Leatherneck Nation

Well....(sigh)

Up next is Northern Iowa.
Kickoff is scheduled for 1 PM, Saturday, October 25th.
Currently, weather forecast says mid-70s and sunny for Saturday.

Northern Iowa, despite being highly ranked in the early season, hasn't exactly performed up to expectations. They are currently 3-4 (1-2 in the conference). They have wins against Northern Colorado (46-7), Tennessee Tech (50-7) and South Dakota (27-16). They performed well in losses against FBS teams Iowa (31-23) and Hawaii (27-24), but have also lost in conference against Indiana State (20-19) and South Dakota State (31-28).
No common opponents yet. According to the Massey Composite rankings, UNI is 19th in the FCS and we are 30th. Other recent opponents: NDSU is #1, YSU is #11, ISUr is #2...so, according to those rankings, at least, UNI should be an easier game than any of our last three games. Massey has UNI currently as a 3 point favorite.

Looking at the statistical rankings for UNI, nothing really jumps out at me too much actually. So far this year they're pretty well in the middle of the conference for most statistics. They do have a good front line defense, being #1 in the conference for both Sacks and Tackles for Loss. On the flip side, though, they are the #10 (last) in the conference for Tackles for Loss Allowed against their offense. They sack a lot, but they also get sacked a lot. They are 3rd in the conference in scoring offense and 4th in scoring defense.

Our offense has shown that they can put up points (34 against the 4th best defense in the country). The defense has shown that they can shut down a primarily running offense. They do, however, have a bad tendency to give up lots of yardage through the air, which is what teams seem to discover at some point in the 3rd quarter and they're able to pick us apart after that.

I'm not even going to attempt a prediction this week. If we play the whole game (or even most of the whole game...like at YSU), then we'll win.
If we let up in the 2nd half like against NDSU or ISU, we'll lose. I think it's as simple as that.

If David Johnson runs wild against us (he very well might because of a limited number of touches against SDSU last week), it will be a long day. Keep him in check, we have a good chance. I say any Panther hopes of playoffs are done after Saturday.

WIU 31
UNI 24

This will be a 1PM game which is perfect for fans using Amtrak to come to the game.

The morning train starts in Chicago and makes stops at La Grange, Naperville, Plano, Mendota, Princeton, Kewanee, and Galesburg. The train arrives in Macomb at 11AM.

The Go West Transit buses stop across Randolph Street at "City Center". Bus routes #5, #14, and #16 all make stops on campus. All routes are fare-free. Go West is now the only unlimited access bus system in the state of Illinois!

The game should end around 4PM. Fans will be able to take a Go West bus back to the downtown area and have time to get some food and drink at one of the downtown places (Aurelios, Sports Corner, Chicks, etc). The train back north leaves at 6:18PM.

Have we ever had a formal "Train Game" promotion? I think I recall something not too long ago. With Tom Carper now back on the Amtrak board, he could probably help arrange a good deal for the Leatherneck faithful living up in the 'burbs.

Trivia question for an old timer: Did Tom Carper own "TC's", a bar on University Drive back in the 70s?

As long as the weather is pass friendly, we air it out and air it out early. Limit the late miscues (false starts/bad snaps) and epic 4th quarter letdown and we win.

WIU 35 - UNI 24

I can see them putting a safety over Lance, so someone else could have a monster game. I'm thinking Mireles if he and Norvell can be on the same page.

Still say we try to air it out, but just checked and they've been pretty stingy against the pass. Given up only 6 TD's to 7 INT's and have 28 sacks.

sealhall74 wrote:Have we ever had a formal "Train Game" promotion? I think I recall something not too long ago. With Tom Carper now back on the Amtrak board, he could probably help arrange a good deal for the Leatherneck faithful living up in the 'burbs.

Trivia question for an old timer: Did Tom Carper own "TC's", a bar on University Drive back in the 70s?

He did indeed. Tom owned or co-owned "Grin and Beer It" (which eventually became the children's library and was torn down earlier this year to make way for the new public library addition), "TC's" and (when I first met him) "Tom's Cafe". He sold The Cafe when he became mayor, I believe because the Mayor has a say in who gets liquor licenses and it would have been a conflict of interest for him to own an establishment that has a liquor license.

Here's a bit more info: http://tspr.org/post/rekindling-old-connections-macomb

sealhall74 wrote:Have we ever had a formal "Train Game" promotion?

We did have one for the game in 2010 with Northern Iowa. That game was on November 20, 2010 which came during the Thanksgiving Break. It was a big game as we were playing for a possible playoff invite.

This game was heavily promoted. And people responded.

Western won this game 30-14. Western captured sole possession of second place in the Missouri Valley Football Conference with that win, finishing at 7-4 overall and 5-3 in conference.

The attendance at Hanson Field, with students gone for Thanksgiving Break, was 8,217. Western averaged just over 11,000 fans at home in 2010.

Western went on to play 2 games in FCS Playoffs in 2010:
Winning at Coastal Carolina 17-10.
Losing at Appalachian State 42-14 in that "snow bowl" game.

Wow, awfully quiet on here.

I see ESPN3 has taken the WIU/UNI game off their schedule for Saturday. I'm guessing this means it won't be on firstrowsports, either. All Access it is, then.

Hopefully it will be a more productive outcome than last week. Hard to get fired up after the ISU game. Maybe they'll surprise me and pull out a win this week.

rocki wrote:Wow, awfully quiet on here.

I see ESPN3 has taken the WIU/UNI game off their schedule for Saturday. I'm guessing this means it won't be on firstrowsports, either. All Access it is, then.

Hopefully it will be a more productive outcome than last week. Hard to get fired up after the ISU game. Maybe they'll surprise me and pull out a win this week.

If it makes you feel any better the UNI forum is so disappointed in their team they have not even started talking about this weeks game and only are talkinga bout firing their coach and why they should all be mad.

I can say with a pretty good amount of confidence that if we play like we did the last three weeks, and I know two were losses, we will win this game. Basically the last three teams have been better than UNI and we played two games we should have won and we won one.

If we do not fall apart we could win out for the rest of the season with our hardest game left being SDSU and I still think they are very beatable. I am still stunned by how good this league is and I am sure we will see some kind of changes coming in the next few years because you can not have this good of a league. There can't be a league that every team should go to playoffs... I do not know what they will have to do, but perhaps splitting like said before into east and west and extending a few invites for people to join from lower level leagues will help the situation? I mean WIU is seriously a 9-3 or 10-2 team in most leagues, but in ours we will most likely be 6-6 or 5-7...