Illinois Will Run, But Who Will Run It?
By Philip Rossman-Reich on
We are still waiting to see what kind of run defense Northwestern might actually have. After Jekyll and Hyde performances between the Boston College and Army games, NU takes on a diverse and talented group of running backs.
When Northwestern fans think of Illinois, we think of running. It is inevitable. It haunts our dreams and probably still gives Mike Hankwitz some nightmares. The Wildcats have let the loss stew with them for over a year and fester into the grudge match that will happen this weekend in Champaign. It matters to both teams as we have proven over and over earlier this week.
It is no secret that Illinois is going to employ much the same strategy it used last year at Wrigley:
Run. Run some more. And keep on running.
That is, unless Northwestern can stop it. Nothing from last year would suggest to Ron Zook that the Cats can. Illinois ran for 519 total yards and needed only 40 passing yards on 14 attempts to defeat Northwestern by 21. Not that I need to tell anybody reading the blog that.
The lasting image of Northwestern’s defense was watching Army parade through it on a nine-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that ate up 3:07 off the clock, but seemed to take away more than that. That was a pride-deflating drive.
It was a deflating day for Northwestern that has left fans and just about everyone wondering who is this Wildcats team?
Is it the squad that held Boston College to 104 total rushing yards — 69 of them on the first play of the game — and recorded two sacks? Or is it the squad that gave up 381 yards on the ground to the run-happy triple option offense from Army?
That question will most certainly be answered when NU takes on Illinois this weekend. But who will Northwestern have to stop?
Well, the Wildcats will have to stop whoever gets the ball. But Illinois itself has a cache of riches when it comes to running backs it seems so far this year. The duo of Nathan Scheelhaase and Jason Ford is enough to give Northwestern fits. But throw in the growing tandem of senior Troy Pollard, who is the team’s leading rusher with 260 yards on 25 attempts, and freshman Donovonn Young, and Illinois has a big-time group of running backs. And Herb Gould of the Chicago Sun-Times suggests a fourth runner in freshman back Josh Ferguson could be lurking in this game for NU to deal with.
The Illini have 967 rushing yards through four games for an average of 241.75 yards per game on the ground. They get 4.9 yards per carry.
Ford has not become the, as Pat Fitzgerald would call it, “bell-cow” running back that the Illini perhaps expected after his big performance against Northwestern. He alone has hardly made anybody forget about Mikel Leshoure. There is nobody on the roster averaging more than 65 yards per game on the ground. But Illinois does have four players averaging 50 rushing yards per game, including its quarterback.
The Illini will not run a triple option like the Black Knights did, but their ability to run at you with different players is very similar to what the Wildcats faced two weeks in West Point. The pass is just a little more in play and it will not be triple option and strange blocking schemes all game long.
The Wildcats will see all four backs in the game at some point. Offensive coordinator Paul Petrino confirmed that the Illini will stick to the running back by committe approach. Ron Zook believes Ford is going to be the guy to get the gritty yards in the Big Ten. And Northwestern certainly realizes he can get those yards after he scored three touchdowns at Wrigley Field last year. But the Illini despite initial success on the ground are not in any rush to find one guy. Right now they might have two or three.
That means the Cats’ front seven has to be ready for the gritty yards up the middle and the home run. There are no major injuries to save NU from these change of pace backs like Montel Harris’ injury in the Boston College game may or may not have. The Wildcats are facing the full brunt of one of the Big Ten’s top rushing attacks.
@ Phillip, you must be lonely with all the hate being spewed on the previous story…..great assessment. A couple of weeks ago you and I had a brief chat about Sagarin ratings, and the difference between Illinois and NU, on the “predictor” stat, is still 14. So, let’s say that the ratings are true (and we can leave the debatable aspect of that aside for now), and the difference, so far, is in fact 14.
The spread is now 8, and home field is usually a +3 point factor, so the money is really saying, on a neutral field, the difference between the two teams is 5.
If all that is the case, do get a sense that the money is saying Persa might have this much (9 points) impact? Or, that the Illini running game, this year, just isn’t as good as last year…..or maybe a bit of both, which seems reasonable.
I think the spread should really be 10 or so, as Persa performance is a 50/50 proposition, and Illini running game, while not as good as last year (so far), is probably 75% of last year (at least).
Just trying to show you some NU love and get the chat off the bizarre drift at the previous story.
Haha, no worries. The post was meant to generate discussion and lay out what each side was saying. It may not historically be a rivalry, but because of geography and the recent stretch of games, I think it has become one. In Northwestern’s never-ending quest for Big Ten acceptance, we want someone to be our rival. So we manufacture it sometimes (see us and Iowa).
As far as the spread goes… I do not really know what to think. Part of it might just be bettors do not trust either team and do see Dan Persa as making that much of an impact. Another part of it might be people throwing darts at the wall. Who knows? Northwestern has a propensity to play close games and Illinois does not seem to blow teams out. The Illini are ranked, but I do not know if anyone is extremely confident in them. I would not read too much into the line right now.
Not only do we know little about our rush defense, we don’t really know what kind of run game we’ll see from Illinois. Already this season, Illinois has had Scheelhaase lead the team in rushing, a committee of running back pile up big yardage, and a game against ASU when they couldn’t do anything on the ground.
Let’s hope this discussion marks the return to good comments and leaves the last one behind for good. I thought I was reading a different blog.
gocatsgo
I do wonder what the record is for the number of comments on a single post on LTP. The previous thread has got to be challenging it.
The Sagarin system predicts that Illinois will beat NU by 18 (15+3) however, for the BC game, which was a similar situation because of the unknowns, Sagarin predicted that BC would beat NU by 10. BC’s run offense and defense were overrated and it was not known whether Persa (who was expected to play) would be effective. NU won so Sagarin was way off as were the bettors who had BC a 3 pt favorite.
Now things have changed but the situation is the same; the outcome is pretty much up in the air. What we know about Ill is that they are 4-0 and that Scheelhaas is shifty and has improved as a passer and that Ill has a good running attack and a pretty good D and that they have wins over two teams that were ranked when they played them. Meanwhile NU has beaten two bad opponents and lost to a third largely because we couldn’t stop an unconventional running offense and we had not even the slightest semblance of a passing game using our backup QB. However, that same QB is about to return but this time as a runner and quite the runner he is and we are going to get back our super-star QB who had us at 7-3 last year before he went down. And we have those great receivers who may finally be put to good use.
So where does it come out? The oddsmakers habitually downplay NU but Illinois may be underappreciated as well. The line is now 8 (it’s moving up) but it should be more IMO unless they are really crediting Persa as being worth about 10 more points. And maybe they understand that Colter will be in there as a running threat as well. It seems so.
I would take NU to cover and if everything goes right (and maybe if Ill lets down) to win. A lot of ifs. We need Persa in top form and we win in a come from behind close high scoring game.
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