I am so depressed. Even if we luck out and go the MACC, it wouldn't feel right. Toledo kicked our butts tonight, and until we figure out a way to stop their offense, we will always be 2nd best.

Kudos to all the folks who turned out tonight. A near capacity crowd for a cold Tuesday evening speaks volumes about Huskie fans in general. Despite the score tonight, I'm still proud of NIU and the way Joe Novak and his players have represented the university.

I feel the same way you do,disappointed for the loss but proud that as Huskie fans we showed up and cheered. What a great student turn out all season.

Good crowd for a Tuesday night in November. I was pissed when I saw people leaving with 9 minutes left and we were down by 2 TD's. I was yelling at them that they were French - cut and run. I stayed until Toledo took the last knee. I stay till the end - always. Let's hope for a BG win over Toledo next week.

I had people yelling at me because I was pissed at our defense calling me "not a real fan". Oh I am sorry I dont feel we should run zone every play and give up 7 yards. But I am not a fan.

some of my friends i came with left at that nine minute mark. i was like what are you doing? and they just shrugged and left. i wasnt about to leave, i mean come one, it was only a 2TD game, and nine minutes is an eternitey in football. but at that point i was so depressed i found it hard to fault the casual fans who left. i did notice that for as many students left on the east, it looked like they were handing out $100 bills outside the west gates. i was shocked at how quickly that side got empty. but overall, i think the fans came through for the most part. cold early nov weather, tues night, and we still had the place filled. im sure it looked great on tv, and it was very loud too. there did come a point in the second half when i could hear the toledo chants on the other side of the stadium, that was like a dagger in the heart. 27,000 of our fans and we can still hear how ever many hundred (?) toledo fans? unacceptable. by the way, what was the announced attendance? i never caught it.

Something close to 27,100 ???? it was over 27,000 thats all i know

Quote:until we figure out a way to stop their offense, we will always be 2nd best.

Until Toledo figures out how to stop BGSU, they will be second place.


Toledo did seem to expose every Huskie weakness like no one else has this year. They totally controlled the line of scrimage, and NIU could not fully commit to pressuring the QB. I doubt Garrett Wolfe could have done anything about those long bombs Toledo made, or all those pass interference penalties.

I would like to say, "Wait till next year!", but next year is in Toledo, with a more experienced Gradkowski.

Quote:I had people yelling at me because I was pissed at our defense calling me "not a real fan". Oh I am sorry I dont feel we should run zone every play and give up 7 yards. But I am not a fan.

You are totally correct, I'll tell you that. I made a comment a couple days ago about trying to stop Toledo with the Zone. I think the NIU defense may have been thinking too hard. Play man-to-man, and stick to Toledo's receivers like glue.

One more thing. Always assume that Toledo is going for it on fourth down. If you are wrong, you give up a FG or a punt. Not so bad.

I've been watching NIU play zone for so many years, and I've watched good passing teams march down the field almost effortlessly against it. The only way it works is if you get pressure on the QB, which we didn't. Not too surprising, since Ball State's and WMU's QBs had all day to throw too, but I hoped we'd come up with something different for Toledo, since the team had this game circled all year.

I think if we could tackle, though, we still could have won. That was the worst tackling I've seen for a long time, although we had problems last year too. Some of that is simply because Toledo has good players, but we just don't know how to wrap up. Also, Garrett Wolfe may have made a difference since he might have broken one of those runs for a TD, whereas A.J. just looked slow.

We'll be better off not playing in a bowl if it's going to be like that. We'll hear a lot of 'I told you so's if we get beat by a mediocre BCS team in a bowl game.

We got outcoached and outplayed. Again. :(

Huskie_Jon Wrote:

Quote:I had people yelling at me because I was pissed at our defense calling me "not a real fan". Oh I am sorry I dont feel we should run zone every play and give up 7 yards. But I am not a fan.

You are totally correct, I'll tell you that. I made a comment a couple days ago about trying to stop Toledo with the Zone. I think the NIU defense may have been thinking too hard. Play man-to-man, and stick to Toledo's receivers like glue.

One more thing. Always assume that Toledo is going for it on fourth down. If you are wrong, you give up a FG or a punt. Not so bad.

Here's the problem, guys. You ***** about our D playing a certain way, but you're not paying attention. All the plays made against Hansbro were in man coverage, not zone. The ball Moore caught over him, the pass interference calls, etc. We played a good bit of man out wide with CBs, as we have been doing this year - it is a change from last year, when we played almost exclusively zone everywhere.

We've also blitzed much less this year - it burned us against BG and UT last year for big plays. This year it meant less big plays, but it means you have to tackle and get out on third downs, which we did not do at all last night. They were 13-19 on third downs and had the ball nearly 42 minutes. Those were killers. We were much better, running the same defense against BG. Our offense also showed up in the second half of that game.