We take a last look at Northwestern's season-opening 17-7 loss to Stanford and bring you the 3-2-1.

The offense did not execute. The Wildcats gained 210 yards on 60 plays and scored one touchdown. They played two quarterbacks and the more consistent of the two - TJ Green - hurt his foot and is likely out for quite a while. They also lost their star running back, Isaiah Bowser to what was said to be a lower body injury, through head coach Pat Fitzgerald downplayed it after the game. Oh, and their top OL, Rashaun Slater, got hurt and had to leave the game, too. So it’s a blessing that the first BYE was built in this upcoming week. But, as Fitzgerald says, they’re going to get to work (on resolving the issues), and we should expect better output soon. The pieces are there but still need to be put together.

The defense missed a LOT of tackles. Travis Whillock, where did you go? We were just singing the praises of the junior safety, who had the best second half of any Wildcat defender last year. Then he comes out and misses more than a handful of open-field stop opportunities. We do believe it will get cleaned up, but Stanford RB Cameron Scarlett had a stat line that looks a lot better than what it actually was. In the same breath, though, Whillock tied for the team lead in tackles with 10. The other one was walkon LB Chris Bergin, who had more tackles than the Big Ten’s top tacklers from a year ago, Blake Gallagher and Paddy Fisher.

The questioned secondary covered pretty well. True, the Cardinal totaled 233 yards receiving, but the Cats never really gave up the big play (nothing more than 27 yards). They allowed a 67% completion percentage, but much of it came on shorter/safer throws, where the receivers sat in a hole in the zone or made the catch on the outside and worked to some green after the catch. The DBs only gave up one touchdown through the air and that was a two-yard “sneak” route on a zone/bootleg play to Michael Wilson, who was nearly stopped at the goal line. The Wildcat DBs certainly didn’t flinch, especially their young corners, sophomore Greg Newsome and redshirt first-year A.J. Hampton, who was forced into more voluminous playing time after an injury to starter Trae Williams. And considering they were on the field for two-thirds of the game in the heat and humidity of California, seeing these guys hold their own was certainly promising.

Why did they throw near Paulson Adebo? The All-America candidate CB was one of the leaders in all of college football in passes defended last year with 20. So why go after him three times? He knocked away two of those passes and intercepted another, and none of those plays were really offensive misfires/misplays. There’s something to be said for having gumption and trusting your players over fearing your opponents, but with four or five other guys in coverage, it just seems smarter to go away from No. 11. When they didn’t, Adebo made the Wildcats pay.

What would this team look like if they played on offense to attack, rather than not make a mistake? We get the overall team philosophy of playing conservatively to keep the defense in good position, and that this recipe has worked well over the last two years. But thinking hypothetically, what if they had half of the aggression offensively of, say, an Oklahoma State or Syracuse? What if the mindset was to strike big and strike now, as opposed to taking what you’re given and playing not to give the ball away? If Hunter Johnson has the arm, the football IQ and the athleticism of an elite college quarterback, think of what an added bonus a more aggressive style could present to this team.

This will not stop the Wildcats, who are already tired of hearing about “slow starts.” This wasn’t a bad loss. It wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t destructive. This is a ranked Stanford team that can compete for the Pac 12 North title and played good defense against a new QB who may have felt the pressure of being the guy. Still, the Wildcats did not execute well, and true to Fitzgerald’s repetitive words, they’re surely going to “get better.” They have a long two weeks to prepare for a UNLV team that is certainly beatable. One game does not a season make, and Fitzgerald, his staff and their players will prove that. Senior co-captain Ben Skowronek even said, “we’re gonna come back from this, I can promise you that.”

Offensive game ball: RB Isaiah Bowser. “The Bruiser” (maybe it’ll catch on with the Northwestern PA announcer) had 10 carries for a 5.4 average and ran tough, knocking over several Cardinal defenders in the process (more on that later). Though his afternoon was cut short - ironically, in part, due to his aggressive style of play - Bowser made good use of his carries. He didn’t have any negative carries and all but three of his rushes went for four yards or more, with a handful for more than 10. It was good to see the sophomore start to take his game to the next level.

Defensive game ball: DE Joe Gaziano. Gaziano may not have had earth-moving stats in the box score, but he certainly influenced the Cardinal offensive line and put pressure in the backfield quite regularly. In many cases, he handled All-American OT Walker Little and beat him off the ball. Gaziano drew the praise of FOX broadcaster Brock Huard for his play and seemed to control the line of scrimmage the way a first team All-Big Ten DE would. In all, Gaziano made four tackles - two at, or behind the line of scrimmage, - was held on a couple of plays and also forced a fumble and recovered another.

Special Teams game ball: P Daniel Kubiuk. Fitzgerald was right when he spoke of the sixth-year senior “earn[ing] it” in camp. His first few punts were boomers that allowed the coverage team to get downfield and bottle up Stanford punt returner Michael Wilson. On the day, he had four punts for a 45-yard average, including putting three inside the 20-yard line and one boomer for 53 yards. We wondered how Kubiuk would follow in the footsteps of the steady punters before him: Hunter (The Punter) Niswander and Jake Collins. So far, so good.

Wildcat Warrior: LB Chris Bergin. With all of the talk about Gallagher and Fisher being the top two tacklers in the Big Ten last season, it was SAM LB Bergin who tied for the game high in tackles (with Whillock). The former walkon, that some (unfairly) projected might lose his starting spot this season, showed that he could not only bring ballcarriers to the turf, but cover ground in pass defense as well. In fact, the Bergin brothers (Chris and special teams stand-out and older brother, Joe) had as many tackles as Fisher and Gallagher combined.

Tandem trucks: After a slow start with little time possession in the first half (just over three minutes total), Green and the offense started playing with some urgency and started moving the ball. Then Bowser took the advice of Olivia Newton-John and got physical. On a second-and-6 from the Stanford 31-yard line, he ran an outside zone to the right side and plowed two defenders, picking up 15 yards a first down into the red zone. The first victim was Adebo, the All-American, and second was steady safety Kendall Williamson. Both looked like popsicle sticks trying to withstand the force of a charging bull. It was sadly one of the rare highlights for the NU offense, which averaged just three yards per play for the game. That drive didn't result in any points, as it ended with Green's fumble at the Stanford 5 on the play that he was sacked and injured. Still, Bowser's romp was a good sign of things to come from No. 25.

Tim Chapman covers Northwestern football for WildcatReport. He is a teacher and former Michigan high school football coach who is currently working on a book titled "ChampioN Underdog" about the 1995 Northwestern Rose Bowl team. Follow him via Twitter: @Champion_Lit. Email him at nufbhistorian@gmail.com.