NORTHWESTERN PREVIEW: In Deep
NORTHWESTERN PREVIEW: In Deep
Speaking of Chicago I would really like some Pequod's pizza and Dark Matter coffee
How a team responds after a couple big, disappointing losses — like Nebraska has suffered in the past two weeks, 16-23 vs. No. 3 Oklahoma and 23-20 in overtime to No. 20 Michigan State — is always interesting. Does the lack of reward or vindication of your hard work and good play make you fall off the wagon? Or does it anger you so much you decide to drop a whooping on an overmatched team full of smart kids from Chicago?
If Nebraska has any dim light of making a bowl, it starts with beating Northwestern, then Purdue and Minnesota. Those are three winnable games against teams you feel on par with, if not better than. Northwestern, especially, is seemingly in the middle of a BUFF year after losing a ton of experience from a team that shockingly won the Big Ten West; it’s somewhere on the downward part of its player-development/reload roller coaster. Hopefully NU isn’t going down, either.
INFO AND STATISTICS:
COACH: Pat Fitzgerald, 16th season (108-83 at Northwestern)
2021 RECORD: 2-2 (0-1 in Big Ten)
SP+/F+ OVERALL RATING: 82nd/75th (Nebraska: 47th/51st)
VEGAS SPREAD (as of Thursday, Sept. 30): Nebraska -12, 50.5 Over/Under
SP+ NEBRASKA WIN PROBABILITY: 77 percent
SP+ SCORE PREDICTION: 30-17, Nebraska
This will be one of the worst teams Nebraska plays this year, ranked similarly to Illinois and Buffalo by the major statistical services. But on the whole, Fitzgerald has done a great job with what is typically known as one of the toughest jobs in a Power 5 conference. Northwestern having seasons where it competes for a conference title at all, even if it trades them for bottom-out rebuilds such as this, is still a fantastic coaching job.
PERSONNEL:
BEST PLAYERS:
Peter Skoronski, Offensive Tackle, #77: One of the highest-rated recruits in school history out of Park Ridge, Illinois, Skoronski earned a starting job last season and finished second-team All-Big Ten and as the highest-graded true freshman in the conference at any position by Pro Football Focus. Allowing just four total pressures on 148 pass blocking reps this year, the sophomore is a likely future first-round NFL pick.
Evan Hull, Running Back, #26: Hull went off last week against Ohio for 216 yards but has been a solid rusher all season with positive rushing grades from Pro Football Focus against the Bobcats, Illinois State and Michigan State. Far and away the Wildcats’ best skill player.
Samdup Miller, defensive lineman, #91: The senior is in his third season as a starter and, at 270 pounds as an edge defender, is a very good run player and a just OK pass rusher. He’ll be a handful for Nebraska’s struggling tackles, if he plays; Miller was inactive last week, and there’s been no word yet as to whether he’ll be back Saturday.
COOLEST NAME ON THE ROSTER:
Coco Azema, Safety, #0:
Azema, one of Northwestern’s starting safeties, is a good player who also has a cool name — the very best combo. He also rocks #0, which gives him bonus points with the newsletter because that looks SICK.
WHEN NORTHWESTERN’S DEFENSE IS ON THE FIELD:
STATISTICS:
UNIT SP+/F+ RATING:
Northwestern Defense: 33rd/23rd
NU offense: 31st/57th
YARDS PER PLAY (national rank in parentheses):
NORTHWESTERN DEFENSE: 5.65 yards allowed per play (85th)
NU OFFENSE: 6.26 yards per play (44th)
POINTS PER DRIVE (national rank in parentheses):
NORTHWESTERN DEFENSE: 1.76 points allowed per drive (46th)
NU OFFENSE: 1.91 points per drive (78th)
HAVOC PLAYS PER GAME (cumulative tackles for loss, sacks, passes defensed, interceptions, fumbles forced):
NORTHWESTERN DEFENSE: 9.5 Havoc plays per game
NU OFFENSE: 8.0 Havoc plays allowed per game
20+ YARD GAINS PER GAME:
NORTHWESTERN DEFENSE: 3.75 20+ yard gains allowed per game (1.75 rush, 2 pass)
NU OFFENSE: 5.6 20+ yard gains per game (1.2 rush, 4.4 pass)
COORDINATOR:
Jim O’Neil, First Season
O’Neil is replacing the legendary Mike Hankwitz, who basically did nothing but crank out top-notch defenses for the Wildcats for 12 years. O’Neil has an NFL background; he was DC for the Browns from 2014-15 and for the 49ers in 2016. So far this season, he’s schematically just keeping the train on the tracks Hankwitz laid — which is probably a good idea — with a few NFL tweaks.
