Five things we learned from Northwestern-Iowa

That game was like one of those classes you spend staring at the clock.

I took a Latin class in high school taught by this sweet and wonderful man named Dr. Casey. Just an all-time guy who really loved the language and wanted very desperately for his students to love it too. Dr. Casey also really loved his two dachshunds, and on every test that I took in his class, there were two bonus points available if you drew a cartoon illustration of his dogs on the back of the final page.

The issue with Dr. Casey’s senior seminar on the Aeneid was that next door, all of my friends were taking the most fun Spanish class of all time. By senior spring, their poor teacher had lost control of the classroom, and her usually academically inclined students spent most of their time singing along to music videos as I translated Virgil one room over. It sucked.

That’s what it felt like sitting in the press box in Iowa City on Saturday. Kinnick Stadium was abusing its Spanish teacher, and I was waist deep in Book 6.

Here are five things we learned from Northwestern’s 40-14 loss to the Hawkeyes.

Jack Lausch is not ready yet

Lausch very well may Northwestern’s quarterback of the future. It would be beyond unfair to close the book on the redshirt sophomore this early into his Wildcat career, especially given the offensive line turnover and injuries to his two best receivers. Yet all things considered, the Jack Lausch we saw on Saturday was not a quarterback who could win football games in the Big Ten.

The stat line was poor — 10-of-19 for 62 yards and two interceptions — but it goes beyond the numbers. It’s a trust thing.

I want to highlight one particular sequence: Lausch is picked off on an ill-advised cross body throw with eleven minutes to go in the second quarter. The next time he gets the ball, he holds onto it for a little too long a little too deep in his own end zone, and Max Llewellyn puts him in the dirt for a safety. Lausch doesn’t throw the ball again in the first half.

Northwestern had two more drives in the second quarter after the safety (three if you include the one handoff to Cam Porter to end the half), and Zach Lujan did not trust his guy to throw the ball once. Leading 7-5 with the ball deep in NU territory, the first-year offensive coordinator drew up six straight run plays that went a total of 14 yards. Two of those run plays came on third down with seven-plus yards to go, on the Northwestern 6-yard line and 12-yard line respectively.

It was hold your breath, brace for impact play calling. Lujan had no fantasies of a first down: the thought process was create space for your punter, don’t turn the football over and get off the field. He did not give his struggling quarterback a sliver of grace to make a football play and get the offense going, instead opting to bash his head against an Iowa wall with a running game that hasn’t really worked since September.

Ten minutes later, Kaleb Johnson had popped two long touchdowns, and though the Iowa lead was only 12, the game was over. It feels like Northwestern no longer has a single quarterback on its roster whom the coaching staff trusts to win football games.

Theran Johnson is a really fun football player

On a day with so many negatives, the ascension of Theran Johnson into an elite defensive back deserves all the attention that this column can get it.

Johnson’s junior season has been a baptism by fire. He played a ton as a redshirt sophomore, recording 37 tackles and a pick along the way, but the the transfers of Rod Heard and Garnett Hollis and an injury to Ore Adeyi tasked Johnson with well more than he could have expected. And after a bit of a rocky start — see Denzel Boston’s first quarter in Week 4 — Johnson has risen to the occasion.

If his three pass breakups against Indiana were the appetizer (that’s a hearty salad with some chicken when you’re matched up with Elijah Sarratt), his pick-six today was a 14oz steak.

A drive after the Lausch interception, Johnson jumped a curl route to snag an overthrown McNamara ball intended for tight end Luke Lachey and brought it back all 85 yards to give his guys their first lead of the day. It was the big highlight that Johnson’s play in October deserved.

Special Teams is not remotely where it needs to be

When your offense is playing as poorly as Northwestern’s is right now, you need to win games with defense and special teams. The Wildcat defense held it down for the most part given Xander Mueller’s absence, but the same cannot be said for Paul Creighton’s unit.

There were no blocked kicks this week — Iowa may have put up 70 if that part of the game was a problem — but instead a missed field goal and a punt return touchdown from Kaden Wetjen. Luke Akers just does not have a 50 yard kick in his bag, and his punts, while not lacking in distance, do not spend nearly enough time in the air. That’s not to mention the missed tackles on Wetjen’s touchdown AND his 12-yard return that set up the Kaleb Johnson touchdown run to end the first half.

As Braun alluded to in his post-game presser, Northwestern puts an undue burden on Akers. The ‘Cats also lose this game whether or not Akers makes that field goal or if his punts were a little higher. Yet if Braun wants to wax poetic about the importance of complementary football to winning Northwestern football games, his Wildcats need to execute better in the third phase.

The Wildcat defensive line remains what we expected

Kaleb Johnson’s final stat line does not do justice to the job done by the Northwestern trenches. The future All-Big Ten first team back was contained to just four yards on seven carries before his 26-yard touchdown with 39 seconds to go in the second quarter.

Mac Uihlein, Damon Walters, R.J. Pearson, Aidan Hubbard and Najee Story all racked up tackles for loss against a very solid Iowa offensive line. The ‘Cats did not record a sack on Saturday, and the D-line teetered off a little in the third quarter, but Northwestern’s big guys did just about all you could ask of them given the Mueller injury and a vast time of possession discrepancy.

David Braun should play some Madden

The Braun game management storyline is one of the more frustrating bits in a season full of bad writing. Saturday marked the second week in a row where Northwestern trotted out Akers for a long field goal on a 4th-and-2 inside the opposing 35. Braun said after the game that in practice last week, he and his staff had agreed that they would go for it on a fourth-and-1 in long field goal range on the Hawkeye side of the field and kick on fourth-and-two.

Every single person in the stadium knew Akers wasn’t making that kick. He is clearly very talented, but his career long is 44. In a game where field position is amplified and with an offense that hadn’t scored a touchdown in a week, kicking there feels like an objectively wrong call.

There was also the decision to let the clock run out after a 10-yard Cam Porter run had the ‘Cats with the ball on the NU 35 with forty seconds left. That one is more understandable after the costly fumble late in the second quarter against Wisconsin, but I’d argue those are not equivalent situations. The Porter run was the first time the ‘Cats had moved the chains in five possessions. It goes in the ledger as another case of poor game management. I miss the David Braun who went for it twice in his own territory against Penn State.