EVANSTON-Here are our takeaways from Northwestern's 17-14 loss to Miami (Ohio), the Wildcats' third straight home loss.
Turnovers again told the story: Head coach Pat Fitzgerald is right about one thing: turnovers are the single biggest factor in winning football games. They certainly are in Northwestern’s case.
The Wildcats are now 1-0 when they win the turnover battle, and 0-3 when they don’t. They came out on the wrong side of the ledger again against Miami (Ohio), 2-0, and lost the game, 17-14.
Malik Washington, who led all receivers with eight catches for 81 yards, fumbled twice in the game to account for the two giveaways. One was a momentum killer that came early in the second quarter, at the Miami 24-yard line, when Northwestern was poised to take a two-score lead. The other was on Northwestern’s last offensive play, when they were in desperation mode after Miami had taken the lead with 21 seconds to go.
While a blocked punt doesn’t officially count as a turnover, it has the same effect. The Wildcats had one of those, as well, and it cost them seven points in what turned out to be a three-point game.
Northwestern is now minus-5 in turnover margin on the season.
The defense played its best game: Northwestern’s defense did its job, for the most part, holding the RedHawks to just 278 total yards and 17 points. Seven of those points were not on them, as they came after a blocked punt gave Miami the ball on the NU 8-yard line.
The Wildcats were far from perfect, and there were mitigating circumstances for their dominance through three quarters, but it was their best performance of the season so far. Holding a team to less than 300 yards should be good enough to win.
Miami had just four yards in the first quarter and 137 after three. Miami quarterback Aveon Smith, a redshirt freshman slated to be the backup this season and making his third career start, struggled all night throwing the ball, completing 7 of 19 throws for just 62 yards and one touchdown. Northwestern sacked him three times.
The Wildcats held Miami in check until the fourth quarter, when the RedHawks scored 10 points on back-to-back drives to win the game. They got their only explosive play of the night on a 66-yard run by Keyon Mozee to set up a touchdown with 7:23 left. Then, Northwestern lost contain on Smith a couple times and Mozee picked up a big third down as Miami went on a 13-play, six-minute march that featured two of their four third-down conversions and resulted in the game-winning field goal.
Fitzgerald said after the game that his defense “ran out of gas,” but cornerback Cam Mitchell refuted that. Miami held the ball for more than 32 minutes in the game.
Either way, it was Jim O’Neil’s much maligned defense’s best effort of the season.
It could have been worse: Despite being outgained 364-278, Miami had several chances to take control of the game.
Smith missed a couple open receivers for what could have been big plays that altered the complexion of the game. Miami kicker Graham Nicholson missed a field goal and had another one blocked. RedHawk defenders let a couple potential interceptions drop through their fingers. They recovered a Jacob Gill fumble that was overturned on review. They narrowly missed blocking a second punt.
As funny as it seems, the Wildcats got a couple breaks in this one that either preserved either a tie or a lead.
The punt team was a disaster: The biggest play of the game was Miami’s blocked punt at the end of the first half. Defensive end Caiden Woullard busted through the middle of the line and blocked Luke Akers’ punt deep in NU territory to give Miami the ball at the NU 8-yard line. The RedHawks scored a game-tying touchdown two plays later with just 27 seconds left in the half. It was a devastating blow for a team that was one play away from going into halftime with a seven-point lead.
Fitzgerald said he thought the problem might lie with Northwestern’s “shield blockers” in front of Akers, who were too close to the punter. Woullard was able to leap over the shield to block the punt and “that shouldn’t happen,” according to Fitzgerald.
The problem wasn’t only with the shield because in the third quarter, Miami’s Chris Cavalaris came off the edge and just missed blocking Akers’ punt from just in front of the NU end zone. Cavalaris got a hand on the punt to alter its trajectory and limit its flight to just 31 yards, but he wasn’t able to block it. If he had, it would surely have resulted in points for the RedHawks.
“Blocked punts are completely unacceptable,” said Fitzgerald.
There were no answers in the post-game press conference: Northwestern has now lost three straight home games to underdog teams. While you could argue that Duke was an even match, the Wildcats lost two games in a row, to FCS Southern Illinois and Miami from the MAC, to less talented teams.
Fitzgerald delivered the same talking points he has all season after the game, focusing mainly on turnovers and allowing explosive plays. “We continue to beat ourselves,” he said.
Fitzgerald said that he won’t push the panic button and will continue to “stay positive” with his team because they are practicing hard and he doesn’t fault their effort. Quarterback Ryan Hilinski and cornerback Cam Mitchell were unable to explain why the team has been unable to carry over its practice performance to game day.
Northwestern’s season is quickly spiraling out of control. Coming off of a 3-9 season, the Wildcats are now 1-3 and have lost the three non-conference home games that were thought of as must-wins to get back to bowl eligibility this season. Northwestern may not be favored in another game, with nothing but Big Ten teams in front of them.
Their first true road game of the season next week is a doozy: they go to 4-0, No. 14 Penn State next week and will play in front of more than 100,000 fans at Beaver Stadium.
Looking back may be worse than looking forward. Northwestern has now lost nine of its last 10 games dating back to last season. Its only win in that span came against a Nebraska team in Week 0 that has yet to beat an FBS team, and has fired both its head coach and defensive coordinator in the weeks since that loss.
