Running on empty

Halfway into the 2018 season, there is still a lot we don’t know about this Northwestern team. The Wildcats blew a 21-3 halftime lead to lose to Akron at home, and then, two weeks later, went on the road to knock off No. 20 Michigan State.

But there is one thing we are certain of: the Wildcats can’t run the football. At all.

Northwestern’s average of 69.8 rushing yards per game ranks 128th in the nation, better than only one team, San Jose State. The Wildcats are last in the Big Ten by a Charlie Weis-sized margin: the next lowest team, Michigan State, averages 123.0 yards, almost double the Wildcats.

Since star running back Jeremy Larkin was forced to retire after Week 3, the numbers are even worse. In the last three games, Northwestern has run for 68 yards. Total. In three games. On 77 carries. So the Wildcats are running for less than a yard every time they carry the football. Maybe they should start measuring runs in feet to make them look better statistically.

All of these offensive (pun intended) statistics are a bit misleading because college football – for reasons unbeknownst to any rational person – includes sack totals in their rushing yardage. But taking out the losses due to sacks still doesn’t take out the ugly.

Look at the last three games. Against Michigan, Northwestern ran for a grand total of 28 yards with sacks, 81 without them. Against Michigan State, they were even worse: 8 total yards with sacks and 36 without. Against Nebraska, they ran for 31 yards with sacks, 51 without.

Better, yes. But far, far below acceptable.

Since running for 166 yards in the season opener against Purdue, Northwestern has failed to reach 100 yards as a team in any of its last five games. Justin Jackson used to gain 100 yards falling out of bed, it seemed, reaching the century mark seven times last season and 27 times on his way to becoming Northwestern’s all-time leading rusher.

As coach Pat Fitzgerald said last week, the Wildcats went from “Justin Jackson to yuck.” That may be an insult to the word “yuck”. The Wildcats have lost more than 100 yards per game off of their average last season, when the rushing attack produced 174.2 yards.

These numbers are historically bad, even for a school with a cringe-inducing history like Northwestern’s. If it holds up for the rest of the season, that average of 69.8 yards per game would be the worst since the 1983 Wildcats averaged 57.8. That Dennis Green-coached team – the year after Northwestern ended the longest FBS losing streak in history at 34 games – finished 2-9.

The 69.8-yard average would also be the worst of Fitzgerald’s tenure by a longshot. His next-worst rushing team was the 2009 squad that averaged 117.5 yards per game. (Not surprisingly, that team also set a school record when quarterback Mike Kafka threw 78 passes in the Outback Bowl.) For comparison’s sake, his best running team, the 2012 Wildcats, ran for 225.6 yards per game, more than triple this team’s average.

Losing Larkin, an elusive back who, like Jackson, could make something out of nothing, was a big blow to the running game. His average of 4.8 yards per carry dwarfs that of any other runner: John Moten IV averages 2.5, Drake Anderson 2.4, Solomon Vault 1.4 and Isaiah Bowser 1.0. Larkin, who played in just three of six games, still has more than double the carries and four times the rushing yards as the No. 2 rusher, John Moten IV.

Further complicating matters, Fitzgerald said this week that he will continue to juggle the playing time of Anderson and Bowser, who are freshman and could retain their redshirt year if they don’t play in more than four games. That’s why, when Moten went down against Nebraska, Fitzgerald sent in walkon Chad Hanaoka in the fourth quarter. Bowser has already played in three games (and got just two carries), so he has just one game left. Anderson has three remaining.

Still, all hope is not lost for the running game. Northwestern faces a Rutgers team on Saturday that’s the worst in the Big Ten, and 121st nationally, against the rush, allowing 237.7 yards per game. That could boost the Wildcats’ average. Illinois (13th in the Big Ten) and Wisconsin (a surprising 11th) also remain on the schedule.

But even if they can’t run the ball, the Wildcats still could make some noise in the weakling West.

These last three games – against Michigan, Michigan State and Nebraska – that set the rushing bar at limbo levels? Northwestern won two of them by just throwing the ball. A lot. In wins over Michigan State and Nebraska, the Wildcats threw the ball 112 times and ran it just 43. That type of ratio will likely continue.

And if Northwestern is going to have to air it out to win, they could be a lot worse off.

First of all, the Wildcats have the No. 2 passer in the Big Ten in fifth-year senior Clayton Thorson, who is averaging 292.5 yards per game – and that’s after he split time about 50/50 with backup Trent Green for the first two games of the season as he recovered from ACL surgery. He is coming off of a career-high 455-yard outing against Nebraska and has thrown for 838 yards and six touchdowns in the last two games, when the Wildcats needed him most.

Thorson also has wide receiver Flynn Nagel to target with a lot of those passes. The senior leads the Big Ten in both receptions (8.0) and receiving yards (103.7) per game, averages that rank second and ninth in the nation, respectively. He had career-bests of 12 catches and 220 yards against the Huskers on Saturday and could be on his way to an Austin Carr-type season. Superback Cameron Green, with 30 catches for 280 yards, also ranks in the top 10 in the conference.

After last week’s dismal rushing output against Nebraska – just 31 rushing yards against a defense that had been allowing 206.0 per game – the Wildcats aren’t under any illusion that they will be successful running the ball. They will never abandon the run entirely, but their goal now should be to do just enough to slow down the opposing pass rush and let Thorson try to throw them into contention.