Northwestern Preview: They're Just Northwestern

The abortion that was Penn State’s offense lit them up for 42. I look for us to get to a 20-10 halftime lead, and then pulverize them into a 41-17 beating.

what if he’s a BHGP lurker? He might be pissed off enough to have the students smuggle AK’s in their Armani suits and aim at knee caps.

get the starters out before Fitzy decides the game is over and puts bounties on all out players heads to screw us out of the Ohio St game

that, and its just so much fun to watch our offense steamroll opposing defenses while our defense crushes the life out of their futile attempts to stay in the game

I live in the Seattle area. I will go tomorrow to a well attended Hawkeye sports bar. There’s actually a few of them out here. This should not be a surprise, Iowans are like the Irish. Although the population of Iowa is relatively small, our numbers throughout the world are vast, and we have decent writers.

Here’s my problem, my best buddy is a Husky alum, and his girlfriend is a Florida Gator Alum. Florida is having a relatively shitty season. Through my subtle influence, I have converted her into a covert Iowa fan. Now understand, she is a Gator through and through, but she has a thing for the Hawkeyes.

I invited them to the bar for the game, and because of limited space, they may crowd out Hawkeye fans. This would not be a problem, except my buddy wants to wear his Husky colors. I’m sure that all the omniscient and omnipotent Hawkeye fans know what this means, maybe some of them don’t, so I will tell you that Husky colors are purple, purple, and nurpleish purple.

All I’m sayin’ is are you fuckers going to bail my ass outta jail when I kill my buddy and steal his girlfriend?

Stupid jNorthwestern gets up for this game like it’s a rivalry game though, so we’ll see.

I think there were maybe two times in the last 20 years when it wasn’t supposed to be a walk in the park, but we won both of those, so go figure. I’m hoping for a 40-something to single-digit-something blowout (like it should be on paper) but would be happy to get away with a win and no mysteriously timely injuries to our star players.

Stanzi will play the whole game
Robinson will tbag every single defensive player wearing purple
Herky will put their mascot in a blender and all the iowa fans at the game will take shots of him after we make them eat their own shit. Because….
THEY’RE JUST NORTHWESTERN!
I have a lot of bottled-up angst towards this game.

NW gives up 50% more yardage per rush than we do. We should be able to shove the ball down their throats. After last week’s frustration, if our O-Line isn’t motivated to do some damage, we have a leadership and coaching problem. Our O-Line should be at the second level putting linebackers on their backs all day.

NW leads the league in fumbles lost, so let’s help them pad that number.

Our linebackers will be under intense pressure and they will determine if NW scores 7 or 24.

Fitzgerald is still mad at Iowa for Hayden Fry’s run-it-up proclivities, and Iowa was the benchmark for Barnett and Fitzgerald. They are kind of like a prep school version of ISU, in their disproportionate enthusiasm for beating Iowa. I think it is a rivalry game, from their perspective. If we are flat, again, uggh. Another bad date promising very grim rewards, and this would be a shame considering how attractive, vivacious and rich we are. The Iowa coaches have got to get this team up for this game. It won’t take any effort to get them up next week.

Is the OC autistic this week? If we are ripping off 7 yard runs again do we stop and play finesse ball whenever it counts? Then just forget who the running backs are in the second half?

Greenwood was incredibly dialed in last week, and this might be very bad for Persa.

I hope we run a play-action bootleg right the VERY FIRST PLAY. Only sneak Vandervelde down the line and out to the edge where he traps/blindsides their defensive end. Kind of like what Yanda did a few years ago to that ISU dude. That would be a very satisfying first play. I would put that play in this week and use it as our emotional pitch point for the whole game. It won’t be on tape, they won’t know it’s coming. (We’ll never do it.)

From a story on tWWL:

Iowa hasn’t scored in the second half against Northwestern since 2007.

Notre Dame to beat Iowa. I don’t know what that means?

Dammit, I would love to see us come out of the locker room shooting fire out of our asses and chewing on glass, and then pummel the ever-loving crap out of their defense with a power-rushing attack (and a few nicely timed play-actions) to give ourselves a 20-point plus lead by halftime. In my mind, the memory of last year’s jNW game and the memory of last week’s feeble victory should be enough to produce the fiery emotions needed for such a purple ass-beating.
But I’ve guessed wrong on Iowa’s performance for the last several weeks, so I’m probably going to be wrong again. jNW is going to dink and dunk, just like Indiana did, our special teams will continue to find ways to keep the opponent in the game and we’re all going to need defibrillators again.
At least I don’t have to work today, so there will be plenty of time for me to go to the hospital.

If we get out to a 10-14 point lead and then it is gravy – deeper routes needed, more time to develop the rush, our secondary can really rely on getting Persa to rush some throws. If we can’t get the ball in the endzone again it is going to be a heartattack waiting to happen.

I personally think Fitzgerald threw the game last week so he could get into the record books as the opposing coach when JoPa won his 400th. He is also baiting us into thinking the interior of their defense is weak, letting ARob go up the middle to continue their “tradition” of breaking one of our players. The great thing this year is we don’t have a player that is 100% needed, obviously if Stanzi goes down again it is bad but all would not be lost as it was last year.