If you think the one game at a time concept is nonsense, respectfully, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
A wise coach once told me you’re only as good as the last time you played. So the answer is no, we stink. We stunk the last time we played at Rutgers, so we stink. However, we won. That actually helps the team’s preparation for next week as winning while playing ****** is a good blend of confidence builder with a complacency antidote. No, we didn’t stink earlier this year after we beat Purdue or Michigan State on the road.
I have two Big Ten championship rings, so here are my first hand observations:
In 1995, our lackluster come from behind road wins over a bad (5-5-1) Illinois and a terrible (3-8) Minnesota team secured one of those rings. By the way, we beat Wisconsin 35-0 a week after coming from behind to beat that terrible (3-8) Minnesota team. Should I mention our inexplicable cluster-f*** loss to a MAC team at home in that otherwise 10-1 (8-0) championship season?
The other ring came in 1996 despite a blowout (road) loss to a two loss Penn State team and several ugly wins against Minnesota (4-7), Purdue (3-8), Illinois (2-9) and Wisconsin (8-5). I almost forgot our 17-16 win over Michigan at home that nearly none of the NU fanbase actually witnessed because they all headed for the exits when we were behind in the 3rd quarter despite our 9 game B1G win streak leading up to the 4th quarter of that game. I digress...
I remember the thousands of hours of practicing, film study, game planning, conditioning and injury rehabbing that went into winning those games, and yes, losing a few along the way. Every week had unique challenges... Different styles of play, different match-ups, varying levels of energy and enthusiasm, injuries beyond who just played or not as most had to do with managing and playing through injuries that impacted effectiveness.
I then supplement this experience with 22 more years of observation of B1G Champions and many other teams who came close.
Our 2000 Championship NU team had a defense I could best describe as just terrible. That season had a series of improbable wins including inexplicable opponent fumbles, Hail Marys, desperation 4th and long completions and many other highly improbable events strung together. (An explicable loss to a bad Iowa team cost that Championship NU team the Rose Bowl by the way...)
This isn’t just an NU phenomenon. Ohio State’s undefeated 2002 B1G and National Championship team’s offense would made NU’s 2015 (10-2 team) offense look explosive. They did have a great defense though. Even that national champion OSU team required last second heroics and overtime to beat 4-4 Purdue and Illinois teams late in the season.
And our best overall NU team in terms of offense, defense and special teams the past 40 years (2012’s 10-3 team) still somehow managed to blow three close games to Nebraska, Michigan and Penn State that they should have won. (Most of the other 10 wins were pretty good-looking though).
In summary, yes, we stink, but we’re 4-1 with wins over a team that just crushed Ohio State, a team that beat Penn State, a team that just blew out Minnesota and one team that has a pulse... The 1 loss we have in conference play (to Michigan) is a game with a lot of would have, could have, should haves. That Michigan team blew out arch rival Wisconsin last week and beat Michigan State by the way.
The one good thing from this Rutgers win (other than the winning part) is that despite injury to our 4 or 5 best running backs (I lost count), we may actually have found a freshman running back on the roster (just coming off injury himself) that can run down hill in a physical manner give us a running game an opposing defense has to defend. That’s pretty huge. We don’t need a world-beating running game by the way. We just need a passable one to get defenses out of pass rush and pass defense-only mode.
I have little doubt we can beat any B1G team left on our schedule with the status quo running game, but It’s highly improbable we can beat 3 or 4 of them without a running game.
Yes, I’m hopeful the Cats can figure out a way to get a 1 point win next week against the most flawed Wisconsin team I’ve seen in many years. We might still stink after that win, but I’ll take it. I’ll worry about what’s next later.
