CSNbbs

Northern Illinois is probably a slightly better team than we are right now. They are 5-2 with a win against a "Power 5" team under their belt. One of their two losses was against Arkansas.

I watched the whole game last night to get a better look at what we are up against Saturday, here are some thoughts.


Like us, UNI likes to run the ball and has two guys that split the carries (in their case, their QB and their main RB, both of whom average over 5 yards a carry.) They are not as balanced as we are, and run more than they pass, including a lot of read option stuff.
Mississippi St. chose to stack the box against us to take away the run no matter what. Arkansas, faced with a a team with similar talent level to ours who were even more run heavy than us, choose to play it straight up, keep two safeties deep and forced UNI to drive the ball down the field on them. Arkansas rarely blitzed, but still got a lot of pressure with just their front 4.

The result? UNI couldn't sustain drives. They got some yards but well below their season averages and they only put two scores on the board, one of which came late when the game was no longer in doubt.

On offense, Arkansas is a big, physical team with lots of speed. One of their RBs is like a faster version of j/ordan Howard, the other has JJ Nelson speed in a 40 pounds heavier body. They run mostly ACE (two TE's) and I formation football with a lot of pre-snap motion and pound the ball with their stable of backs. They do run some spread looks, sometimes with base personnel. They pretty much dare you to stack the box to slow their run and then hit you with the play action when you do. UNI had some success stopping their offense early but the arkansas offensive line just started pushing them around after a while.

In the UNI game Arkansas just wore them down. It was death by a 1000 cuts. UNI made one big mistake ( a fumble in their own territory, which Arkansas instantly turned into 7 points) and failed on a couple of fourth down conversion attempts, but mostly UNI just got worn down and were helpless as Arkansas pulled away to a convincing 52-14 win.

You can watch the highlights here:

Hopefully we see Crumbley you know our biggest D linemen. I find it hard for Rabb to make an impact so maybe less of him, and more Grissett. I thought the JACK position was made for Rabb, Shaq R, and Ejike.

This team isn't going to be pushed around.

I believe one of the more applicable passages is Art of War 6:5:

"Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected."

We must swiftly identify the best possible mismatches and exploit them as we are able. This is a guerrilla war. A direct assault will spell for us oblivion.

They are most certainly a way better team than their conference record suggests. When they get a decent quarterback they may be in the running for the play offs. If and that's a big if we can slow or stop their run game we have a chance to pull the upset.

Why couldn't we play Florida or Vanderbilt this year?

Northern Illinois beat Northwestern on their home field, and that same Northwestern team beat Penn State on their home field, then Northwestern beat #17-Wisconsin the next week before losing to unranked Minnesota the week after that.

Anything can happen in college football. If UAB plays as hard and as sound as they did against North Texas, they will have a chance to pull the upset. UAB needs to go into the Arkansas game with the mind set that they had against North Texas, which is similar to the mind set that FIU brought to Legion Field this year... nothing to lose.

Oh yeah, by the way she moves
She's got me rolling in dirt in a white t-shirt