In their 44-29 victory over Indiana Saturday, Northwestern had an extremely balanced attack on offense: accruing 310 yards passing and 394 yards rushing (704 overall on 93 plays). The first and only 700 yard total offense day in school history just says so much about how a very bad Hoosier defense was just so over-matched all day.
Quarterback 1a/wide receiver Kain Colter scored 4 touchdowns and had nearly 100 yards rushing, and over 100 yards receiving after just three quarters. He finished with 161 yards on the ground and 131 receiving. He only threw 1-3 for 2 yards, 1 interception. But his lack of pass attempts was more the flow of the game, not by design.
“Trust me, we believe in Kain as a thrower,” said NU coach Pat Fitzgerald.
“I don’t think anyone’s doing in the conference right now,” Fitz continued.
Getting Colter extended time at receiver had been planned for awhile, and it was impressive that this plot was kept secret long enough for it to take IU by surprise this week.
“This is something we’ve been preparing for, and we decided to bring it out this week and the coaches had a great game plan and we executed it,” said Colter.
Quarterback 1b Trevor Siemian went 22-32 passing for 308 yards, no TDs , one pick. Colter was his go to guy and Siemian found him open early and often on third down.
“He did a good job shaking loose and beating his guy, and they didn’t have an answer for him all day,” Siemian said of Colter.
“These last few weeks we started to do better in the red zone, we just executed better these last couple weeks, and took advantage of our opportunities,” Colter said of the ‘Cats increased red zone efficiency.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, an official Google News site generating millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Chicago Tribune.com, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports
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