers pass-catchers are bad. Real bad. And that’s why Sconnie has to commit to the run the whole time. They don’t have any other option.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s a lost season for Wisconsin, they came to Evanston with the 7th best scoring defense in the nation, and they have Melvin Gordon. So what’s ahead for them?
“with the playoffs it’s rough right now with the two losses and with our schedule,” said Gordon at Ryan Field.
“But the Big Ten Championship is still there. We’ve got to hope some things fall in line for us now, and it’s going to be tough in the long run but I feel like we can still be a good team.”
Ron Dayne has the school record, 339, versus Hawaii in 1996.
You’re up Melvin Gordon.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and very often writes The Sports Bank.net ,which is partners with Fox Sports. Read his features stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him on 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks). His work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Washington Post and ESPN 2