Why Northwestern Will Beat Minnesota

by Graham Filler on Sep 24, 2009 10:56 PM CDT in Northwestern

70% of you somehow believe that Minnesota will reign victorious at the vicious confines of Ryan Field Saturday. You hold this mistaken belief in spite of the following facts:

Mike Kafka is leading the NCAA in pass completion percentage and can gallop like a horse. He has stonishing potential.
All the injured NW linebackers and cornerbacks will return to play against the Gophers, meaning NW will feature a fully healthy defense for the first time this year. Plus, the Wildcats return their top running back, who didn't play against Syracuse because of injury.
Adam Weber and Minnesota are being lauded for their effort in a two touchdown loss to Cal, while everyone conveniently forgets they barely survived Syracuse and Air Force.
Vegas says Northwestern is favored. And they gamble for a living. Which means they aren't homers who get fooled by an injury plagued miracle loss to an improving Syracuse team.
The Minnesota offense is averaging 21 points per game, has no running attack to speak of, and features a quarterback who takes a sack or gives the ball to the other team when he feels an ounce of pressure. They statistically have the worst offense in the Big Ten, but I realize there was no true cupcake on the Gopher schedule so far, so it's a skewed statistic.

Some nice counterarguments exist, but Minnesota doesn't do one thing well. Their defense is unexceptional, picking off one ball in three games and failing to generate a pass rush on Paulus or Riley of Cal. The offense subsists on the occasional circus catch by Decker and little else. Weber, a veteran leader, has regressed accuracy wise and threw 3 picks in the span of 12 minutes against Cal. So why all of a sudden do 70% of you believe they're going to snap out of this offensive funk?

Make sure to go back and submit your picks for Week 4 of the Obligatory Predictions Contest. Weekly winners get a chance to write 500 words on the site. NEW this year is our season long competition - win the whole damn thing and we send you something amazing.

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Why?

So why all of a sudden do 70% of you believe they’re going to snap out of this offensive funk?

Because if Ron Paulus can do it against NW (and EMU too) then why not the Gophers?

The Rivalry, Esq.
The quintessential Big Ten smoking room.

by Bama Hawkeye on Sep 25, 2009 5:23 AM CDT reply actions

Err...

Greg Paulus. And, well, the Gophers beat us and Northwestern didn’t. So my subjective judgement while wearing Orange-colored glasses is that Minni’s probably better, at least on defense.

by drothgery on Sep 25, 2009 9:50 AM CDT up reply actions

I should not post

before my morning run. Despite me combining a Libertarian Presidential candidate and a flopping point guard into a quarterbacking menace AND using a grammatical form that made my entire point ambiguous, we are actually agreed on the underlying position.

If Syracuse can score on Northwestern, and Ohio can score on Northwestern, I believe Minnesota can do the same thing.

The Rivalry, Esq.
The quintessential Big Ten smoking room.

by Bama Hawkeye on Sep 25, 2009 10:31 AM CDT up reply actions

Because the Gophers are better than last year

And hopefully won’t be surprised by the deity Mike Kafka and thus won’t have a repeat of last year where they allowed him to rack up (approximately) 1,250 yards.

by JRose on Sep 25, 2009 7:33 AM CDT reply actions