After becoming bowl eligible in Week 13, the ‘Cats had just one regular season game left. It was the most important one too, being that it was for the Hat. This game, despite being in the snow and at vastly different ends of the weather spectrum, was all too familiar to some earlier this season. Without further a do, here are the numbers behind the loss during Rivalry Week:

The Numbers

Preston Stone wasn’t great. Despite his offensive PFF grade of 52.7 being just his fourth-worst of the season, it was the turnovers that really brought his performance down. He finished the day 19-of-36 passing for 136 yards and a touchdown, but threw three interceptions and lost one of his two fumbles. This is eerily similar to his performance in Week 1 against Tulane, in which he was 19-of-36 passing for 161 yards with four interceptions and one lost fumble of his two. His offensive PFF grade in that game was a 39.2 though, compared to Stone surprisingly making four PFF big time throws against Illinois. Despite that and the stat line looking all too similar, this game was winnable on many occasions for NU, making Stone’s mistakes and misfires that much more impactful. Don’t get me wrong, Stone looked good for the majority of the first half as he was 9-of-12 passing for 72 yards and a touchdown. It was his 13th pass that hit off the hands of his receiver and bounced into the arms of a defender that started the downhill performance, marking his first thrown interception in his last 106 pass attempts.

Caleb Komolafe and Dashun Reeder were both ruled out against the Fighting Illini. With Joseph Himon II set to be the lead back, he wound up missing the majority of the rivalry game with an injury suffered on Northwestern’s second offensive snap of the game. In his place, Robby Preckel handled all of the running back carries from there on out. He finished the day with 86 yards rushing on 22 carries: not too shabby for the true freshman that converted over from tight end. He was the fourth-highest graded Wildcat on offense per PFF this week as well.

The Hayden Eligon II breakout is still happening. The sophomore wide receiver had his highest offensive PFF grade of the season at 82.6 (fifth B1G WRs, 26th FBS WRs) which included an 81.9 PFF receiving grade (fifth B1G WRs, 23rd FBS WRs). He caught eight passes for 99 yards and a touchdown, putting his total yardage from the last two weeks up to 226. Outside of him, the rest of the receiving room didn’t do much, including Griffin Wilde.

Lastly, the offensive line struggled more than usual. Martes Lewis had the highest grade of the NU offensive lineman this week, followed closely by Evan Beerntsen. Outside of those two guys, it was a subpar performance from the guys up front. Enough with the numbers, here’s the film from the snow game:

The Good

With factors such as the weather and the injuries piled up with the running back room, there was still some light at the end of the tunnel in a disappointing loss.

6-foot-4

As I mentioned before, Eligon broke out over the past couple of weeks. He followed his career performance against Minnesota with another fantastic showing against Illinois.

This was Eligon’s first catch of the game. Stone was playing well at this point, as he faked the handoff to Preckel before firing one to the left sideline where Eligon turned around to make the grab with his feet barely staying in bounds. After a week with two toe tap catches, No. 80 did it again.

This was the lone touchdown for NU. Firstly, let me start be saying this: WHAT A THROW. Stone perfectly places this pass behind the deep defensive back to find Eligon as he makes the easy grab in the back corner of the end zone. The snow angels are a nice touch, especially considering that his breakout was becoming realer and realer with each catch. The throw here was the big ticket item though.

On the first play of the fourth quarter, Stone channelled his inner Houdini as he somehow evaded sacks and was able to find Eligon as he dove just behind the sticks for the first down. Great improv from the quarterback here as he bought himself seven seconds before finding Eligon. Good catch too from the receiver.

This was on NU’s final drive of the game. Although it didn’t amount to a score, this throw and catch from Stone to Eligon was huge. Stone took a few steps to his left before firing down the left sideline to Eligon, who tipped the ball to himself over the defender who was all over him. Great game from Eligon to finish the regular season.

The Bad

It just wasn’t the best day at the office for the ‘Cats. There’s no other way to put it. There were many chances to tie the game late and hold leads throughout, but Northwestern couldn’t get the job done in Champaign.

Mistake-filled football

Stone turned the ball over four times (almost five). It’s really hard to win games when that happens, but what makes it worse is that the final score was 20-13 and not out of reach and that Stone was looking good before throwing his first interception, even making some good plays after the fact. Three of his four turnovers came in the fourth quarter. That’s why the game was lost.

Stone’s first interception, as I alluded to earlier, wasn’t really his fault. He layers this ball well to Frank Covey IV in between multiple defenders, but the receiver can’t quite make the grab as the ball hits off his hands and falls perfectly into the arms of an Illinois defender. Stone did complete 10 passes after this interception, but his stat line from this throw on was 10-of-24 for 64 yards passing and three interceptions.

While I do love the play call, Stone needs to be a bit more careful as a runner. Last week, him jumping over defenders and going airborne worked. However, when a quarterback who isn’t known for being a runner makes those kinds of moves, fumbles happen. He had the ball popped out of his arm when initially hit, and luckily NU was able to fall onto the ball after it rolled around a bit.

This time Stone wasn’t as lucky. While the urgency to get up to the line and sneak it was good, it’s usually been tight end Lawson Albright in these spots running the sneaks. The cold combined with Stone not running too many of these this year led to him having trouble with the snap and giving the Fighting Illini the ball right back after they pounced on it. A costly turnover when in scoring distance is not a recipe for success.

This was Stone’s worst interception of the game. He had been so good the past few weeks of making throws right where they needed to be while not throwing into places where defenders can jump passes. On this play, that’s exactly what Stone did. He thought he had Eligon open in the middle of the field, but the defender jumped the route perfectly like a user lurk in Madden to pick Stone off.

Stone’s third and final interception came in another crucial moment. Northwestern had all three timeouts and knew it needed to score a touchdown to at least tie the game. On first-and-20, Stone fires the ball to Hunter Welcing running an out route. Unfortunately for the ‘Cats, the ball hit off the hands of Welcing and right into the hands of the Illinois defender. The third pick from Stone that wasn’t entirely his fault, but still gets credited to the quarterback. The decision to throw into that window too may be something that could have been avoided.

Final Thoughts

Yes, it’s tough sucks to lose a rivalry game. However, Northwestern did gain bowl eligibility the week prior so it didn’t hurt as much as it would have if the ‘Cats had ended their season on five game losing streak rather than winning against Minnesota. There are solid pieces on this team for the future, and the offseason will be huge to see who comes in and who leaves, especially considering the regular season is now finished. While the season wasn’t perfect, it still didn’t end in a losing record (not including the bowl game) as NU won more games than I had initially predicted prior to Week 1.