| For a while it looked like we'd get double fresh blood in the Championship Game, but Ohio State finally showed their full potential, so we'll have to settle for just one new face. We get Ohio State for the 4th time in six years, but after getting Bucky in 5 of the first 7, we get the Northwestern Wildcats becoming the 7th school to make an appearance, so now half of the conference has made it. Both schools reach with a singular conference loss, but it's that 0-3 non-conference record that stands out for Northwestern. Aside from the fluky year where both Ohio State and Penn State were ineligible, and Wisconsin went as the 3rd place team in the division, we've never even seen a 3 loss team make the Championship Game, and now the Cats roll in with 4 losses. Saying that they got off to a slow start and then got rolling would be a little misleading. Northwestern had an odd schedule this year where they opened with a conference game, and played a non-conference game in November. So they actually won their opener, and picked up a loss in November. They were able to find a little bit of balance over the second half of the season. Their running game was bad to begin with, and then the retirement of Jeremy Larkin made it completely non-existent until Isaiah Bowser came out of nowhere over the final six games. He had 2 carries for 2 yards over the first half of the season, and 159 for 734 over the second half, averaging 122.3 ypg, with a low of 85 yards against Minnesota. Only Jonathan Taylor averaged more in conference play than that. He's not exactly breaking off chunk plays though, he's just a bulldog, eating up carries. His 4.7 ypc was actually 2nd worst among the top 10 running backs in the league in terms of game average. What kind of success he has depends a lot on which Ohio State defensive front shows up. Two weeks ago Maryland ran silly over them, with Anthony McFarland piling up nearly 300 yards himself. But last week that front held Michigan to just 4.0 ypc, and were in the backfield all afternoon long. Clayton Thorson excels at getting the ball out quickly. That negates what has been two straight years of underperformance on the offensive line. Bill Connolly tracks the Wildcats offensive line #115 in line yards, and #126 on passing downs, combined with #111 on opportunity rate. In short, the fact that Northwestern is only allowing 2.0 sacks per game is a huge credit to Thorson getting the ball out. The problem is that he's not looking for the big plays that the Buckeyes' secondary has been vulnerable to. Northwestern is averaging 224 passing yards per game, but requiring nearly 35 passes per game to do so, with a 10:9 TD:INT ratio and a 6.5 ypa average that ranks in the bottom five. For comparison, Minnesota slots in right below Northwestern in passing yardage (at only 1.4 ypg behind), but is doing it on nearly 8 fewer attempts per game. So while Thorson likely won't have the pressure issues that Patterson faced last Saturday, he is going to be extremely reliant on sustaining drives and picking up third downs, rather that hitting the big plays that have killed Ohio State this year. That could spell trouble, because as bad as Ohio State's defense has been at time, getting beat for big plays, when they are able to force teams to manufacture drives, they've been extremely good, leading the conference in defensive 3rd down conversions, allowing opponents to convert only 28.3% of their attempts. Northwestern's best shot is intangibles. They take the fewest penalties in the league, while the Buckeyes are the most penalized team. Ohio State is coming off a massive, season-changing win, that somehow made everyone forget they probably should have lost to Maryland the week before. Northwestern just keeps defying odds, but while Ohio State still has more weaknesses than any recent Buckeye team, Northwestern is not the type of team to exploit those holes. It's teams like Maryland or Purdue or Nebraska. Teams that can strike quick, and don't mind getting into a shootout. That's not Northwestern. |
