Position Analysis - CMU Game

What went wrong?
Turnovers, Penalties, Dropped balls, Bad tackling, Bad Special Teams. No red-zone offense. Fundamentals.

Crowd/Tailgating - 8/10
CMU girls aren't very attractive I would say other than their cheerleaders. The other CMU fans were pretty cool. There were more jello-shots on the ground walking around the parking lot after the game than I had ever seen in my life!

Stadium - 8/10
I really liked Kelly/Shorts Stadium. They had a really good audio system and they actually play good music at the game.

Officiating - 0/10
The CMU refs were corrupt and we got shafted on many a calls. Especially the BS late hit calls.

QBs - N/A
We don't have any QBs. We have some dude throwin INTs and balls over WRs heads. And we have no other options.

RBs - 6/10
Justin Anderson had 28 rushes for 159 yds. BUT HE FUBMLED THE BALL in the redzone. It's weird that #4 David Bryant is his backup now. Chad Spann must be in Joe's doghouse. Anderson doesn't have a huge burst and doesn't have enough to power the ball in to the redzone (blame the o-line).

WRs - Icomplete/10
We only have one good WR. He is #85 Matt Simon. 9 catches for 205 yds and a TD. He has all the tools to be a decent receiver. The other guys? Not so much. Turner is slow and awkward and nobody else can catch a ball or run a route.

O-Line - 0/10
These guys can't help push the d-line enough so we can score a TD in the redzone.

Defense - N/A
Nope, didn't see a defense out there. Doorknob needs to go. It's a good thing I was sitting right by Mark Reiter's parents...

Special Teams - 0/10
So Patrick George fumbles the ball and we put Greg Turner & Matt Simon back there on KO returns. Turner has no speed. Another TD was given up on a KO return by the other team.

Joe Novak Quotes:

“We are not a very good football team right now,” said NIU coach Joe Novak. “We've got to work and coach on a lot of things. We've got to get back on track and get better. We didn't throw the ball well and had some dropped passes. Our mistakes definitely helped out (with CMU pulling away).”

“We didn't tackle well, especially in the first quarter,” Novak said. “We looked like we were playing in mud, offensively and defensively. We looked like we had no quickness at all.”

“That kick-off return was ridiculous,” Novak said. “Then that fumble knocked us out of it.”

"Our young guys have lousy ball security," Novak said. "We just gave it away. We don't get it done when we have opportunities."

“He's a tough kid,” Novak said of Simon. “He rolled his ankle last week and rolled it again today. He's a warrior. If we have 44 guys like him, we'd be all right.”

Players chime in:

"We put 500 yards of offense on the board," Simon said. "To come away with just 10 points is pretty disheartening."

"All day we were in a good rhythm," Nicholson said. "We had a good bead on what they were doing."