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Football Mon Oct 25 2010
Big Ten Football Monday: The Weekend That Was
Wisconsin won another big one, Ohio State regained dominant form and Michigan State rallied to keep its record perfect.
Come along as I rant about Kirk Ferentz's inability to grasp basic end-game strategy and review The Weekend That Was in Big Ten football (plus Notre Dame, I guess, though they're barely worth talking about this season).
Best win -- Wisconsin 31, Iowa 30
Best Bachman Turner Overdrive* -- Ohio State 49, Purdue 0
Et cetera -- Michigan State 35, Northwestern 27 ... Penn State 33, Minnesota 21 ... Illinois 43, Indiana 13 ... Navy 35, Notre Dame 17.
Sitting this one out -- Michigan
Best Charley Steiner** -- Bret Bielema, Wisconsin
We'll return momentarily to Kirk Cousins and Michigan State's game-winning drive, but it's hard to withhold this week's trophy from Bielema, whose decision to fake a fourth-quarter punt helped carry Wisconsin to a second straight season-defining win.
While Cousins' coach, Mark Dantonio, burnished his credentials as the new Les Miles with a similar fake punt in the Spartans' win at Northwestern, Bielema's call was hard to beat for its daring and verve.
The Badgers faced fourth-and-4 at their own 26-yard line with less than 6 1/2 minutes remaining, trailing 30-24 after a long Iowa drive and a Scott Tolzien interception turned into 10 points for the Hawkeyes. "Three-and-out," I wrote in my notebook, as the punt team trotted out.
I was as surprised as the Hawkeyes when punter Brad Nortman took the snap and ran 17 yards up the middle, untouched. Iowa had been sending only two punt rushers, so Wisconsin lined up in a spread formation with three personal protectors. While two of them handled the rushers, Nortman burst upfield behind the escort of 307-pound Ryan Groy, catching the rest of the Hawkeyes with their backs turned as they retreated to set up a punt return.
The drive continued. Tolzien redeemed himself with two big conversions on third-and-5 and fourth-and-5, and the Badgers, depleted by injuries to tight end Lance Kendricks, tailback James White and center Peter Konz, finished off a 15-play, 80-yard drive when third-string back Montee Ball ran 8 tough yards for a touchdown. The extra point gave them a 31-30 lead with 1:06 left.
Worst clock management -- Kirk Ferentz, Iowa
Not to focus exclusively on the head coaches, but the slugfest in Iowa City showed how individual coaching decisions can, if not directly win or lose a game, at least greatly sway a team's fortunes.
Granted: Iowa's chances for a game-winning drive were not great when Ricky Stanzi and the offense took over at their own 25 with 61 seconds and two timeouts remaining. They needed only advance 40 or 50 yards, far enough for a quality field-goal attempt, but that's a tall task for most college teams under those constraints.
Undaunted, the Hawkeyes pressed on, reaching the Wisconsin 42 when Stanzi and Marvin McNutt connected for 20 yards on third-and-21. With 14 seconds left, they used their second of three timeouts.
Iowa convened to discuss a fourth-and-1 play, during which time Ferentz and his coaches should also have made clear what they were going to do if the play was successful.
Instead, the play, a quarterback sneak, gained 3 yards, the clock pausing at 12 seconds as the officials spotted the ball and reset the chains. The Hawkeyes dithered for a moment, then called their final timeout.
After the game, Ferentz argued the timeout wasn't a big deal.
"We took the timeout," Ferentz said. "We talked about it ahead of time. Could have clocked it. Cost you a couple, three seconds there. You could flip a coin on that one. Again, I don't think it's exactly the turning point."
Disregard talk of "the turning point" as a red herring. Regardless of all the other little moments where Iowa could have won the game, Ferentz's job in this final moment was to maximize his team's chances of winning. He most clearly did not, and it worries me that he doesn't understand the simple principle at play.
On first down with 12 seconds left, time is the scarce commodity for an offense trying to score points to win the game. Downs are irrelevant; you won't have time to use them all. Spiking the ball to save time by preserving the crucial final timeout -- telling Stanzi that in the huddle before the fourth-down play -- was without question the correct play. It's science.
Why is Ferentz talking about "a couple, three seconds" as if that's a meaningless sliver of time? That's the difference between your team having another play to get closer to a potential game-winning field goal and the sorry reality that befell Iowa fans. They watched, stunned, as a renewed Wisconsin pass rush pressured Stanzi into a very bad decision: a shovel pass to tailback Adam Robinson, who scrambled toward the sideline but was tackled inbounds. The final six seconds drained sadly away.
Even with flawless clock management, the Hawkeyes might not have gained the final few yards they needed to attempt a credible field goal. Or the kick might have failed. But in bungling his timeouts, Ferentz fatally injured his team's chances to even have a shot. And what's worse, he sounds like he would do it again.
Best drive -- Kirk Cousins, Michigan State
Everyone wants to talk about Aaron Bates' latest fake-punt throw, but that fourth-down conversion and the touchdown that followed were only part of the story in Michigan State's comeback win.
The climactic winning drive came a few minutes later, with Cousins completing 7-of-8 passes for 98 yards after the Spartans took over at their own 12-yard line with 7:18 left.
Keith Nichol had two great catches on the drive, including a 14-yarder that set up fourth-and-1 at the Northwestern 30. Cousins converted the first down by hitting Charlie Gantt on a short curl pattern for 8 yards, and two plays later threw a 9-yard touchdown pass to B.J. Cunningham, who pulled in a tipped ball with his left hand while crashing to the ground.
Unsurprisingly dominant -- Ohio State
As if home-field advantage and a significant talent disparity weren't enough, the Buckeyes had emotion on their side after a loss at Wisconsin that ruined their perfect record and most likely their national title hopes.
They took it out on Purdue, striking down upon the gutsy but undermanned Boilermakers with great vengeance and furious anger before Jim Tressel sent in the scrubs midway through the third quarter. At halftime Ohio State had a 42-0 lead and advantages of 415-47 in offensive yards and 22-3 in first downs. Purdue ran only 21 plays in the half, leading to five punts and an interception.
Expect more of the same from the Buckeyes next week at Minnesota and perhaps Nov. 13 against Penn State before their big trip to Iowa on Nov. 20. If there's one thing Terrelle Pryor & Co. know how to do, it's beat up on inferior opponents.
NEXT WEEK
Worth watching -- Michigan State at Iowa
Also -- Michigan at Penn State ... Ohio State at Minnesota ... Purdue at Illinois ... Northwestern at Indiana ... Tulsa at Notre Dame.
* Bachman Turner Overdrive: "Taking care of business"
** Charley Steiner: "Follow me to freedom"
