WIU @ Northwestern - 9/20

Western_101 · Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:00 pm

BobLovely wrote:
RedNeck wrote:Macomb: population 20,000..........Amtrak service? Yes.

Peoria Metro: population 380,000...Amtrak service? No.

Way to go Peoria. Every significant metro in the State has Amtrak service except Peoria. (Decatur has no Amtrak......ADM recently has moved their Headquarters from Decatur to Chicago)

Peoria is the 2nd Biggest Metropolitan area in the State of Illinois outside of Chicago and it has no Amtrak. Metro East is first outside of Chicago.
When Peoria had the Peoria Rocket the train service was not supported with ridership:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_Marksman

Bob

Thanks for the 34 year old information. Train ridership across the country has increased enormously since the early 1980's. Ridership of amtrak in general was not very high in 1981.

Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:50 pm

WIU0812 wrote:[website]http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140408/News/140409198[/website]

This would be pretty nice. Currently if I wanted to take the train to Champaign, for example, I'd have to go all the way up to Chicago, get on another line and head down to Champaign (I wouldn't, I'd just drive, but this is just an example). With this, someone could take the train to Galesburg, then get on the East-West route down to Peoria, Bloomington-Normal and then Champaign. I wonder if it'd be worth it to continue it along I-74 at some point all the way to Indy?

There's also work being done on a branch of the Chicago->Galesburg section, where the line will branch off near Princeton or Kewanee and head on over to the Quad Cities. It was supposed to extend to Iowa City, Des Moines and possibly along to Omaha, but the Iowa government turned it down.

WIU0812 · Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:01 pm

Any guess as to this weeks score? I am predicting a loss at 21-17

Wed Sep 17, 2014 9:32 am

They're talking about us some now over at Northwestern's Rivals site (the best message board of theirs that I was able to find).
Should we be worried about Western?

Looks like the thoughts on the game range from "They are bad. This game shouldn't even be competitive." to "I will be very surprised if we win this game, based on the past 2 games and the end of last year."
I think most of them are like "well, we should beat them....but the way we've been playing...nothing is a guarantee".
Also, comparisons to their game last year against Maine (also FCS team) who they beat 35-21.

If we play like we did last year against Minnesota or the first half against Wisconsin this year...we have a good shot at keeping it close (and possibly winning).
If we play like we did last year against UNLV....not so much.

WIU0812 · Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:11 am

ST_Lawson wrote:They're talking about us some now over at Northwestern's Rivals site (the best message board of theirs that I was able to find).
Should we be worried about Western?

Looks like the thoughts on the game range from "They are bad. This game shouldn't even be competitive." to "I will be very surprised if we win this game, based on the past 2 games and the end of last year."
I think most of them are like "well, we should beat them....but the way we've been playing...nothing is a guarantee".
Also, comparisons to their game last year against Maine (also FCS team) who they beat 35-21.

If we play like we did last year against Minnesota or the first half against Wisconsin this year...we have a good shot at keeping it close (and possibly winning).
If we play like we did last year against UNLV....not so much.

Completely agree this game is about coming out and thinking we can win this, but knowing that this will be a huge uphill battle and just because they are not as good as Wisconsin does not mean they can't beat us worse than Wisconsin did. Hopefully mistakes are few and far between and simple effective plays are used often. Also, Norvell has got to get in the game and make a big impact. We need our QB in games like this to be throwing upwards of 250 if we want to win this game.

rocki · Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:31 am

So, who are we using besides JC Baker to really move the ball on the ground? With Nikko out, I'd think that has to be a major hole.

Also, after talking to someone who was at last week's game, is part of the reason Norvell isn't passing as much because of the problems with the snaps from center?

WIU0812 · Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:48 am

Running game Depth is as follows:

-JC Baker 5'8" 180 Lb Senior
-Kyle Hammonds 5'7" 165 Lb Junior
-Devon Moore 6'2" 220 Lb Sophmore(This kid has shown some real potential and I think he will make an excellent player in future.)
-Devon Sanders 5'9" 185 Lb Redshirt Freshman
-Brock Broughton 5'11" 190 Lb Freshman (He is being redshirted to my knowledge, but was one of our top recruits. Expect big things!)
-Drew Patterson 6'0" 210 Lb Freshman (He is also being redshirted to my knowledge, I read an article where this kid was the surprise of the allstar game and was turning heads of FBS schools who had passed over him. Should be a very interesting combo in a few years!)

Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:49 am

Yea, they may not be a very good team right now, but they're still a Big 10 team, and any Big 10 team is going to be better than most FCS teams. We gotta treat this like a game against NDSU, SDSU, or any other good FCS team. Personally, I think NDSU is a bit better than Northwestern is at this point, but Northwestern is going to have depth like we don't normally see in the FCS.

rocki · Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:55 am

Just doesn't seem like anyone besides JC has a lot of ability yet. Don't get me wrong, he's good, but when he gets shut down, we're in trouble.

DADfan · Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:40 am

rocki wrote:So, who are we using besides JC Baker to really move the ball on the ground? With Nikko out, I'd think that has to be a major hole.

Also, after talking to someone who was at last week's game, is part of the reason Norvell isn't passing as much because of the problems with the snaps from center?

No, not at all....... Both interceptions and Wisco were wrong routes from the receivers...... Which was confirmed by WR post game.