GameAbove Pizza City Motor Sports Bowl Preview
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Chippewas! Wildcats! A PREVIEW!
Today, in the bowels of the Rust Belt, two mediocre football teams play a postseason game that means something, damnit, and that I earnestly care about, because I am an idiot online.
Let’s talk about…
The GameAbove Sports Bowl
Central Michigan Chippewas (7-5, 5-3 MAC) vs. Northwestern Wildcats (6-6, 4-5 B1G)
Friday, 12pm | ESPN | NU -10.5 | O/U 43.5 | at Ford Field (Detroit, MI)
What follows is a preview. Some of it is true and interesting, some of it is about the Northwestern red zone offense—that part is still true, but mostly just infuriating.
When Central Michigan has the ball…
…I will be genuinely excited, because this offense slaps.
As I’ve mentioned somewhere on this website in the last month or two, the Chips made the…unorthodox?…move of hiring Army offensive line coach Matt Drinkall—a guy who was an Iowa WR (which is as important a role as “Donald Trump Title IX Complaince Officer”) and then made his way around the D-III and NAIA ranks before leaving Kansas Wesleyan to coach positions at Army.
He brought with him a no-huddle, power-spread offense that uses—wait for this—three quarterbacks.
It’s delightful, it’s drunk, it’s fun.
The Chips come out in the pistol, a bunch of the time, and if former Iowa QB Joey Labas is in the game, he’s the passer. Angel Flores is back from injury and is a shifty runner, but passing, well…y’know. We’ll see. Throws a decent ball, but for some reason he’s not the passing quarterback. There’ll be lots of pre-snap motion but good zone blocking schemes on the offensive line, plenty of bread and butter to go with that window dressing. Nahree Biggins is a nice, bruising back who, if you give him a window, will plow ahead without blowing you away with his speed.
The long and short: Northwestern’s linebackers and safeties, especially Robert Fitzgerald, will need to fill those gaps and be disciplined against all of the Chips’ motions and looks. The health of DE Aidan Hubbard was a question mark, last I saw, and setting an edge on a MAC school should be a given, but…Northwestern.
When Northwestern has the ball…
…drink.
Look. Preston Stone has stood in there and given it the ol’ college try. He’s somewhere between Ben Bryant and Hunter Johnson on the “Northwestern Transfer QB” rankings. Thank you for your service, and best of luck in your future endeavors.
Have I made my point sufficiently?
Both running backs Joseph Himon II and Caleb Komolafe should be back for this tilt. That’s good, because without them…uh…I guess we’d just be watching to see how often Stone will stare down first-choice WR Griffin Wilde?
Anyway: drink.
How about when someone kicks the ball?
Central Michigan has a very good kicker in Cade Graham, who’s perfect on PATs and has only missed two field goals all year, one from 50+. Punter Declan Duley is just fine.
On the other side, Northwestern K Jack Olsen has quietly been nails for the ‘Cats—provided his field goals are from 41 yards or in, because he has not attempted one longer this year. In fact, he is 19/21 on the year and 12/12 from 30-39 yards, mostly because that implies Northwestern stalled in the red zone, which they did with alarming alacrity: while Northwestern is 25th in the country in red zone offense, scoring on 91% of its drives (41 of 45 trips), that’s mostly because they kick field goals—21 of the Wildcats’ 41 scoring drives in the red zone have ended in a field goal. Reader, I cannot adequately relay to you the sheer fucking rage that fills me with.
For comparison: the 21 red zone field goals are only surpassed by Texas Tech’s 23…because Tech had 64 scoring drives of 73 total in the red zone. The only team to surpass Northwestern’s “percent red zone scoring drives as field goals” number?
Maryland, with 16 field goals of their 30 scoring drives.
If you find yourself in Maryland’s company outside the month of September, it is probably not good.
Thankfully, Jack Olsen usually makes these field goals, save for two weird misses from inside 30 yards. And punter Luke Akers, despite being unjustly locked out of the Big Ten special teams awards, averages 45 yards a crack.
The point is, fire Zach Lujan.
Do…do you have thoughts on this bowl game?
I do not know what GameAbove is. I will probably continue referring to this game as the Motor City Pizza Bowl, even though Motor City Pizza Co. is, I think, one of those shitty Costco brands of pizza that I only get when the wife’s out of town and I can eat a whole one for dinner without shame.
The GameAbove website is just a flag on top of…maybe a stadium? a summit? honestly who’s to say…something, over which are superimposed the words “BRING FORTH GREATNESS” in thin white font. It appears to be the philanthropic arm for something called CapStone Holdings Inc, committed to “fostering impact and innovation in the sectors in which we operate,” so basically I’m going to assume tax evasion until proven otherwise.
I genuinely don’t quite know what’s happening here.
As far as the conceit of “Central Michigan and Northwestern play a football bowl game on a Friday afternoon in Detroit the day after Christmas,” I am extremely enthusiastic. Not because I think Northwestern is guaranteed to win; oh, you sweet summer child, I have seen this program do stupid things like “lose to Akron at home thanks to two pick-sixes” and heard this program do stupid things like “lose to Illinois State, 9-7, in a game that was definitely football and not baseball, a sport at which Northwestern is unfathomably worse at than men’s college basketball.“
What I will be thankful about when I watch the GameAbove Sports Bowl and—and you will not hear this anywhere else on this website, because I don’t see a preview in the hopper—Minnesota take on New Mexico in the Rate Bowl is that these are generic and mediocre teams playing in an Extremely Abnormal Sponsor Bowl Game.
That is what college football’s postseason is, to me: bitterness about who jumped whom in the pecking order, wacky matchups like “Penn State against Clemson…but on a baseball field in the north!”, and players like Preston Stone or Darius Taylor making one last run at some good, old fashioned college football glory. No one has been arguing about the GameAbove Sports Bowl since Week 4, in part because (1) no one still knows what GameAbove is and (2) it is spontaneous, not endlessly rehashed until it is rubbed raw in the public imagination.
Seriously, we just wanted a pick.
Northwestern 23, Central Michigan 17. No idea why.
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