Andrew Linnehan

Football

Dan Persa set all kinds of records in Pennsylvania as a high school dual-threat QB. So why doesn't he get an opportunity to run an inept Northwestern attack?

For weeks now, I’ve been thinking about writing this article. Going into this football season, I went through Northwestern’s schedule and tried to envision how the W’s and L’s would play out. I thought the ‘Cats had a lot of potential this season, the making of possibly another 9-3 campaign, or maybe even a 10-2 posting. But it was clear early, against much weaker non-conference foes, that this season’s team was not going to be nearly as formidable as I once thought.

Still, I don’t want to be “that fan” who groans and grumbles at the first signs of his or her team under-performing. I don’t want to be like the Michigan fans who threw the great Lloyd Carr unfairly under the bus. I don’t want to be last week’s Ohio State choir who quickly and rudely turned on a sophomore QB (Terrelle Pryor) who’s letter of intent had more drool on it than Joe Paterno’s favorite t-shirt. But, unfortunately, I think I might be morphing into the very fan that I despise.

You see, there’s essentially nothing wrong with NU QB Mike Kafka. On the football field, he’s tall, he’s got quiet feet in the pocket, he manages the game well, and he exudes passion. Even off the field, he says the right things, he’s well-mannered, and he’s a good student. But every Saturday, when I watch my beloved ‘Cats come to the line of scrimmage, there’s a lack of electricity unfamiliar to someone who’s been following NU offenses for the better part of a decade.

Ever since I’ve donned purple, I’ve been of a mindset that Northwestern, on any given Saturday, could realistically hang 40 points on any opponent. We might not win every game, we might botch a special teams play or not get our heads back on the ball in the secondary or get gutted by the run game, but whether it was Kustok or Baz or Bacher, I knew we were going to score points.

I realize the common denominator in the aforementioned trio of signal-callers is that they all had great running backs, but it seemed like they didn’t need them. They could come to the ballpark and seemingly fling the rock around 50 times at will. Some dinking and dunking was involved, yes, but 20 and 30-yard posts, comebacks, streaks, and improvs were just as abundant. Northwestern ran a spread in a conference that had defenses who just didn’t know how to defend it, and they ran it WELL.

Now, about Kafka. He just doesn’t have the pizazz or swagger or mojo or whatever to hang big, crooked numbers on the board. His completion percentage is high, yes, and he’ll make good decisions, but for NU to hit paydirt it needs to embark on 20-play drives, which is incredibly difficult to accomplish, much less repeat frequently.

I managed to keep these thoughts off the record for weeks, even after witnessing only one TD in a Purdue game where our defense created 7 turnovers, or failing to put a game-winning drive together to beat a weaker Syracuse team, or stalling in multiple crucial situations over the course of losses to Minnesota and Michigan State. ‘I’ll stay loyal,’ I said to myself.

But in last Saturday’s Indiana game, I reached my wit’s end. Ironically, it was a comeback victory for the cardiac cats that did me in, but Kafka’s glaring weaknesses stepped into the forefront big time. Twice during the second half of our attempted comeback, Kafka failed to read a middle linebacker camping out in a zone directly in front of his intended target, and on both occasions the NU QB threw it right into the arms of IU’s defenders.

Kafka’s supporters (those who think he’s the man for the job) will argue that he led us back from down 28-3. But, I’m sorry, I expect more of Northwestern. Maybe I’m crazy, maybe I should be satisfied with a win and a 5-3 record for a small private school that competes at the highest level among much bigger state schools with no academic standards throughout their recruiting processes. But sorry, I’m not. We should’ve beat Indiana by 30. IU’s got a better team this year, they really do. But we should’ve won by 30.

And it’s not like Coach Pat Fitzgerald is out of options at the position. Backup QB Dan Persa is faster, quicker, more accurate, and more electric than Kafka. Persa set Pennsylvania high school quarterbacking records for passing AND rushing. He’s arguably one of NU’s most highly touted recruits in program history, and there’s a reluctance to give him a fair shake. Kafka seems to be still living off of the 2008 Minnesota game where he shocked ESPN’s audience and the Gopher defense with his 200-yard rushing performance. At this point, who really cares? Is that really everything we want in a QB? Someone who can run well? And oh, by the way, he doesn’t do that anymore!

I think Fitz likes Kafka so much because they have the same mentality. They want to be safe, manage and massage each possession, and not let opponents, who often times are superior athletically, land a few hay-makers. But that’s the one flaw I think Fitz embodies as a coach. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen NU get the ball with two minutes to go in the first half and sit on it as to prevent the other team, I suppose, from getting the ball back.

The problem with this is that you’re now telling your team subconsciously that they can’t play with their opponent. Everyone’s on their heels, everyone’s afraid to make a mistake, because if one thing goes wrong, the floodgates could open.

I miss the days when our offense would get the ball and 47 seconds would be “plenty of time” to score. I miss not worrying about making mistakes, because there was a whole heck of a lot that 48 points in the NU column could make up for at the end of the day. I miss the days where we had a dual-threat quarterback where the word “threat” actually had some significance. Where we could say, “YOUR offense better score every time it gets the ball, because we aren’t losing our serve and as soon as we stop you the game’s over.”

So, for at least a couple of weeks, I’m going to operate from the never-satisfied cockpit, and I don’t care how that makes me look. Maybe Dan Persa would come into a game and be the next Juice Williams or Terrelle Pryor. Someone whose fans got way too excited about before their “savior” even really got under center. But there’s still a reason those guys garner a lot of attention. When they operate an offense, there’s an electricity in the air. You never know what’s going to happen, and neither does a defense.