Northwestern keeps slowly getting better, but 2018 might be a transition year

Bill C’s annual preview series of every FBS team in college football continues. Catch up here!

At the end of each offseason preview series, I come up with my own master list of power rankings, then compare my thoughts to my S&P+ projections. For the most part, my brain and spreadsheets tend to agree, but I’ll find myself riding pretty hard for specific teams.

Among my preseason top 25 teams last fall were two that I expected to overachieve by at least 10 spots in the S&P+ projections: NC State and Northwestern. I was right about NC State until I was wrong — the Wolfpack began 6-1 and peaked just below the No. 17 ranking I expected but lost lost three of four late in the year and finished 38th.

For Northwestern, I was wrong until I was right. I considered the Wildcats a darkhorse Big Ten West contender, perhaps the only team that could take down Wisconsin, and that part was true — they were the only West team besides the Badgers to finish with a winning conference record. But any hope of a top-25 level went out the window almost immediately.

NU began by losing to the first three power conference teams it faced. The Wildcats got stomped by a pretty mediocre Duke and played well in spurts against Wisconsin (fourth quarter) and Penn State (first half) before losing by a combined 64-31. Heading into the second week of October, they were 2-3 and had only shown a couple hints of being a top-50 team, much less top-25.

Then they won their final eight games.

Ignoring the bowl win over Kentucky — a messy, mostly meaningless mash-up of injuries, turnovers, more injuries, and don’t-give-a-damn play-calling — Northwestern’s turnaround was a master class in the importance of the Little Things™.

Northwestern’s offense and defense improved in efficiency, yards per play, etc., but only so much. The Wildcats outgained opponents by 0.5 yards per play during their seven-game regular-season win streak, but while that’s a healthy advantage, it doesn’t tend to result in an 18-point average winning margin.

No, the win streak was a product of how drives started and finished. Northwestern went from getting dominated in the field position battle to winning it handily, and the Wildcats went from doing a better job of producing in scoring opportunities to doing a much better job.

This is just the most Pat Fitzgerald thing ever, isn’t it? Along with Kansas State’s Bill Snyder and Navy’s Ken Niumatalolo, Fitzgerald is college football’s most reliable stats-versus-scoreboard overachiever. Per S&P+, he has produced only three top-50 teams (44th in 2012, 49th in 2016, 45th in 2017), but two of the three won 10 games. Hell, a No. 57 team in 2015 also won 10.

This is both good and bad, obviously. Knowing your coach is going to deliver you about an extra win per year than stats say you deserve is a nice thing. But there is also minimal margin for error, and when you don’t create breaks for yourself, things can go awry quickly. Over the last seven seasons, for example, Northwestern has gone 10-3 three times but has also finished with a losing record three times. A bad month, a shaky position group, or a burst of injuries can make an even larger difference than it does for a normal team.

The trajectory is slow, but positive.

This ever-so-slight trend isn’t likely to abate. Fitzgerald’s success and persona have led to an improved infrastructure in Evanston, and while it won’t matter for another year, let’s just say that the addition of a five-star quarterback transfer won’t tamp down expectations.

Any trends are long-term, though. In the short-term, we’re talking about a team that should rank about 40th, and while that’s typically all Fitzgerald needs to make a run at 10 wins, a schedule that features four projected top-12 opponents might have something to say about that.

When Northwestern was rolling last year, the offense was still only so good. The Wildcats avoided negative plays (on the ground, anyway), created third-and-manageables, moved the chains a couple of times to flip the field, and punted.

There were minimal big plays (they were 120th in IsoPPP, which measures the magnitude of your successful plays), and there was only temporary efficiency. It worked because the defense was so good.

This dynamic probably won’t change in 2018. For starters, the defense might be awesome again, and with a seasoned offensive line (seven players, including four seniors, have combined for 103 starts), the run blocking should be rather glitch-free again.

One big name will change. Justin Jackson, a workhorse back with an old-school carry count (22.4 carries and 2.4 receptions per game over four years), finally graduated, leaving behind a talented but green corps of backs.

Sophomore Jeremy Larkin is the heir apparent, but he’ll have help. He rushed 84 times for 503 yards last fall, topping Jackson’s efficiency and explosiveness (Jackson’s durability was a skill of sorts, but he wasn’t exceptionally proficient). Better yet, he didn’t rack up stats against lesser opponents like a lot of freshmen do — he went from averaging 4.2 yards per carry over his first eight games to 7.7 in his last five. That’s how you set a pretty high bar for your first year as a starter.

Larkin could have some intriguing backups, too, in junior John Moten IV, sophomore Jesse Brown (who gained 98 yards and scored twice in just 10 carries), and incoming freshman Isaiah Bowser. So Larkin won’t automatically have to take on a load of 20-plus carries per game. He also might not have to if it turns out there’s efficiency in the passing game, too.

I was disappointed with Clayton Thorson’s junior-year output. A starter since the beginning of his redshirt freshman season, the former four-star raised his passer rating from a ghastly 95.9 in 2015 to a reasonable 125.9 as a sophomore. But after losing receiver Austin Carr, he slipped back to 121.3 last fall. He dominated Bowling Green and Nevada (51-for-68, 722 yards, four touchdowns, one interception) but was mediocre against actual P5 competition — his rating was under 105 in six of the other 11 games.

