And now, let's get into the traditional full game recap...
THE GREAT
Coaching Preparation
Kudos to the staff for having the Cats ready to play from the opening gun. One of the achilles heel of the 2008 squad was their inconsistent play in the first quarter. They came out and domintated the first half of play as they were ready, willing and wanting to prove they belonged at the elite level. A great job by the staff.
CJ Bacher
Amazing what a few games can do to a legacy. Coming off the Indiana loss, the injured Bacher was watching Mike Kafka from the sidelines with four games to go. Kafka led the Cats to a split and then, with NU at 7-3 and two games to go, CJ willed NU over Michigan in an amazing 3rd quarter in wretched weather and blitzed the Illini to end the season 9-3. His performance in the Alamo Bowl may have been his best game as a Wildcat. The stats - 27 of 43 for 304 yds, 3TDs, 1INT- almost speak for themselves. However, Bacher's precision was his best, by far, as several guys dropped passes sandwiched around rare downfield strikes. Bacher had a calm, cool and collected presence throughout the game and his TD to Ross Lane will be one we talk about for years.
Tyrell Sutton
What can you do but tip your cap to the senior RB? For nearly a month speculation ran rampant over whether or not Tyrell would even get in the game. Sutton's 114-yard rushing performance was critical to the Cats success in the game as he showed few signs of rust after a two month layoff. Ed Cunningham repeatedly lauded Sutton as the most dyanmic player on the field that night on either side of the ball. The 29 carries for 114 yards is not necessarily "great" status, but given the context of playing injured and the intangible energy he brought to the game it was indeed a great performance.
Team Defense
Yes, Chase Daniel played poorly, but give credit to Mike Hankwitz for putting a plan in place that had the Cats right where they were supposed to be. Guys stayed extremely disciplined to their assignments and despite Mizzou's attempts to do everything to get the ball in Maclin's hands, Northwestern did as good a job as anyone did to contain this surefire NFL 1st rounder. When you give up 23 points in regulation to a team that averages more than 40 points you're having a great day. The buzz has already begun for a defensive juggernaut in 2009. Now special teams....well, see below.
Salute to the Troops
If you watched the game then you saw Fitz' pregame comments about dedicating the game to the NU fan and soldier which was pretty cool. However, one of the most spine-tingling moments occurred in the second half when the PA announcer honored the local San Antonio members of armed forces who attended the game. A spontaneous standing ovation followed by chants of "U-S-A" ensued, which was pretty incredible to witness.
San Antonio
If you've never been, shame on you. San Antonio is THE perfect host city for a sporting event. I've been there now for the Final Four and the Alamo Bowl and it rocks. Everything is centralized, the atmosphere is awesome, the weather couldn't be better. Kudos to SA for putting on an amazing show.
THE GOOD
Corey Wootton
Unfortunately many fans will remember Wootton's horrific knee injury in this game as the lasting image. However, Wootton created hurries all day long, registered a sack and outsmarted Daniel for an INT in a classic cat-and-mouse play. Wootton was really bringing the heat in the 4th quarter as Hankwitz unleashed him blitzing on nearly every play. His stock was rising by the second late in the game until disaster struck. It was great to see Fitz comment recently that Corey will be back in time for Kenosha.
Purple Passion
It was not the biggest throng of purple at a bowl game. I'd put it at third or fourth behind 1)Rose 2)Citrus and possibly 3)Sun Bowl. However, it was, aside from the Rose Bowl, the most passionate I've seen purple fans since the mid 90s. The crowd equaled or bettered Mizzou's in terms of numbers and was on their feet the entire game. It was awesome to see and made me wonder how a crowd this into it can be so lackluster at home.
THE DISAPPOINTING
Amado Villarreal
I hate to single out individuals in the negative column, but there is no dispute that Amado's missed extra point was a gamechanger. Amado also missed a 47-yarder, which is not something you can expect to be Amado-matic, but is unfortunate to go out on a note like this after such a solid season.
Special Teams
The execution on special teams was costly. As described above, the placekicking hurt us, but the biggest mishap occurred late in the first half when we kicked a line driver to Jeremy Maclin who promptly does what Maclin does and blitzed us for a game-tying TD. As I mentioned last week, I think we need to pay a visit to Urban Meyer and get some special teams cliff notes in return for having Walk teach him the finer points of the spread.
Mick McCall
I think our lack of scoring productivity all year marks my biggest disappointment. It was great to see McCall stretch the defense with some downfield attempts that were extremely successful against the worst pass defense in the nation. I'm not completely sold on Coach McCall yet and the second down QB draw in OT is just the type of play that raises an eyebrow for me. In McCall's defense, our inexperienced OL was a MAJOR workaround heading into this season, but with an off-season emphasis on run blocking, the OL could become one of our bigger offensive assets next season.
In 2009, the third and long draw play with Kafka, in my opinion, needs to be erased from the playbook as we seemingly ran it every time with only one successful conversion (Simmons at Michigan).
1 comments:
Is Fitz the special teams coach? I would hope that one lesson he learned is that this role ought to be delegated to someone else. I think he ought to focus on being head coach and let someone else work on special teams full time.
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