Fall 2021 - Week 12 - at Northern Iowa

[ST_Lawson]

AT

Date/Time: Saturday, November 20 at 1 PM (Central)
Location: UNIDome, Cedar Falls, IA
Weather Forecast at Kickoff (as of 11/17): 48 degrees, mostly cloudy, 6 mph wind, 0 chance of precipitation (doesn't really matter too much since the game is inside, but for anyone traveling to the game or tailgating)

WIU Radio: Mixlr | Q98.1 (Cuba, IL)
TV/Video Stream: ESPN+
Live Stats: From UNI
Game Notes: Western Illinois | Northern Iowa (not posted yet)

Not the ideal timing for a bye-week, right at the end of the season, but it is what it is. So now we're headed into the final game of the season, and the final game of Coach Elliott's tenure here.

Northern Iowa is now 5-5 on the season with a 3-4 conference record. By the sounds of it, they still have a faint outside chance at making the playoffs this year, but they'd need a solid win over us to get there (plus a decent amount of help elsewhere around the country).They started their season with a close loss at B12 Iowa State to the tune of 16-10, then traveled to Sacramento State where they rolled to a 34-16 victory, then hosted DI newcomer St. Thomas and took an easy 44-3 win. In the MVFC, they hosted YSU, winning 34-7, lost at North Dakota State 20-34 and lost at home to South Dakota, 34-21. They then traveled to South Dakota State and earned a surprising win of 26-17 before coming back home and also beating highly-ranked SIU 23-16. They followed that up with two road losses, 17-10 at Illinois State and 34-27 at Missouri State.

Our series with UNI started back in 1967 and sees the Panthers with a 33-16 series lead, but also some pretty memorable finishes. We've lost the last two games against them (including last spring's 34-20 loss). We also seem to play pretty well against them lately when we're in Cedar Falls, as we've won 2 of the last 3 games that were there.

Looking at UNI's stats on offense, they are 7th in the conference in scoring (24.9 ppg) and 8th in total yards (346.4 ypg). On the ground, they're 8th (134.1 ypg) and a little better through the air (6th with 212.3 ypg). R. Soph QB Theo Day has been starting most of the games this season, putting up a 135.77 passer rating with 1886 yards, 14 TDs, 10 INTs, and 55.84% completion rate on 231 attempts. He averages 209.56 ypg. Top receiving targets include R. Jr. WR Isaiah Weston with 76.5 ypg and 5 TDs and Jr. WR Quan Hampton with 53.75 ypg and 2 TDs. On the ground, leaders are R. Jr. RB Dom Williams who has 51.2 ypg and 3 TDs and Grad RB Bradrick Shaw with 45.67 ypg and 3 TDs. There's also a couple of familiar names to fans of WIU football...a couple of McShane brothers. Jr. WR Deion McShane has 28 catches for 310 yards and 2 TDs this season, and R. Jr. Vance McShane (who transferred in this season from Saint Xavier of the NAIA) has run for 36.5 ypg and 4 TDs as well as catching 6 passes for 70 yards and 1 TD.

In general, the UNI defense is much stronger than the offense, holding teams to 313.5 ypg (2nd in the MVFC) while allowing 19.4 ppg (4th). Their run defense is 2nd allowing 96.2 ypg on the ground, but they're a little weaker against the pass, coming in at #5 allowing 217.3 ypg. While we have players at the #1 and #3 spots in the conference in tackles, UNI R. Jr. LB Spencer Cuvelier drops in at #2 with 75 total tackles (4 for loss), 1 forced fumble and 2 fumble recoveries. R. Sr. Jared Brinkman DL is next on the team with 62 total tackles including 11 for loss (5 sacks), 1 forced fumble and 1 recovery. He's right there with R. Jr. DB Korby Sander who also has 62 tackles, but 3 for loss and a forced fumble. Jr. DB Benny Sapp III should be a familiar name to longtime fans, as his father, Benjamin II, played at UNI about 20 years ago and played for 8 years in the NFL. The younger Sapp has 47 tackles and leads the team with 4 interceptions (tied with 3 other for the most in the conference).

You can check out UNI's full statistic ranking summary from the NCAA here.

For comparison, here's our statistic ranking summary.

Massey Ratings gives us about a 13% chance of winning the game, with a predicted score of 34-17
Sagarin lists UNI as the #101st DI team in the country, with us sitting at 174. They give us about a 9% chance of winning.

I think we have a few things in our favor this time around:

1. Coming off a bye week where hopefully any minor injuries have had a chance to heal up
2. Players might be extra motivated to send Coach Elliott off on something of a high note.
3. They don't have anything to lose in this game...if they lose, the season is over and we're looking for a new HC...if they win, the season is over and we're looking for a new HC. Might as well give it everything you've got, pull out all the stops and trick plays and see what happens.
4. We seem to play well as the "spoiler" when a team is needing a win to get into the playoffs or for good playoff position.
5. They have a weak pass defense, which is the strongest part of our offense.

Idk if that will all add up to a win for us, but it'd be nice to see. I'd love to be at the game, but I have too much other stuff going on this weekend to make the trip. Anyone heading up to Cedar Falls, I hope you cheer loudly (and have plenty of reasons to do so).
 

[sealhall74]

I took me a bit longer than expected to get the statRanker working again based on NCAA site stats vs the old Valley site stats but here it is.  Surprisingly, we are not dead last in defense rankings but pretty damn close.

http://ip-198-12-248-7.ip.secureserver. ... c/statRank

I will be tweaking the Neural Network predictor in the weeks to come.  It currently has us losing to UNI by the score 44-10.  The trial runs to date have been pretty accurate with margin differentials running about 8 points.  The better human predictors in the Pickem game are in the 12 to 13 point margin differential range.  I will also try to regenerate all weekly stats through the season so the stat trend bar charts become more meaningful.  

That puppeteer screen scraping library from Google is a Godsend.  Allows scraping stuff from highly user interactive web sites which the NCAA stat site certainly is one of.

 
 
 

[ST_Lawson]

I will be tweaking the Neural Network predictor in the weeks to come.  It currently has us losing to UNI by the score 44-10.  The trial runs to date have been pretty accurate with margin differentials running about 8 points.  The better human predictors in the Pickem game are in the 12 to 13 point margin differential range.
 

Yikes...hopefully it's not quite that bad.

[wiu712]

ESPN is advising that the game will be on ESPN 3.

[L'Étranger]

44-10 sounds about right.

There'll be plenty of room to stretch out on the way up and back.
 

[Western_101]

It's hard for me to imagine a path for UNI to get to the playoffs. Currently they are at 5 wins, with one of those being against first year Non-scholarship (as in Zero) Pioneer league Member University of St. Thomas. So the Tommies were playing non scholarship football and continue to do so. 

So that would put UNI at 4 legit D-I wins. Do they know it's over or do they think if they run up the score or a 2-8 team the committee will take notice. I just don't see a path for UNI.
 
 
 

[ST_Lawson]

Coach Don Patterson is doing color commentary for the game on TV.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rocki]

This game is ugly - for both sides.

[ST_Lawson]

This game is ugly - for both sides.
 

Absolutely.

[L'Étranger]

Did they grease the pigskin today?