TE Anthony Middleton has been suspended from the Western Michigan Broncos until January. Middleton didn't perform any serious crimes or anything like that, but failed to show up on time for team meetings, missing class, problems in the classroom, etc.
The 6'4" Middleton ranked highly coming out of high school in Florida provided the Broncos with one half of the top pass-catching duo of TEs in the country, which has since been broken up. Middleton is best known for making game-changing catches en route to WMU's upset of Iowa last year. I'm sure there are some OLBs out there that are sure happy they don't have to cover this guy next year.
Last night was the return of sports to Northern Illinois Unversity. Despite losing 56-49, it was very fortunate to see the team back on the court. We had an attendance of 2,032, which I think is our 3rd best for the season. The attendance was disappointing, but somewhat reasonable considering there were only 700 or so people at the last game. Let's not forget that our basketball team is 6-18 and plays in the MAC conference.
Read any article and it will tell you that more people should have gone to the game. Maybe it was a problem with marketing and nobody knew about the game. People may have been expecting a Virginia Tech-esque crowd of people. We don't have any legacy in basketball. The last time we made a tourney was in 1996. Ricardo Patton has us on the right tracks, just now is not the time. Now if there was a football game coming up, the crowd for that would have been insane and would have set the attendance record without a doubt.
AD Jim Phillips is gone to Northwestern. The hiring happened weeks ago, but the announcement was obviously delayed because of the February 14th shootings. It would not have been appropriate to announce his resignation because of the situation.
It was only a matter of time the arguably greatest AD NIU has ever seen would leave the school. He has done so much for the university and was a master of fundraising, upgrading NIU's facilities significantly with the opening of the Yordon AAPC last fall.
Phillips had a contagious positive personality that everybody he met and talked to got to feel. He had to make tough decisions in the firing of basketball coach Rob Judson and hiring of Ricardo Patton from Colorado, providing the resources needed to succeed in that sport in the future.
Not only did he hire Patton, he also went through 1,000 resumes in the hiring of new head football coach Jerry Kill. It was the absolutely perfect time to get a new football coach, and Phillips completed the task admirably.
We offered to match Northwestern's offer, but he just had to make the decision to move on. It was the best decision he could have made and here's why: Ron Guenther, the AD for University of Illinois is expected to leave after 2010. That is the dream job for Phillips, because he is an alum from U of I from the class of 1990. That job is the biggest opportunity for Phillips, except he is not guaranteed the job will be available to him. He may not be hired to be the AD for Illinois 2 years from now. So instead of putting all of his eggs in one basket, Phillips has decided to move up to the Big 10 and have Illinois pry him away from NW.
Goodbye Jim, we will never forget you and will always appreciate the things you have done for this university.
Right off the bat this week we get to watch some basketball this Tuesday at the Convo!
G David Kool & F Joe Reitz destroyed us when we went to Kalamazoo, so hope we can keep up with the Broncos this time around with the extra practice and maybe some extra motivation. Hopefully a HUGE crowd can make this one.
The Toledo and bracketbuster Tennessee State games have beenCANCELLED! This is not good because I felt we had a fighting chance against both teams. It is unfortunate we can't play these games to get more experience and tally up a couple wins to get a better seed in the MAC tourney.
Also, the womens basketball game against Ohio will be played a week from Monday on March 3rd.
Why do I cover this team? I must have a sickness or a disease. Again I am a Cubs fan...
Crowd was 23K. So that means its a plus 4,000 to 5,000 fans if we actually have a good football team.
#33 Patrick George is a monster on special teams coverage. 2 huge tackles.
#15 QB Ryan Morris has no arm. He's a poor man's Phil Horvath. Not even that. I still heard "Nicholson Sucks" chants in the crowd when he wasn't even playing lol. There were men open that he couldn't even get the ball. Embarrassing.
There were some really interesting plays called in this game. Let's go over some of those.
Justin Anderson would line up at QB and Ryan Morris would line up at wideout. Very strange.
Pitch to Marcus Perez for a deep ball pass to a wide open Matt Simon for a TD!
Statue of liberty play for a bland 8 yd gain. It's sad we have to resort to these plays as normal plays in our offense and still lose games.
