TCU (10-2) vs. Northern Illinois (7-5)
Dec. 19, 8 p.m. ESPN2
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Poinsettia Bowl Player
Profile: TCU QB Jeff Ballard, history and more
After almost three weeks off, the
college football world gears it up again with the first bowl game of
the season, and it might not be that bad if Northern Illinois plays
like it did over the final two games of the season, and if TCU cools
off a little bit.
The Horned Frogs had one of the nation's hottest teams over the
second half of the season winning seven straight including dominant
performances over San Diego State, Colorado State and Air Force by a
combined score of 132 to 28. With the nation's best defense's and a
red-hot Jeff Ballard at quarterback, everything was clicking in
November.
|
|
National
Rankings |
|
TCU |
No.
Illinois |
|
Total Offense |
|
17th 404.50 ypg |
24th 388,5 ypg |
|
Total Defense |
|
4th 249.50 ypg |
80th 357.08 ypg |
|
Scoring Offense |
|
33rd 28.58 ppg |
42nd 27 ppg |
|
Scoring Defense |
|
5th 12.75 ppg |
42nd 19.83 ppg |
|
Run Offense |
|
9th 194.33 ypg |
17th 180.17 ypg |
|
Run Defense |
|
4th 67.58 ypg |
34th 115.58 ypg |
|
Pass Offense |
|
49th 210.17 ypg |
50th 208.33 ypg |
|
Pass Defense |
|
34th 189.92 ypg |
104th 241.50 ypg |
|
Turnover Margin |
|
27th 0.50 |
43rd 0.25 |
|
TCU
at Baylor
W 17-7
UC Davis
W 46-13
Texas Tech W 12-3
BYU
L 31-17
at Utah L 20-7
at Army
W 31-17
Wyoming
W 26-3
at UNLV
W 25-10
at N Mexico
W 27-21
San Diego St
W 52-0
at Col St W 45-14
Air Force
W 38-14 |
Northern
Illinois
at Ohio St L 35-12
Ohio
L 35-23
Buffalo
W 31-13
Indiana St
W 48-14
at Ball St
W 40-28
at Miami U. W 28-25
at W Mich
L 16-14
Temple
W 45-21
at Iowa L 24-14
Toledo
L 17-13
C Mich
W 31-10
at E Mich
W 27-0 |
|
Position
Ratings
relative to each
other |
|
TCU |
5
highest
1 lowest |
NIU |
|
4.5 |
Quarterbacks |
3 |
|
4.5 |
RBs |
5 |
|
3 |
Receivers |
3 |
|
4 |
O
Line |
3.5 |
|
4 |
D
Line |
3.5 |
|
4.5 |
Linebackers |
3 |
|
4 |
Secondary |
2 |
|
4 |
Spec
Teams |
4 |
|
4.5 |
Coaching |
4 |
|
Last year at
this time, TCU was even hotter winning ten straight after an
early-season loss to SMU, and has now won 20 of its last 22 games.
Early-season losses to BYU in Utah killed any chances to win the
Mountain West title, but with a win over the Huskies, this will be
the programs third 11-win season in four years.
Northern Illinois was one of the bigger disappointments to start the
season with a what seemed at the time to be a bad lost Ohio, who
ended up playing for the MAC championship. However, outside of 17-13
loss to Toledo in early November, NIU beat the teams it was supposed
to on the way to its second bowl game in three years and the third
in the program's history.
One of the hot programs early on because of the rushing of senior
back Garrett Wolfe, the national spotlight was on DeKalb before
Western Michigan shut down the diminutive star beginning a slide of
four straight average games to kill all the sleeper-Heisman talk.
Even so, Wolfe finished the year as the nation's leading rusher with
1,900 yards and on the doorstep of a 2,000-yard season if he can
somehow get by the nation's fourth best run defense.
The Horned Frogs played a stunningly lifeless home game against BYU
in late September and played poorly with three turnovers against
Utah the week after. While their seven-game winning streak looks
impressive on paper, only one win came over bowl-bound team, a
mediocre 6-6 New Mexico squad. Even so, is shown by an
impressive 12-3 win over Texas Tech earlier in the year, this team
does have the talent to play with the better teams in America.
