EVANSTON-Northwestern’s Saturday night matchup against Eastern Illinois was less about the actual game and more about Jack Lausch’s first start at quarterback.
Both turned out to be underwhelming for the first half. But Lausch and the Wildcat offense found a little fire in the second, as Northwestern coasted to a 31-7 win to improve to 2-1 and send them into Big Ten play with a little confidence.
Lausch, the redshirt sophomore and fan favorite from Chicago, was named the starter on Monday after Mike Wright struggled with turnovers and erratic play through the first two weeks. An athletic dual-threat, Lausch had served as the program’s change-of-pace Wildcat quarterback for two years, but now he was given the keys to the offense.
Everyone knew Lausch could run. The question on Saturday night was whether he could be an effective Power Four-level passer. After the first half, when he completed just nine of 20 passes and bounced several of them very short of his targets, the jury was out.
But in the second half, a much more comfortable Lausch showed that he could make some plays through the air. He completed all 11 of his throws in the second as Northwestern blew the game open with 17 second-half points.
For the game, Lausch finished 20-of-31 for 227 yards and two touchdowns passing. He added 62 yards rushing for a total of 289 yards of offense. Most importantly, the Wildcats didn't turn the ball over once.
Lausch's passing numbers in the second half were startling: 11-for-11 for 163 yards and two TDs, before he was pulled for Wright in garbage time in the fourth quarter.
Northwestern’s defense was its usual self, strangling the Panthers and limiting them to just 207 total yards while allowing them to convert just three of 11 third downs. But now the Wildcats will hit the road next week to Washington with a little confidence in an offense that found some rhythm for the first time this season.
It looked like Lausch was in for a rough evening from the outset as he dropped back to pass on Northwestern’s first play from scrimmage and bounced a short pass in front of Bryce Kirtz in the flat. That became a theme, as Lausch was short on several passes in the first half. Really short.
But he looked great as a runner. Lausch’s stark dichotomy early worked in a three-play sequence on Northwestern’s touchdown drive late in the first quarter.
From the EIU 44-yard line, Lausch ran for 26 yards on a designed keeper over the left side. Then, he pulled the ball on a read-option and went for 17 yards up the middle to the EIU 1. In between those two big gains, however, he bounced a short square-in about four yards in front of an open Kirtz coming out of his break.
The Wildcats wound up scoring a touchdown on a one-yard run by Cam Porter on a direct snap with 1:22 left in the opening quarter to make it 7-0.
That’s kind of how the first half went for Lausch, who looked confident and in command on the run but shaky and inaccurate whenever he dropped back to throw the ball.
Still, with Northwestern’s defense putting the Eastern Illinois offense in a hammerlock, Lausch’s struggles didn’t look to be much of a concern. The Panthers had just 26 yards and one first down in the first quarter. Give Lausch some time to get his feet wet, went the thinking, while the defense wreaked havoc on the Panthers.
Then EIU’s offense suddenly came to life and scrapped that plan. The Panthers racked up three consecutive first downs, including one a fourth-down conversion, before Pierce Holley hit Eli Mirza for a 13-yard TD pass. Just like that, the game was tied 7-7 with 10:37 left in the half and Lausch became a bigger issue than originally thought.
The teams traded punts before Northwestern drove to the EIU 24. There, on fourth-and-3, EIU’s Tre’Jon Lewis broke right through the middle to block Jack Olsen’s 42-yard field goal attempt.
The Panthers got the ball back and got into field-goal range before Najee Story returned the favor and blocked Drew Schiller’s 36-yard try.
Lausch had just 16 yards passing heading into the final drive of the half, then he hit his groove. He rolled to his right to evade pressure and delivered a strike on the run to Marshall Lang for 19 yards. He hit Joseph Himon II for a screen, threw the ball away under pressure and generally looked comfortable for the first time.
Himon capped off the Wildcats’ eight-play, 80-yard touchdown drive by busting one over the left side for a 32-yard TD with 14 seconds left in the half to send the Wildcats into the locker room with a 14-7 lead.
As it turned out, Lausch was just starting to cook.
On his first pass of the second half, he hit a wide-open Henning over the middle for what turned out to be a 45-yard catch-and-run. The Wildcats bogged down in EIU territory, so Olsen came on to drill a 46-yard field goal for a 17-7 lead.
The Wildcats’ defense then came up with their first takeaway of the game, when Holley’s pass to Jordan Sprycha was deflected into the air by Xander Mueller’s hit, and Devin Turner intercepted it at the EIU 42.
Lausch went right to work. He made maybe his most impressive throw of the night, a 15-yard rope to Thomas Gordon in a tight window to the EIU three-yard line, then capped off the drive with a three-yard touchdown throw, the first of his career, to Henning to make it 24-7. In all, he went 5-for-5 for 34 of the Wildcats’ 42 yards on the drive.
He wasn’t done. The Wildcats got the ball back and he hit Henning for 46 yards, Calvin Johnson II for 16, Henning again for nine and finally, a nine-yard scoring strike to Lang in the back of the end zone to make it 31-7.
Wright then came in to close the game out for the Wildcats, as Lausch had answered all of the questions about him with a near-perfect second half.
