2008 Valero Alamo Bowl
Northwestern (9-3) at Missouri (9-4)
Dec. 29, 8:00 p.m. ET, ESPN
Payout:
$2.25 million Location: Alamodome, San Antonio, TX
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2008 Alamo Bowl
Player Profiles, Histories, & More
 |
|
National
Rankings |
|
Missouri |
Northwestern |
|
Total Offense |
|
6th 497.46 ypg |
62nd 209.42 ypg |
|
Total Defense |
|
99th 414.23 ypg |
51st 343 ypg |
|
Scoring Offense |
|
6th 497.46 ppg |
75th 24.50 ppg |
|
Scoring Defense |
|
74th 27.54 ppg |
23rd 19.33 ppg |
|
Run Offense |
|
52nd 157.08 ypg |
59th 147.58 ypg |
|
Run Defense |
|
37th 128.92 ypg |
34th 127.67 ypg |
|
Pass Offense |
|
4th 340.38 ypg |
63rd 209.42 ypg |
|
Pass Defense |
|
117th 285.31 ypg |
73rd 215.33 ypg |
|
Turnover Margin |
|
71st -0.15 |
85th -0.42 |
|
Missouri
Illinois W
52-42
SE Miss St
W 52-3
Nevada W
69-17
Buffalo W
42-21
at Neb
W 52-17
Okla St L
28-23
at Texas L 56-31
Colorado W
58-0
at Baylor W 31-28
Kansas St W
41-24
at Iowa St W
52-20
Kansas L
40-37
Dec. 6 Big 12 Champ
Oklahoma L 62-21 |
Northwestern
Syracuse W 30-10
at Duke W 24-20
So Illinois
W 33-7
Ohio W 16-8
at Iowa W 22-17
Michigan St L 37-20
Purdue W 48-26
at Indiana L
21-19
at Minn. W 24-17
Ohio State L 45-10
at Michigan W 21-14
Illinois W 27-10 |
|
Position
Ratings
relative to each
other |
|
M |
5
highest
1 lowest |
N |
|
5 |
Quarterbacks |
3.5 |
|
4 |
RBs |
4 |
|
5 |
Receivers |
3 |
|
4 |
O
Line |
4 |
|
4 |
D
Line |
4.5 |
|
4 |
Linebackers |
3.5 |
|
2 |
Secondary |
3.5 |
|
4.5 |
Spec
Teams |
3 |
|
4 |
Coaching |
3.5 |
|
By
Pete
Fiutak
C’mon, Northwestern. Let’s bring
the A game into the bowl season.
The Alamo Bowl is almost always
bad team-proof with a terrific
last three games and five of the
last seven games decided by
seven points or fewer. Before
that run, Northwestern got
blasted by Nebraska 66-17 in the
2000 Alamo Bowl. That wasn’t an
aberration for the Wildcats.
Northwestern, since becoming
part of the program in 1995, is
0-5 in bowl games losing them by
a combined score of 233 to 139,
or an average of 47 to 28. From
a Rose Bowl loss to USC and a
Citrus Bowl embarrassment
against Peyton Manning and
Tennessee, to a Motor City Bowl
loss to Bowling Green and a
blasting from UCLA in the 2005
Sun Bowl, Northwestern’s little
engine that could always
sputters at the top of the
mountain.
For Missouri, this game marks
the end of the wildly successful
Chase Daniel era that brought 29
wins and two Big 12 North titles
in the last three seasons. Under
Daniel’s reign, the Tigers have
won two of their last three bowl
games with the one loss a late
collapse to Oregon State (not
Daniel’s fault) in the 2006 Sun
Bowl. Not since a run from 1978
to 1981 has Missouri had this
kind of bowl success, and those
teams weren’t anywhere near as
good as this current group.
The 2008 Mizzou season, at least
until now, can be described as a
successful failure considering a
BCS game and a Big 12 title were
the stated goals. The Tigers got
the North title without too much
of a problem, but a home loss to
Oklahoma State made them, when
the season finally shook out,
the fifth best team in the
league behind the four big teams
from the South.
With a loss to Kansas in a game
that really didn’t matter
outside of rivalry pride, the
one good win on the schedule
turned out to be against
Nebraska. Beating Illinois
didn’t turn out to be that big a
deal, and the only other
victories worthy of notice were
a blowout of Nevada and a 42-21
win over Buffalo, the eventual
MAC champion. Considering what
the team was supposed to do
coming into the season, anything
less than a dominant performance
against the Wildcats would be
seen as a major letdown.
On the flip side, no matter what
happens in this game for
Northwestern, it has been a
tremendously successful season.
Head coach Pat Fitzgerald has
grown into the job after
spending the last two years
learning the ropes. He’s been
better in game management and
for dealing with on-field
adversity, and he nailed the two
very big, somewhat controversial
off-season moves he had to make
this off-season.
Fitzgerald brought in Mick
McCall, an inventive offensive
mind from Bowling Green, to add
a little more zip to the
offense, and he snapped up
defensive coordinator Mike
Hankwitz, who was canned by Bret
Bielema at Wisconsin, to attack
more on defense. The jury is
still out
on McCall, who likes to get the
ball out of the quarterback’s
hands as quickly as possible,
but Hankwitz has been a find.