The main problem was a lack of explosiveness. NU ranked 51st in passing success rate — decent, not great — but only 127th in passing IsoPPP. And once the Wildcats were behind schedule, the drive was over: Thorson was just 28-for-59 with one touchdown, three interceptions, and a 98.7 passer rating on third-and-7 or more, and NU was a wretched 113th in Passing Downs S&P+.

For the most part, coordinator Mick McCall tries to keep his quarterback out of obvious-pass situations. Northwestern ran just 54 percent of the time on standard downs (6 percentage points below the national average) but 40 percent on passing downs (5 percentage points above). Leading receivers Bennett Skowronek and Flynn Nagel combined to catch 47 balls on first down, 27 on second, and just 15 on third.

McCall wants to give Thorson easy shots on early downs, and without Jackson, that will continue. But if turns out the young running backs are any less reliable, Thorson might have to carry more of a load, as might Skowronek and Nagel.

There’s decent depth. Riley Lees caught 18 balls for 235 yards as the leader of a quartet of freshmen (along with Ramaud Chiaokhiao-Bowman, Jace James, and Kyric McGowan, who combined for 10 catches), and NU only got a combined four games out of two speedy, injured options — return man Solomon Vault and Oregon transfer Jalen Brown. Plus, junior Cameron Green did a decent job in backing up superback (what NU calls the H-back, more or less) Garrett Dickerson and should be ready to succeed him.

Northwestern is still looking up at the rest of the country in terms of passing rankings. Unless Larkin is Jackson Incarnate or better (and he might be), NU might lean on the pass more, for better or worse.

Northwestern’s offense averaged 4.5 points per scoring opportunity (trips inside the opponent’s 40) in 2017, an unspectacular number.

Opponents averaged just 3.5 points per trip and 3.0 during the season-ending eight-game win streak.

That means opponents needed three scoring chances to score what NU was in two.

When you combine that with the field position advantage over the second half of the year, well, that’s one hell of a tilted filed Northwestern was creating for itself.

It’s also coordinator Mike Hankwitz’s m.o. The Wildcats ranked sixth in points allowed per scoring opportunity last year after ranking eighth in 2016 and sixth the year before that. A Hankwitz defense is solid between the 20s and truly elite when it matters the most.

I spoke about this with Hankwitz for a piece in the 2017 Athlon preview.

“We talk about it all the time,” Hankwitz says: “Field goals aren’t going to beat you very often. So when we get inside the 12, that’s when we go to our more specific coverage. We try to practice that specific situation.

“That’s a big-time win if you hold them to a field goal,” he continues. “Offenses are going to get down into the scoring area [in today’s college football], but we know we need to win the red zone. Just because they’ve gotten down there doesn’t mean they’re going to score. Field goals are psychological, too — ‘We’ve gotten down there three times, and we only got nine points?’”

Safe to say, NU will have a psychological advantage on opposing offenses again this year, too. The Wildcats return seven of eight primary linemen and five of seven linebackers. And while departed tackle Tyler Lancaster (9.5 tackles for loss) was very valuable, the three most disruptive players in the front seven are back: end Joe Gaziano (12.5 TFLs, nine sacks, five breakups, four forced fumbles) and linebackers Paddy Fisher and Nate Hall (combined: 25.5 TFLs, five sacks, 12 passes defensed, four FFs).

NU was 20th in Rushing S&P+, and you figure this year’s unit will be as good or better. But despite continuity in the secondary, the Cats slipped from ninth to 62nd in Passing S&P+.

Even with the key components of the pass rush returning, there’s no guarantee of a bounce back with what is now a pretty thinned-out secondary.

Hankwitz must replace his top two safeties (Godwin Igwebuike and Kyle Queiro) and a decent cornerback in Marcus McShephard. NU is probably fine at corner thanks to senior Montre Hartage and juniors Alonzo Mayo and Trae Williams, but safety has to be a concern — one good way to score against even a great red zone defense is via big play, right?

NU’s field position dominance was confounding because the Wildcats were far from dominant in special teams. They ranked just 77th in Special Teams S&P+, dragged down by poor kickoff coverage and an uneventful return game. Place-kicker Charlie Kuhbander was excellent for a freshman, and punter Hunter Niswander did his job, but Niswander’s gone.

Solomon Vault is back to return kickoffs — he averaged 25 yards per return with three scores in 2015-16. And WKU grad transfer Jake Collins, who produced nearly identical numbers to Niswander, is in to take over there. With Kuhbander back as well, that could make this at least a top-50 unit.

For two straight years, Northwestern has been shaky out of the gates — the Wildcats began 2016 1-3 with a bad loss to Illinois State, then started last year 2-3.

Whatever the team’s goals are this fall, another poor start would probably doom them. NU begins with a pair of virtual tossups — at Purdue in week one (S&P+ win probability: 52 percent) and Duke at home (57 percent). S&P+ favors NU in only five games the rest of the way, so an 0-2 start would mean not only a conference loss but also a scramble for bowl eligibility.

A 2-0 start, on the other hand, would set the table for a pair of huge games: Michigan on September 28 and at Michigan State on October 5.

Northwestern is just cruising right along, alternating between place-holder years and 10-win seasons. I’m thinking more former than latter here, but if the pass defense withstands some turnover and the passing game improves, more is on the table.

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