Joe talks about why the trick plays were put in:
“We felt we had to generate some offense without Nicholson and our two receivers,” Novak said. “When you are struggling to move the ball and score points, you have to figure a way to get it done.”
A look of frustration on RB Justin Anderson
Something's really wrong with our O-Line/Playcalling. We never seem to open enough holes for the running backs to run through. Again, I'm very surprised that Joe Novak seems to keep Justin Anderson in there for every play. He just doesn't have that breakaway speed or any other attributes that make him special like a Wolfe or a Turner. I would like to see the other speed backs get a look. Outside runs with Justin Anderson just aren't going to work because his speed isn't good enough.
It was so weird because the offense would open up with a bunch of passes, and then collapse in to 3 runs and a 4th down. I just cannot understand it.
Stat of the day that we were 1 for 13 on 3rd downs. Obviously that isn't going to win you a game.
Justin Anderson fumbled again (Garrett Wolfe never did this) and there were some killer holding calls on offense.
Nendick got ICED at the end of the first half by WMU calling a timeout and missed a FG. WTF.
Our defense is phenomenal. Our offense was god-awful in the 2nd half and they stood their ground being out there for the majority of the time.
I am SO proud of players like DT DJ Pirkle and DE Larry English playing their hearts out on defense. If only the offense could show up.
Melvin Rice didn't start @ CB for some reason. Weird. Word is he is suspended 3 games. For what?
C Eddie Adamski hurt his shoulder. No word on how long he is out.
The "Blackout" worked pretty well. My idiot friends actually heard about it and that is the litmus test for anything advertised.
The issues now are not about hard work or having character. The team has that desire to win so bad. It is about plain execution and X's and O's (on offense). Why we can't seem to overcome this downfall is beyond me.
QB Dan Nicholson is questionable (day-to-day) for the game and he gets a vote of confidence from HC Joe Novak (or a low-blow @ backup QB Ryan Morris):
"No," he said. "I think Dan's our guy. I think we've got a pretty good dropoff between Dan and the next guy (former walkon Ryan Morris of West Chicago). I'm not being critical.
"If Dan can play, Dan's our guy. It's a total team thing. No, no thought (of replacing Nicholson) at all."
“[Nicholson] wasn’t 100 percent going in to the game,” Novak said. “If Morris is better at 100 percent than Dan at 70 percent, I’m gonna go with the guy that gives us a better chance to win.”
WR Greg Turner (R Shoulder Sprain) and backup RB David Bryant will both be back this week. WR Britt Davis is doubtful (R Hamstring Strain) and TE Reed Cunningham is questionable. It appeared on the game notes that RB Cas Prime is out for the season with a knee injury.
“I'm 99 percent sure Britt's not going to play this week,” Novak said. “It will be a miracle. He got it in the Central (Michigan) game running a deep cut and pulled it. Hopefully, one more week, but I doubt this week. I would be amazed.”
Subsequent changes to the depth chart:
WR Greg Turner starts this week with Marcus Lewis backing him up.
LE Brandon Bice is back from injury, with RS FR Jason Cruikshank backing him up.
DJ Pirkle has taken over the backup NG spot from Ed Jackson.
FR John Hopkins will be backing up Larry English
The LB situation is weird. The top 2 MLBs are Zach Larsen & Phil Brown. And the top 2 WLBs are Cory Hanson and John Tranchitella. Why are Tranch & Phil Brown backups? Beats me.
FS Spencer Williamson is FINALLY back from his whatever was keeping him out. Yay no more Jeff Fontana!
Back on returns are Marcus Perez & Evans Adonis for KO returns. Perez on punt returns.
"The obvious thing right now is that we are simply not making the plays to win. We are also missing some speed, especially on the offensive side of the ball, and that is hurting us. We are getting in the red zone, but we are not getting the ball in the end zone. Turnovers have killed us as well; we are minus-11. Penalties; We are holding too much. Those are things a good football team cannot do. Those are the things that are keeping us from being a good team right now. It is being addressed, we are working on it, we just need to do it on the field and we are not."
Wait...what speed are we missing on offense? I'm very confused. Is he just talking about Britt "Stone Hands" Davis?