While it would be nice to see what this team could do against a top
BCS conference caliber team, Northern Illinois will have to do.
The MAC could use this win over the Mountain West. Always striving
for national respect, NIU and its league can make some big noise in,
arguably, the most important game in the school's history.
Since this is the first bowl game of the season, the national
spotlight will be on Joe Novak and his program. Wolfe can make a big
statement for the NFL scouts, NIU can show it can beat a top
25-caliber team, and this could set the tone for 2007 when the
Huskies should be a favorite to win the MAC title.
Let's just hope this isn't a blowout. No one wants one of the most
wonderful times of the sports season to begin with a thud.
Players to watch: TCU senior QB Jeff Ballard was the
nation's best quarterback over the last three games of the season
completing 58 of 74 passes (78%) for 760 yards and seven touchdowns
with no interceptions. In fact, he is imported interception in his
last five games. However, he wasn't always hot over the recent TCU
winning streak completing just six of 16 passes for 25 yards in a
27-21 win over New Mexico. It's not quite right to call him streaky,
but he will occasionally fall into a rut. That's when the defense
has to help out the cause.
TCU DE Tommy Blake is one of the premier pass rushers in the
Mountain West and should wreak havoc on the Northern Illinois
backfield. While he wasn't quite the sack artist he was in 2005, he
was still a disruptive force all season long forcing teams to
double-team him and pay full attention at all times. That helped
free things up for Chase Ortiz, who's also quick playmaker in
the backfield.
To have a chance, the Northern Illinois offensive line has to
dominate from the start. While it had a decent year, it was hardly
the rock-solid front five of years past. Even so, OT Doug Free
had a typical all-star season as he stayed in the hunt for first
round NFL draft pick consideration. A freak of nature at 6-7 and
over 300 pounds with tight end athleticism, he'll be a
multimillionaire next year at this time.
Of course, all eyes will be on Garrett Wolfe. The senior got
his groove back over the final two games of the season rushing
for 203 yards against Central Michigan 164 against Eastern Michigan.
For the Huskies to win, or at least have a shot, Wolfe has to rush
for well over 100 yards and score at least twice. If he has the
holes to run through, he'll crank out five, seven, ten yards a
crack, but if the passing game isn't working and the TCU linebackers
are able to cheat up, he'll see a repeat of the October/early
November four-game stretch when he ran for a total of 190 yards.
That's why ...
TCU will win if... it's able to force Northern Illinois to
win through the air. That's easier said than done if the Huskie
offensive line gets into a lather early and Wolfe starts to roll,
but the Horned Frogs will likely sell out to stop Wolfe and force
NIU QB Dan Nicholson to move the offense. NIU starting quarterback
Phil Horvath went down for the year with a knee injury against
Central Michigan, and while Nicholson, who was one of the surprises
of 2005 when he filled in for an injured Horvath, he struggled a bit
against Eastern Michigan's porous secondary throwing three
interceptions along with two touchdown passes. The TCU secondary was
only lit up by BYU's John Beck this season holding Texas Tech to 204
passing yards. NIU can't win if the ground game doesn't work.
Northern Illinois will win if... it takes
advantage of every mistake and every turnover. The Horned Frogs are
good for at least one fumble having put on the ground 13 times over
the final nine games of the season. The Huskies don't have the
manpower or the overall talent to run and play with TCU is all
things are even, so they must be nearly perfect, they have to
control the tempo and the time of possession, and the pass defense
has to play out of its skull after getting systematically torched
all season long.
What will happen: This is not a good match for Northern
Illinois. The corners are way too soft and don't take advantage of
the pressure created by the defensive front. Decent quarterbacks
have been able to dink and dunk the Huskies to death, and Ballard
will be no different. It's the 101st defense in the nation in pass
efficiency defense against one of the nation's most efficient
passers over the last several weeks. The layoff isn't long enough
for Ballard to get rusty.
Line: TCU -13 ... CFN Prediction:
TCU
38 ... Northern Illinois 14
Poinsettia Bowl
Player Profile: TCU QB Jeff Ballard, history and more