Cornerbacks will be put to test vs. Duke

EVANSTON-Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald is a fan of Duke quarterback Daniel Jones.

Fitzgerald was impressed preparing for him when the two teams played last season, and he is even more enamored with the redshirt sophomore QB this year, especially after Jones completed 19 of 25 passes for 213 yards and two touchdowns in a 60-7 romp over North Carolina Central last Saturday.

“Daniel Jones is outstanding at quarterback,” said Fitzgerald. “He’s terrific.”

On Saturday in Durham, N.C., Fitzgerald will have to face Jones with a depleted cornerback unit that has suffered an incredible string of injuries. The Wildcats probably don’t have many more injuries than most teams right now; it’s just that so many of them have struck one position.

Let’s recap. Starting cornerback Keith Watkins II was lost for the season just last week. He joined last year’s starter Trae Williams, Alonzo Mayo and Roderick Campbell on the injured list.

Then on Saturday, starter Marcus McShepard went down with an injury. His replacement, Brian Bullock, also left the game. It got to the point that Moe Almasri, a graduate transfer from Robert Morris University, was playing corner with the game in the balance and NU protecting a four-point lead in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter.

The good news is that the Wildcats survived and that neither McShepard nor Bullock will be lost for an extended period.

“They’re doing great. They’ll both be day-to-day and we’ll make decisions as we get closer to game day,” said Fitzgerald on Monday at his weekly news conference. Fitzgerald gave no more details, and the statuses of Williams, Mayo and Campbell are unknown; Northwestern’s policy is to only releases injury information about players listed on the two-deep.

While one cornerback spot was a revolving door on Saturday, at least the Wildcats can rely on starter Montre Hartage on the other side. The junior started all 13 games and led the team with five interceptions a season ago.

Hartage was watching the guy on the other side of the field change from down-to-down at times on Saturday and took it upon himself to get the next man up acclimated.

“Making sure we get the play call, and making sure we need to make any adjustments. Just come together and communicate well,” he said of his responsibility of getting new corners up to speed on the fly. “As soon as the next guy got out there, it told him, ‘Hey, let’s just go out here and make plays and just have fun.’ So it was pretty much adjustment on the move.”

Not surprisingly, Nevada quarterback Ty Gangi often picked on the corner opposite Hartage, and that resulted in a couple big plays in the passing game in the first half.

However, Hartage thinks that, overall, the new corners did pretty well once they settled down.

“I feel like the guys, they responded well. Initially, I feel like everyone needs to take a couple plays to get the jitters out,” he said. “But after Brian got out there, Moe got out there, after the first play, they did well. They were right on beat.”

Linebacker Nate Hall agreed, hearkening back to his first playing time two years ago as a redshirt freshman.

“They did well, for their first time. I’ve been in that position before. It’s a nerve-wracking thing,” he said.

As a whole, Northwestern’s defense played a much better second half against the Wolf Pack. After allowing 221 yards and 17 points in the first 30 minutes, the defense limited Nevada to just 120 yards and three points in the second – and those three points came after a Nevada interception gave them the ball at the NU 17-yard line.

Hartage says the change had as much to do with mindset as schematic adjustments.

“We just wanted to play fast and have more fun out there,” he said. “As soon as we calmed down, I think the energy on the defense picked up, I think we came together as a group collectively.

“The guys just went out there and just gave it everything they had for the second half. The guys who stepped in for the guys who went down, they responded well. The energy kept increasing throughout the half.”

Northwestern will need an effort like that for 60, not 30 minutes against a Blue Devils team that Fitzgerald calls “really efficient in all three phases.”

“We’ll have to start faster than we did last week,” he said.