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Lots of positive press coverage this week: WSJ, ESPN, SportsCenter, Yahoo; have to win to keep it coming

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zeek55

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www.espn.com

Northwestern's Chip Kelly went into the history books to build an offense

The Wildcats are playing their best offense in a decade. All it took was an old-school scheme and mad tinkerer.
www.espn.com www.espn.com





This week will be a good test of how the team handles prosperity. If we win 2 of the next 3, Northwestern will probably be about as central to CFB discussion as its been since the 90s.


Most fascinating part of these articles is the importance of football success for our place in the Big Ten in the Dellenger/Yahoo article and this line: "the university admissions process, with encouragement from third-year athletic director Mark Jackson, is showing some much-needed flexibility in this evolving recruiting landscape of college athletics."
 
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zeek55

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NJCat said:
Rat poison.....kisses of death.
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This is where it helps having somebody like Chip Kelly on staff. He's been a part of so many successful teams and dealt with this kind of talk as a HC/OC in a way that few coaches have experienced.

This week is nothing compared to what it would be in 2 weeks or 5 weeks if we're still in the hunt for the CFP. At some point, you have to learn how to deal with prosperity.

We'll find out if this team can deal with national spotlight levels of success.
 
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Deeringfish

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zeek55 said:
This is where it helps having somebody like Chip Kelly on staff. He's been a part of so many successful teams and dealt with this kind of talk as a HC/OC in a way that few coaches have experienced.

This week is nothing compared to what it would be in 2 weeks or 5 weeks if we're still in the hunt for the CFP. At some point, you have to learn how to deal with prosperity.

We'll find out if this team can deal with national spotlight levels of success.
Click to expand...
In general I feel like the team is pretty mature and well grounded. They are well aware that their schedule gets harder as the season progresses so I'm pretty confident that they will stay focused. My concern is more about the possibilty that these last teams may be more athletic.
 
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zeek55

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Deeringfish said:
In general I feel like the team is pretty mature and well grounded. They are well aware that their schedule gets harder as the season progresses so I'm pretty confident that they will stay focused. My concern is more about the possibilty that these last teams may be more athletic.
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Oregon and Ohio State are where that's true in terms of raw talent gap; they're loaded with 5 star quality athletes. Fortunately for us we can afford to drop 1 of those 2 and Oregon is dramatically underperforming their talent level. (We'd be 12-14 point underdogs if Oregon was performing like the prior 3 years).

Everybody else on our schedule is probably around us in terms of raw athleticism/talent ratings.
 
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Sheffielder

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NJCat said:
Rat poison.....kisses of death.
Click to expand...
I agree insofar as NU historically choking when there's actually a spotlight (when we played at Wrigley, when GameDay would show up, etc.) but I also think with NIL we are experiencing the difference between a DIY job at home and hiring professionals to do the job (whether people like that comparison or not).

I will admit this whole week for me has been a sobering reflection on how mediocre all our opponents have been who we've pummeled. Even if the media does not give us flowers for beating a below-expectations Oregon team in Eugene, it will go a long way to confirm for me our team is the real deal.

I also don't think we're playing Iowa at noon next weekend...
 
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Deeringfish

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zeek55 said:
Oregon and Ohio State are where that's true in terms of raw talent gap; they're loaded with 5 star quality athletes. Fortunately for us we can afford to drop 1 of those 2 and Oregon is dramatically underperforming their talent level. (We'd be 12-14 point underdogs if Oregon was performing like the prior 3 years).

Everybody else on our schedule is probably around us in terms of raw athleticism/talent ratings.
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Wouldn't yousay that PSU has excellent talent but simply couldn't figure The Cats out?
 
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zeek55

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Deeringfish said:
Wouldn't yousay that PSU has excellent talent but simply couldn't figure The Cats out?
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This year quite honestly, Penn State has looked like an out of its range Iowa State squad; much closer to bottom half of Big Ten in terms of talent than the top 3 to 5 teams. It's true that their defense was completely bamboozled by our offense (especially the Wing T derived plays), but at the same time, this is probably the least talented Penn State squad that we've played in the past decade. The way they're playing and their record will show that by the end of the year.

Way less talented than the team we beat in Happy Valley last year. Last year's Penn State was a legitimate top 10-15 most talented squad in CFB.
 
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