SCHEME:
Even Front - Zone Heavy (Cover 4/Cover 3) - Conservative Pressure
Also not unlike Nebraska, Northwestern wants to be physical with its four-man front and rock-solid over the top with its coverage. The Wildcats almost never blitz on standard downs or play man coverage — they were in the bottom 10 nationally in both blitz percentage and percentage of Cover 1 played. Instead, they almost exclusively play Cover 3 and Cover 4, zone coverages that are strong against the run and also provide a rock-solid deep shell. They play with two high safeties much more than one-high; even if they’re playing Cover 3, they’ll rotate down rather than give a pre-snap tell. This is a defense based around soundness and consistency of basic plays rather than big gambles or flashy pressures.
HOW NEBRASKA CAN ATTACK IT:
Against a Duke team that runs a very similar offense to Nebraska, the Wildcats played a ton of Cover 4.
Cover 4 has risen dramatically in popularity in the last decade, especially at the NFL level with coaches like Vic Fangio and Brandon Staley, because of its strength against both the run and the deep pass.
But it’s also a coverage that puts safeties in big conflicts for RPOs and other concepts passing concepts Nebraska is pretty good at!
Cover Four, at its most basic, drops all four of your corners and safeties into deep quarters down the field, with your outside linebackers getting to the flat and inside linebackers dropping into middle hooks. Depending on how the routes develop and cross, Cover 4 often turns into man; certain routes trigger corners and safeties to “lock” onto a receiver.
But because every coverage informs your run gaps and playing Cover 4 requires you play with two-high safeties and your linebackers to vacate the middle of the field, it’s not particularly gap-sound against the run. Most teams solve this by having their safeties also hold run responsibilities on the edges. A Cover 4 safety is lining up at 10-12 yards, staying flat-footed at the snap and waiting to see a run to come flying down, or a deep pass to go flying back.
But this is a tough ask — being responsible for a deep fourth of the field as well as a key run defender. This creates conflict, a player with two equal responsibilities on one play. For most of football history, this wasn’t a huge issue. Then RPOs came along and blew up these safeties’ spot. An RPO safety gets two equal reads on an RPO — “Do I come up on the run, or go with the slant running right in front of me my rules tell me to lock onto?”
This was a super long way of saying to expect a lot of RPOs tomorrow, especially from the slot, as Nebraska looks to get those middle Cover 4 defenders in conflict.
Another way to take advantage of Cover 4 will be to mess with the rules of when Cover 4 “locks”. The rules of Cover 4 dictate that it turn into man when the receivers whom the secondary players are lined up over press any route vertical. One way to take advantage of this is to force a “lock” on the safety and then throw behind him, like in this “Mills” concept Duke ran in its win a couple weeks ago:
Mills
Watch the slot receiver on the bottom half of the formation push the start of his route vertical before cutting inside on a dig. Because it went vertical, that’s now turned into man coverage for the safety; he can’t get back to the middle of the field. The outside receiver then runs a post over the top of the dig, right into the space where the safety has vacated, giving the QB easy access to throw the post. Further, because the corner in Cover 4 is responsible for not getting beat outside, his initial pre-snap alignment is outside of the receiver. When the outside receiver goes vertical, the corner also locks on into man coverage, but he’s so far outside at the start of the play, he can’t possibly recover enough to play over top of the post. I would bet NU tries some Mills or Mills-adjacent concepts at least a few times Saturday.
In the run game, it’s a four-man front that’s giving a gap, so expect NU’s usual array of gap-scheme runs and read. If you’ll remember last year, NU ran a ton of Quarterback Draw on Northwestern out of spread formations, something I’d expect to see again with these light Cover 4 boxes. I also expect to see a lot of that QB Wrap/Swing Pass RPO Nebraska likes to run, to take advantage of the missing gap on the edges.
