What do you do when you are coming off one of the biggest wins in school history and are facing your in-state rivals who are suffering through a miserable season? If you are the Northwestern Wildcats the answer should be follow it up with another victory to improve your conference and bowl positioning. And if you are Illinois you must ask the question is there anything that can be done to salvage a season that came off the rails weeks ago. The answer…not likely.
There is no other way to say it…Northwestern had a huge win last week, going to Iowa and beating the undefeated Hawkeyes. Sure it helped that Iowa QB Ricky Stanzi left the game but they game back from an early deficit to grab the lead in the 2nd Q and held on for the rest of the game. The key to this game will be QB play and for NW that means Mike Kafka. He is a dual threat and when he is on can put a lot of pressure on the D. He is an Illinois kid so he probably relishes the chance to walk into Champaign and grab the victory. He is certainly banged up but his backup is in worse shape so he will have to gut it out for the entire game.
Illinois hasn’t had much to play for this year. They got off to a poor start and have played poorly ever since…but they are playing their best ball of the season entering the contest off of back to back wins. Juice Williams has been horrible this year but likely won’t see the field this week anyway. It looks like Jacob Charest will again take the majority of the snaps. He was OK in last week’s win against Minnesota and has Arrelious Benn to go to but he has been a major disappointment this year. Can you see the trend? The Illini will not be bowling this year so it will be interesting to see how much enthusiasm they have playing Northwestern. Odds are they don’t win again this year with Cincinnati and Fresno State after this one.
Game Prediction:
It is amazing what home field advantage is worth these days. It wouldn’t have been predicted at the beginning of the year but Northwestern is the better team. They should prove it again with a win as an underdog. The only thing that could change this result is if they have to dig even deeper into their QB pool. Kafka can make plays but he will have to be smart. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem, he is at Northwestern right? Look for the Illini to be sloppy and undisciplined. They have been all year and have nothing to play for other than pride. They have always looked down on Northwestern so there not much rivalry energy to draw upon
Score Prediction:
Northwestern: 24
Illinois: 17
News/Notes:
- Northwestern has won and covered 3 of last 4
- Juice Williams unlikely to play at all in final Big Ten game of career
- Wildcats are 7-0 ATS in their last 7 games as a road underdog.
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