If it is true, as the saying goes, that “youth is a disease from which we all recover,” then the next three games will be a return to health for the Cougar football team, who lost 46-16 to visiting Northwestern College Saturday afternoon at Big Cat Stadium.
With just three senior starters on offense and four on defense, it just has to be youth, right? When you outgain your opponent by 23 yards and lose by 30 points? What happened? Youth. When you hold a 2 to 1 advantage in time of possession but go 2 for 5 in red zone offense? What happened? Youth. When you complete better than 50% of your passes for 268 yards, but still throw four interceptions? What happened? You guessed it.
All this blame on growing pains is probably not much solace to the Cougars, but with the challenges of youth also comes the promise. With three games to go, they can still post a 5-5 record. A .500 season is something that, head coach Todd Hickman told his team after the game, has only been done twice in the last 20 years.
And all the components are in place to make that happen.
Once again, the Cougars moved the ball well on offense, through the air and on the ground. Quarterbacks Derrick Foss, Daniel Garrigan and Ted Hoffman together threw for 268 yards. Running backs Robert Koranda and Ernest Tucker collectively had a 100-yard day averaging 4 yards a carry. Receivers Brady Rose and John Russow each had 100+ yards in catches.
Most of these numbers were racked up between the 20s, as UMM stalled in the red zone on three drives, coming away with no points.
Senior wideout Matt Throngard blamed the red zone challenges on efficiency: “We’re missing blocks, dropping balls, making bad reads. Hopefully next week we can do better than 50%, that’s for sure.”
Defensively, except for a couple lapses, the Cougars held a very good offense well below their season average of 400 yards per game.
“I think we did a better job of limiting the big plays,” said senior defensive back James Watkins. “We still did give up a few but nowhere near as many as we did against Crown… We need to work on doing our job individually because it’s a gap assignment defense. If everyone does their job, it works.”
The difference in the game turned out to be turnovers. Five of them, to be exact—four interceptions and a fumble. Two of those picks went back for Northwestern touchdowns and the fumble gave the Eagles easy access to a 26 yard field goal.
So these are the pains of youth. But they won’t always be around the Cougar football team. One day those pains will become memories and lessons and ways to win the games they should.
This week the Cougars travel to the Cities on Friday for Domeday at the Mall of America Dome in Minneapolis where they’ll face Macalester College at 11 a.m.
Northwestern Coll. 46