WHEN NORTHWESTERN’S OFFENSE IS ON THE FIELD:
STATISTICS:
UNIT SP+/F+ RATINGS:
Northwestern Offense: 108th/104th
NU defense: 31st/25th
YARDS PER PLAY (national rank in parentheses):
NORTHWESTERN OFFENSE: 5.45 yards per play (85th)
NU DEFENSE: 4.97 yards allowed per play (48th)
POINTS PER DRIVE (national rank in parentheses):
NORTHWESTERN OFFENSE: 1.95 points per drive (76th)
NU DEFENSE: 1.36 points allowed per drive (19th)
20+ YARD GAINS PER GAME:
NORTHWESTERN OFFENSE: 4.5 20+ yard gains per game (2 rush, 2.5 pass)
NU DEFENSE: 3.6 20+ yard gains allowed per game (1.4 rush, 2.2 pass)
HAVOC PLAYS PER GAME (tackles for loss, sacks, passes defensed, interceptions, fumbles forced):
NORTHWESTERN OFFENSE: N/A Havoc plays allowed per game
NU DEFENSE: 11.6 Havoc plays per game
COORDINATOR:
Mike Bajakian, Second Season
Bajakian came to Evanston from Boston College, where he combined a versatile, run-heavy attack with fast tempo to excellent result for coach Steve Addazio. After Addazio’s firing in 2019, Fitzgerald mercenaried him in to try and fix a dreadful offense that was near the bottom of the country in most metrics. It sort of worked; the Wildcats improved to just below average, which was still somehow good enough for them to win the division last year. Before BC, Bajakian was also quarterbacks coach or offensive coordinator for some certified college football “Let’s Remember Some Guys”: Dan LeFevour at Central Michigan from 2007-09 and Munchie LeGaux (and a young Travis Kelce) at Cincinnati from 2010-12.
SCHEME
Spread/Multiple - Zone Run - Play-Action
Northwestern’s approach on offense is not dissimilar from Nebraska’s: Be extremely diverse in the run game, spread people out, don’t be afraid to take short passes and RPOs to stay on schedule, use motion and shifts and tempo as weapons. The Wildcats mostly operate out of the gun, but maybe have slightly more pro-style/under-center predilections than Nebraska. But it’s still a very similar offense.
In the run game, their primary plays are split zone and various versions of counter. They also like to utilize tight ends and H-backs as moveable pieces and try to shift defenses out of gaps for outside runs. They might be the only team I’ve seen that uses motion more than Nebraska. No, seriously — check out this shift they ran against MSU:
They don’t run a ton of play action passes, preferring instead RPOs and traditional quick game and 3-step concepts if they have to pass. One other thing of note is that they run five-man protection at a high rate, like NU. I talked about five-man protection a little bit in the Michigan State breakdown, but it should mean NU defenders get some one-on-ones against Northwestern linemen.
HOW NEBRASKA CAN DEFEND IT:
With all the motion and the shifts and counters Northwestern likes to run, gap soundness will be huge for the Blackshirts this week. But this is an experienced group and quick-thinking, and plugging run holes is what they’ve been best at this year. Instead of so much 2-5 Nickel, I expect to see more Base defense (three defensive linemen, four linebackers) out of Nebraska this week as it tries to match the Northwestern heavy-tight end personnel.
But stopping the run will be the main thing, as Hull is a good back and Northwestern’s passing game is … not great. Quarterback Hunter Johnson got beat out on three separate occasions by other quarterbacks at both Clemson and Northwestern — most of whom didn’t end up being good! — before finally getting a begrudging nod this year. His play has been pretty bad in the couple games I’ve watched, and he has no help on the outside. I don’t expect anything too funky coverage-wise out of the Blackshirts.
SCORE PREDICTION:
Nebraska 34, Northwestern 17
I think Nebraska is probably a couple or few touchdowns better than Northwestern, but these games are always close, and Pat Fitzgerald knows how to muck it up with the best of them. Give me a sluggish, tight game early coming off the big letdowns of the last two weeks before NU pulls away in the second.