Strong quotes by Joe N for the future of this team:
"We've got six games to play and 95 percent of this team is coming back. I owe it to these seniors; I owe it to the rest of the kids. If you are looking towards next year, next year starts Saturday. I told the captains, all of which are juniors, and the team. You know what we could start seeing next year, but if we are going to do that, next year starts right now. We need to get that winning taste in our mouths that we once had and it is not there right now. That will help us next year. Right now we are just focused on what we can still get out of this year. Is it going to be a great year? Obviously not. Is it going to be a winning season? It is going to be awful tough. But we can still come out of this thing with a more positive taste and feeling than we have right now."
Hey Chris Nendick, you gonna miss any more kicks this week?
“Everybody looks at the extra point as a chipshot, but there's a science to it and if you don't get that science down, you won't hit it,” Nendick said. “That was Jeff's first week holding. I thought he did a pretty good job.”
The two misses cost Northern Illinois a victory, and forced the studious Nendick to watch some extra gamefilm.
“I kicked well today, only missed once,” he said. “I'm feeling pretty good. The misses motivates me more. I was excited to get to practice today. I saw some stuff on film that I had to correct. I corrected it. I feel like I'm hitting the ball a lot better now.”
The WMU defensive coordinator is familiar with NIU's offensive scheme (NStar, Kalamazoo Gazette):
Saturday won’t be the first time NIU’s offensive coordinator Roy Wittke and WMU’s defensive coordinator Bill Miller have met. Both are familiar with each other as they were offensive and defensive coordinators, respectively, last year at Arizona State.
Not helping matters is that the 2003 recruiting class didn't pan out, with several players leaving the program. An overlooked aspect in NIU's downfall is the revolving door of assistant coaches. Potential recruits like to build relationships with coaches. Is it a coincidence that ever since Scott Shafer and Matt Canada left following the 2003 season the program has taken a drop in recruiting? Not likely.
"I'm not sure this program is quite as hungry as it was then,'' the Huskies' 12th-year coach said. "I hope that's not the case.''
Novak's crew is 1-5 this season (0-2 in division play), off to its worst start since 1998, when Northern Illinois was wrapping up a 3-win, 30-loss stretch.
"We're going through a nonexistent senior class,'' Novak said. "We have nine seniors, three of whom see the field. We're lacking in maturity and leadership. It's a (class) of attrition and bad recruiting decisions, and we're struggling because of it a little bit.''
"The class started at 19 or 20, we had a couple academic (casualties), three or four others didn't want to work ... ''
The list goes on, according to Novak, including several players who can no longer play for medical reasons.
"I think going into this year we really felt we had a chance to be a very good football team next year,'' Novak said. ``We didn't think it'd be like this.''
Next season's senior class is 25 players deep. Novak hopes that group will make Northern Illinois' dip from the MAC's elite a one-year deal.
Novak provides Justin Anderson and the other RBs some motivation:
"He's still a work in progress,'' Novak said of Anderson, one of four NIU running backs averaging better than 5 yards per carry. "Our tailbacks should have a lot of yards. We give them the ball a lot.
"They're not Garrett Wolfe or Mike Turner.''
Entering this season, Northern Illinois was one of 18 Division I-A teams with at least seven winning seasons in a row, according to Novak. That's a streak he admits will "be awful tough'' to continue. In fact, if the Huskies don't win Saturday, it won't.
Prediction:
Western Michigan should be a little out of this game emotionally, because of the way they lost last week to Akron on the last play of the game. The players in Kalamazoo may have said that they are over what happened, but I believe that is still going to be in the back of their minds. Here is a video of the above-mentioned play:
WMU has the 113th ranked run D in the nation. RB Justin Anderson will have a field day. We should be able to get some deep passes in against their secondary who is giving up 13.96 yds per pass which is good for 114th in the nation. If we win the turnover margin (biggest "if" ever), we win this game. Our defense is playing pretty good, and the amount of emotion for homecoming will be a tremendous boost. WMU will be emotionally drained form last week's loss and will not be able to match up. BTW, WMU is 113th in the nation giving up 38.7 ppg. If we can ever get our offense going, it will be against these guys.
