Huskers open 6 1/2 favored over NW

[spinner4]

This game will tell us just as much about our huskers as the Oregon game did last week. It's the obvious sleeper game. Many of the reason people have already posted.

After we won last week, I was worried about this game. When the line came out, I am now dam near terrified. When Vegas puts lines out like this, that makes no sense, then its us who are missing something. They want us all to jump on NU, bagging us to take it. Vegas did the same thing week 1 with NW & Western Mich. NW was a 5 point favorite at home. Everyone was betting NW heavily. The line should have been much higher, right? Power 5 team @ home that had a star RB back vs a mid-major. Wrong, there was a reason the line was so low

And everyone wants to talk about how bad NW is but they are not as bad as you think. The loss to Western Mich is not that bad of a loss. They are actually a really good football team & NW had the game to win. The ILL ST loss was terrible, but NW didn't get up for that game & ILL St is a dam good FCS school. But then NW went on to beat Duke. Cutcliffe has a good program at Duke, make no mistake of that. That was a good win last week for NW.

Lastly, no coach is immune to a let down game. If you think HCMR is light years better than Bo, that's great. But he isn't better than TO and TO sure as hell had let down games. 1992 ISU game coming off of back to back blow out wins against top 10 teams and we shit the bed and all things the same, that 92 husker team had more talent then this 2016 team does & this 2016 NW has more talent than that 92 ISU had. You do the math. This game has the makings my friends. Lets just hope our team has the character not to allow a let down. It's not really on the coach, its on the players.

 

[Tuco Salamanca]

You're right the line makes no sense, it should be 11 or 12. If you look at THIS YEAR'S teams and their statistics, injuries and game performance you would agree the right side of the line is Nebraska.

People looking at the long grass, and call this a sleeper game are not looking at this logically. Vegas is looking at this game as a revenge game since NW won last year. Also Northwestern is 21-16 in all games and 8-12 in the Big 10 at home since 2011.

My opinion is that people are waiting to be let down, waiting for another Purdue or Illinois, and not ready to believe than it is anything logically or statistically about Northwestern keeping this game close.

Duke is 1-2 with a home loss to Wake Forest and Northwestern.

So looking at Duke, Northwestern and Wake Forest's schedules the best overall win is Wake Forest at Duke.

Illinois St lost to Eastern Illinois following the Northwestern win.

We spend so much time trying to overvalue the Nebraska opponents and records that we lose sight of what a good team is.

Damn people embrace the fact that this Nebraska team can be a top 15-20 team, that will be favored in 6 or 7 of their remaining 8 games. Quit looking for reasons they will lose games and for goodness sake quit making 1-2 Duke out to be an ACC power.

 

[StrongArm517]

Just listened to several player pressors from Monday. They are saying all the right things. That Northwestern is physical, smart and they need the A game to win. Whether or not they are believing it deep down or not remains to be seen. But my gut is telling me that this team is sensing something special this year and they're not going to let it foolishly or lazily slip away!

 

[nu2u]

When Vegas puts lines out like this, that makes no sense, then its us who are missing something.

Vegas is not impressed with Clayton Thorson. That's the bottom line with Northwestern so far this year.

Previous winning NW teams all had a high quality QB and RB tandem. Jackson is an All-B10 quality RB but Thorson has been awful so far this season - less than 50% pass completions, negative rush yardage, 4TDs total/2 INTs. He can't consistently move the chains.

Fitz thinks he is due for a breakout game so we shall see.

 

[Huskers_Rule]

Northwestern is winless in conference home games at night since 2004!

 

[Tuco Ramirez]

Previous winning NW teams all had a high quality QB and RB tandem. Jackson is an All-B10 quality RB but Thorson has been awful so far this season - less than 50% pass completions, negative rush yardage, 4TDs total/2 INTs. He can't consistently move the chains.

And Jackson is recovering from an injury. 63 rushes for 260 yards (4.1 ypc) on the season. 28 carries for 98 yards in his last game against Duke (3.4 ypc).

I watched a little of their game against Duke last week. It doesn't look like Thorson is looking to run at all. Last year against Nebraska he had 9 carries for 126 yards. He was 75% of their rushing game. Last week against Duke he had 7 carries for negative 24. I don't know if he is injured, if the coaches are telling him to stay put more often, if Duke was doing something with their defense to keep him contained, or if maybe Fitz is looking to surprise Nebraska with his running. It may just be that Duke was pushing around the NW offensive line, resulting in sacks, at least in the 20 minutes I watched. Another big difference is that Northwestern lost their four top receivers from last year, although they do look like they have a couple of decent ones remaining. Duke ran a lot of zone read (look?) against NW, mostly unsuccessfully, but their freshman QB wasn't much of a threat to run and NW didn't give him much attention. Their linebackers were jumping the run well before the hand offs, so play action should be open, if we were willing to throw across the middle.

I think Northwestern looks like garbage this year, but I do respect Hankwitz as a defensive coordinator.

 

[kreggk]

It do think it's an advantage, but it probably just gives them a normal home field advantage, since there's wasn't any good to begin with.

Yes, both teams play on it, but one practices on it all the time. By the second half of games I'd assume the advantage is gone though.

NU (Northwestern) practices here on the Lake, not in the stadium...
As for grass conditions: not terribly long (horrible excuse, btw), but really torn up this year as I think there's some sort of problem with the turf. Ala Soldier Field at mid-season. Hope it holds up for both teams.

 

[Pennsyhusker]

I am not overly nervous for this game. Sure anything can happen and our games with them have been close. But so far this year they are just not a very good team. They have also had injuries to their secondary. After playing against Oregon's offensive speed last week, their offense will look like slow motion in sand.
I am also actually glad this is a road game. Sometimes after a big win teams play better on the road. It tends to focus their attention on the business at hand. And it won't be an overly intimidating environment, with one third of their small stadium filled with Husker fans. Our guys also remember that they beat us last year.
Believe it or not folks, we are the better team. And more often than not, the better team wins.
If we play clean football we win this by 17-20 points.

 

[NorthWillRiseAgain]

NU (Northwestern) practices here on the Lake, not in the stadium...
As for grass conditions: not terribly long (horrible excuse, btw), but really torn up this year as I think there's some sort of problem with the turf. Ala Soldier Field at mid-season. Hope it holds up for both teams.

Excuse? There's no excuses for losing to a crappy team on a crappy field. If Illinois State can beat you there, not worried.

It's not an excuse that you guys take care of a crappy stadium like you rent it. It's a fact.

 

[Blackshirt316]

There is only one thing that has me slightly worried about this game for Tommy.

It's a night game, NW is wearing all black and their lighting system is as atrocious as their grass.

Gonna have to really be on top of the linebacker and safety movements.