Time to move on in our offseason previews and wrap up the final game of our Big 10 trilogy.  This week’s opponent is last year’s opening game foe, the Northwestern Wildcats.

What we know:

The Wildcats return 14 starters (5 offense, 8 defense, punter) on a team that went 9-4 last year. In addition to the 30-10 win over us in the opener, the Wildcats took down Duke, Southern Ill, Ohio, Iowa, Purdue, Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois. The four losses were to Michigan St, Indiana, Ohio St and in the Alamo Bowl versus Missouri.

Northwestern has a real chance at improving on last year’s 5-3 conference record as they don’t have to face either of Ohio St or Michigan.   Penn St and Wisconsin both travel to Northwestern where the hopes of a possible upset are highest.

Spring Developments:

If there is a reason to optimistic for the Cats, its that they return the bulk of a defense that finished 26th in scoring and 34th against the run. Led by DE Corey Wootten, who terrorized the Cuse and Corey Chavers, the defense should be a sign of strength, provided that Wootten’s recovery from knee surgery stays on schedule.  The secondary returns intact and is led by safety Brad Phillips who made 109 tackles last year.

On offense, CJ Bacher, Tyrell Sutton and the WR core must be replaced. Mike Kafka is an experienced SR who will step in at QB. Expect Kafka to make some plays with his legs as much as with his arm. On the ground, it looks like the ball caring could be handled by a RBBC approach, with Alex Daniel handling the tough yards and Stephen Simmons could be the pass catching slasher. The good news is that four fifths of the OL is intact from last year’s team.

Here are some spring game highlights compliments of the Big 10 network:

The chattering masses:

The most active blog can be found at LakeThePosts.  Here is their spring game wrap-up.

Big 10 Network’s preview of Northwestern can be found below

Why we can win:

This is the first game of what will end up being a 6 game home stand.  Last year’s game was a hotly contested affair, with Syracuse actually leading 10-9 in the 3rd quarter.  While it seemed that Northwestern was in control offensively, there will be concerns this year because of the inexperience at the skill positions, especially WR.  Northwestern also struggled on the road last year, eking out a win at Duke but succumbing to Indiana.

Why we can lose:

The biggest concern for the Orange will be penetrating the Wildcat defense.  SU had no answer for them last year and Wootten could be even more dangerous this season.  Last year’s game swung on the big Andrew Robinson INT for a touchdown on a jumped route by Brendan Smith.  The Orange died on their inability to stretch the field.  Having Mike Williams will certainly help keep things honest, but a vanilla offense and weak OL play will spell trouble.

The Pick:

We should have decent handle on the DM era after the first two games.  Of course as of right now I have no such idea of how or where we will be at this stage.  I would like to believe that even with the latest round of defections, this should still be a better football team, although dangerously thin at several key spots.   I think the game will hinge on how effective Northwesterns’ playmakers can be.  This will be their first real test of the season.  I’d like to think that our offense will have had its QB situation settled enough by this game to see some results of improvement.  This should be another close tense game.  A game that will swing on a big play – maybe a Bob Casullo led special teams play?  I think this could very well be Coach Marrone’s first win.  Color this one Orange – 19-13!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 8:03 pm by LvilleOrange . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.