The veteran defensive
coordinator made Northwestern’s
pass rush the best in the Big
Ten while the D, as a whole,
allowed an average of just 19
points per game.
This is still Northwestern, so
any win is a good win, but there
were only two wins over teams
that are going bowling, Iowa and
Minnesota, and there was an ugly
loss to the worst team in the
Big Ten by far, Indiana. Even
so, the Wildcats got screwed in
the bowl pecking order finishing
fourth in the standings with a
better record than Iowa, and
with a head-to-head win, but the
Hawkeyes are playing South
Carolina on New Year’s Day in
the Outback Bowl. Now
Northwestern has to prove that
the bowl types got it wrong.
The Wildcat offense has to show
it can keep up the pace if
Missouri’s high-powered attack
gets hot early on, while the
Tiger offense has to show it can
handle the Northwestern pass
rush. Will Missouri go through
the motions and be a bit
half-hearted in a non-New Year’s
Day game, or will the team try
to make a statement? Will
Northwestern come up with a
magical performance against a
team with far, far superior
offensive talent?
This has the potential of being
a nightmare if Missouri plays up
to its full capability and
Northwestern gets all
Northwesterny in the spotlight
of a truly big game, but at
worst, this will either be a
chance to see the Chase Daniel
show one more time, or it’ll be
a chance to see Northwestern
pull off one of the biggest wins
in school history. It’s the
Alamo Bowl; it has to be good …
right?
Players to watch:
The Wildcats get their main
playmaker back. The running game
had to get creative after losing
Tyrell Sutton to a hand
injury and with Omar Conteh
getting knocked out for the
year with a knee injury, but now
Sutton is back. He ran for 776
yards and six touchdowns and
caught 30 passes for 276 yards
and two scores before missing
all of November. Northwestern
was able to win two of the final
three games without Sutton, but
he’s desperately needed in the
attack to have any chance
against Mizzou.
Looking to stop Sutton and keep
the Northwestern running game in
check will be junior LB Sean
Weatherspoon and all-star
safety William Moore.
Moore was the only unanimous
All-Big 12 selection on the
defense, and while the Tiger
secondary struggled all season
long, he had a big year with 83
tackles with an interception and
five broken up passes. A certain
starter the NFL next year, he’s
a big hitter who should be a
huge factor against the mediocre
Wildcat passing game.
The star against the run will be
Weatherspoon, a tackling machine
with 271 stops in the last two
years and a team-leading three
interceptions this season.
Granted, all three picks were in
the first two games, with two
going for touchdowns, but he’s
been a force all season long
highlighted by a 20-tackle game
against Buffalo and a 12-stop
performance in the loss to OU.
6-7, 270-pound senior DE
Corey Wootton finally lived
up to his immense potential this
year as an unstoppable pass
rushing force for the Wildcats.
He consistently produced
throughout the year with a sack
in each of the last five games
and nine on the season with 15
tackles for loss. The first team
All-Big Ten selection has to get
pressure on Daniel from the
start to help out a secondary
that gives up 215 yards per
game.
While Daniel and Mackey Award
winning tight end Chase
Coffman are seniors playing
their final games, but
third-year sophomore Jeremy
Maclin will have a big
decision to make. An
almost-certain top 50 pick if he
comes out early, the star
receiver, who fought through
ankle problems to catch 95
passes for 1,221 yards and 12
touchdowns this year, might be
playing his last game in a Tiger
uniform. One of the nation’s
elite all-around playmakers, he
continues to be an elite kick
and punt returner averaging 24
yards per kickoff and over nine
yards per punt try.
Missouri will win if...
the takeaways start flowing.
Missouri hasn’t been great this
year when it comes to turnover
margin, but Northwestern is
consistent at giving the ball
away with at least one turnover
in every game but early wins
against Duke and Southern
Illinois and two or more
turnovers in eight games.
However, the Wildcats really had
problems in the three losses,
turning it over five times
against Indiana, three times
against Ohio State and twice
against Michigan State.
Northwestern doesn’t have the
team to beat Missouri straight
up; it needs to be + 2 in
turnover margin to win this.
Northwestern will win if...
it can get to Daniel. Missouri’s
offensive line doesn’t give up a
ton of sacks, partly because
Daniel is great at getting rid
of the ball and partly because
he’s just mobile enough to avoid
the rush and make plays outside
of the pocket, but that doesn’t
mean good defensive lines can’t
get to him. Oklahoma State took
Daniel out of his comfort zone
and forced mistakes. Oklahoma
was able to hit him all game
long. Northwestern has the pass
rush and the line to get into
the backfield, and it has to get
to Daniel early to throw off the
timing of the attack. If Daniel
gets three seconds to throw,
expect a blowout.
What will happen:
Missouri will get out to an
early lead and Northwestern will
have to bomb its way back. QB
C.J. Bacher will have one of
his better passing games of the
season as he throws for well
over 300 yards to make this
interesting, and then Daniel and
the Tiger offense will pull away
with a good balance and a big
play from Maclin.
Line: Missouri -13
... CFN Prediction:
Missouri 41 … Northwestern
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2008 Alamo Bowl
Player Profiles, Histories, & More