Kafka and our D

[cncmin]

Kafka looks like a god playing in a dome tonight. Where have we seen this before? Northwestern's entire offense is predicated on the short-to-medium passing game. So, if you are a Gophers' coach, do you:

(1) load up to stop Northwestern's compeltely inept rushing game?
(2) play against the pass?

The answer should be obvious, but we'll see. We'll have to hit Kafka hard and often to disrupt his game...right now he is simply tearing apart the Cuse D with accurate short passes. These same short passes have been the demise of many Gopher teams in the past couple decades, so it'll be interesting to see if we adjust.

Our O should be able to score against NU's porous D; however, if Decker is out will Weber keep his head in the game? Weber's ability to pass the ball next week and Cosgrove's ability to stop the short passing game and contain Kafka's scrambling will be the two keys to victory next week.

P.S. The Cuse are passing all over Northwestern...Decker's injury, just like last year, is horrible timing.

 

[mkAz]

The Gophers defended against the short pass pretty well in the second half of the Syracuse game. I'm confident that they will do well. I'm hoping that Sherels is back next week too.

 

[50PoundHead]

Play a 3-4 and have Lawrence and Cooper shadow Kafka (one at a time of course). Give him a lot of different looks and blitzes.

 

[gophermanic]

Kafka is 31-34 for 363 yards and 3 TDs. Ouch.

On the flip side, Greg "should have stayed at Duke" Paulus has 324 yards.

 

[cncmin]

Syracuse wins 37-34

Picked off a Kafka pass with less than a minute left, returned it to the NU 40...then got to the 23 with no timeouts left, lined up the kick with time running down, and knocked through a 40-yarder as time expired.

Hopefully this last-second loss is a huge deflater for Northwestern and kills their confidence heading into next week. This is now a must-win. I was not impressed by NU's D in any manner, they let Syracuse move up and down the field; however, that said, Paulus did hit his open receivers, and Weber will need to do the same.

The announcers were saying that NU was playing a lot of man-to-man D in the secondary...our coaches need to set up a game plan to exploit that. (A healthy Decker would sure help.)

 

[upchurch]

Cooper, Kirksey and Wilhite need to be starting. Moen does very little for us. When is Gray going to play more? Whaley? Hageman? Come on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!