Category: Sports

The Iowa Hawkeyes ended this game almost as soon as it started. Johnathan Bank’s 54-yard kickoff return set the tone early and the team never looked back. The Northwestern defense did itself no favors either, as the secondary made quarterback Jake Rudock look like the Big Ten’s best quarterback, at least during the first half.

Freshman running back Justin Jackson continues to impress. He accounted for 106 of the offense’s 146 total yards.

Zack Oliver entered the game in relief of Trevor Siemian, and did not fare much better. Northwestern drops to 3-5 (2-3 B1G) with the 48-7 loss.

The ever-reliable Justin Jackson broke open a 29-yard run that took Northwestern to the Iowa 32-yard line. However, a holding penalty on offensive lineman Eric Olson negated the big play. Linebacker Travis Perry lit up quarterback Trevor Siemian the very next play for a loss of eight yards. The Wildcats’ first drive went for 10 net yards.

The Wildcats did recover a fumble a few minutes into the third. It was Iowa’s fourth fumble of the game, though their first lost.

On the next drive, an incredible one-handed catch by wide receiver Mike McHugh went for 24 yards. It positioned Northwestern at the 4-yard line but the Hawkeyes kept Northwestern out of the end zone. On fourth down, Siemian’s pass to the right corner of the end zone was broken up by linebacker Quinton Alston. Iowa took over on downs on the 1-yard line.

Score remains 38-7 in favor of Iowa going into the fourth quarter.

Running back Justin Jackson’s 1-yard run put Northwestern on the board about 40 seconds into the second quarter.

Iowa quarterback Jake Rudock continued finding receivers deep down the field. He threw his first touchdown of the game to wide receiver Tevaun Smith about seven minutes into the quarter. He went 9/13 for 185 yards.

Iowa defensive lineman Louis Trinca-Pasat continued to antagonize quarterback Trevor Siemian. He notched his third sack of the half when Siemian seemingly ran into him.

Iowa running back Mark Weisman picked up right where he left off, scoring his third touchdown of the game with under a minute left. He had 17 carries for 92 yards in the half.

The Wildcats head into halftime down 38-7 and being outgained 298 yards to 54.

Saying Northwestern started off the game horribly would be an understatement. Iowa’s Johnathan Banks’ 54-yard kickoff return plus a 15-yard penalty on defense put the Hawkeyes on Northwestern’s 31-yard line. Mark Weisman ran for 26 yards on the drive and capped off the possession with a touchdown.

Things didn’t get much better after that, as Northwestern trails 24-0 after one quarter. Running back Mark Weisman rushed for two touchdowns, moving him third all-time in Iowa history with 28 rushing touchdowns. He had seven carries for 50 yards.

Iowa quarterback Jake Rudock completed two passes of more than 40 yards, to Matt VandeBerg and Kevonte Martin-Manley, respectively.

The Northwestern offense struggled mightily to get anything moving. Chicago-native Louis Trinca-Pasat sacked quarterback Trevor Siemian twice. Running back Justin Jackson first carry of the game went for 15 yards but he was stifled the rest of the quarter, running for five yards on the next three carries.

A botched punt by Iowa, their first of the game, put Northwestern at the Hawkeye 18-yard line. The offense will begin the second quarter five yards away from the end zone.

Redshirt freshman cornerback Dwight White will retire from football for medical reasons, the Northwestern athletic department announced Thursday.

White played in 12 games last season, starting 6 of them. He replaced Daniel Jones, who has also since retired for medical reasons, in the 2013 season opener against Cal, but struggled and eventually lost the starting job to true freshmen Matthew Harris.

By Mike Marut

On homecoming, Northwestern (3-4, 2-2 Big Ten) started out strong, but fell in the second half to No. 19 Nebraska (6-1, 2-1 Big Ten).

Northwestern looked so good in the first half. The Wildcats recorded 262 all-purpose, offensive yards. They controlled the clock with 17:15 of possession time. They held Ameer Abdullah, arguably the best running back in the Big Ten, to 46 total yards. This begs the question, where was NU in the second half?

Quarterback Trevor Siemian led the Cats to a 17-14 lead in the first half. He threw for 146 yards and helped NU convert four of its eight third downs. The Wildcats got to the red-zone three times and took advantage of all three opportunities with three scores: two touchdowns by running back Justin Jackson and a field goal by Jack Mitchell to end the half. Northwestern had the momentum.

Head coach Pat Fitzgerald mentioned a lot of oooh’s and ahhh’s during Saturday night’s game, more oooh’s for Nebraska, ahhh’s for Northwestern. The first half told a different story for crowd reaction though. The Wildcats came out strong against the second ranked team they’ve faced this year.

Probably the biggest oooh for NU was freshman phenom Jackson. A highlight that will be remembered for at least this week is his Madden-esque spin move. Jackson stopped on a dime and shook off a Cornhusker to high-step into the endzone for his second touchdown of the night. Jackson notched 99 yards in the first half averaging 6.6 yards per carry.

Another oooh for the Cats was the defense. Limiting Abdullah to under 50 yards in the first half is no easy feat. In fact, NU is only the third team this season to achieve that. Besides one breakaway 50-yard carry, the Wildcats would’ve held the running back to under 100 yards.

The second half though was more ahhh’s. The offense could never really get started. There was one small spark after receiver Miles Shuler suffered a game ending head injury. It seemed the offense used the Shuler injury as motivation to continue forward. They did not get much farther, only about 20 yards or so after the injury and then had to punt.

Nebraska, on the other hand, turned up the heat and scored on nearly every drive, outscoring Northwestern 24-0 in the second half. The Wildcats only mustered 28 yards of offense while the Cornhuskers more than doubled their halftime yardage of 227 and finished the game with 471 yards.

One of the big ahhh’s in the second half was the fact NU only had more than a three plays and a punt twice out of their six second half drives. Nebraska only had to punt one time and that was after a deep 29-yard strike from Cornhusker quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. to receiver Kenny Bell.

The defense cannot be blamed for everything that happened in the second half. Simply put, the offense needs to stay on the field longer than 10 of the 30 second half minutes. Comparing the first half to the second, it really is a tale of two halves. This theme may be all too clichéd, but it’s clichéd because it works well to define events like Saturday night’s loss to Nebraska.

Next week, NU does not have a football game. The team has two weeks to prepare for Iowa and in those two weeks, they will need to get healthy and figure out a game plan to earn the lead and keep the lead throughout the entirety of the game.