Xavier Nwankpa of Southeast Polk in Pleasant Hill, Iowa became the second defensive back in the class of 2022 to receive a scholarship-offer from Notre Dame.
While Iowa was busy ruining Minnesota’s perfect season and Iowa State was upsetting Texas on a last-second field goal, Notre Dame was dismantling Navy and attempting to steal defensive back prospect out of The Hawkeye State.
Xavier Nwankpa of Southeast Polk in Pleasant Hill, Iowa became the second defensive back in the class of 2022 to receive a scholarship-offer from Notre Dame.
Oklahoma seems to desperately need one of Oregon or Utah to lose before the Pac-12 Championship and then to win that conference title game if they’re going to have much of a chance at one of the four playoff spots.
No matter if your team won or lost on Saturday, it was another fall afternoon that further-proved why college football is undefeated as a whole. It has flaws like anything else but the most exciting regular season in all of sports lived up to the hype yet again with crazy performances, incredible comebacks and all-time showings of sportsmanship alike.
Come with us at Fighting Irish Wire as we take you through the ten things we loved about college football this weekend.
Adrian Martinez was fantastic. He was fast, decisive, and he looked like the star for the Husker offense everyone is hoping he’ll be. He threw for 220 yards and a score, ran for 89 yards and a touchdown, Dedrick Mills ran for 188 yards and a score, and Nebraska gained almost 500 yards …
Wisconsin got shoved around too much, struggled against the Nebraska running game, and gave up too many big plays, but Jonathan Taylor ran for 204 yards and two scores, QB Jack Coan was fine, Aron Cruickshank retuned a kick for a score, and the D came through when absolutely needed.
The Badgers need to win out and get a loss from Minnesota before they play on November 30th. Nebraska has to beat both Maryland on the road and against Iowa to go bowling.
Northwestern 45, UMass 6
Leave it to Northwestern to be the only team that couldn’t hang a gajillion points on the worst defense in college football. One of the scores came on a blocked field goal.
This was the game to have a whole lot of fun with the passing game. Aidan Smith completed 7-of-13 passes for 76 yards with two interceptions. Wheeeeee!
Evan Hull?! The freshman had four carries all year for 15 yards, and he ripped through the Minutemen for 220 yards and four scores on 24 carries. The Wildcats ran for 335 yards and five scores.
It’s going to take something amazing for the Wildcats to win another game with Minnesota and at Illinois to close. 2-10 would be the worst season since going 2-9 in 1993.
NEXT: Michigan 44, Michigan State 10; Penn State 34, Indiana 27
Alberto Palmetta ended a close fight with a wild flurry in the 10th and final round Friday night in Sloan, Iowa.
Alberto Palmetta evidently didn’t feel it was wise leave his fate in the hands of the judges.
Palmetta and Erik Vega were engaged in a competitive welterweight fight when, in the 10th and final round, Palmetta scored a dramatic technical knockout Friday night in Sloan, Iowa on Showtime.
Palmetta, a 2016 Olympian from Argentina, got off to a quick start and dictated the pace most of the fight. He was the more accurate puncher and seemed to slip many of his Mexican opponent’s best shots.
Vega (16-1, 9 knockouts) came on in the middle rounds, as he stood his ground more than he had been and got busier. The fight was close going into the final rounds.
In the end, Palmetta (13-1, 9 KOs) didn’t know it but he didn’t need a knockout in the 10th to win the fight. He was leading 87-84 on two cards and 86-85 on the third; all he had to do was win the round.
Erik Vega (right) couldn’t withstand an onslaught of punches from Alberto Palmetta in the final round. Greg Mandel / Showtime
However, perhaps the fate of countryman Marcos Escudero in the co-feature entered his mind or that of trainer Charles Mooney, who also worked Escudero’s corner. Escudero seemed to outwork opponent Joe George but lost a split decision.
So when Palmetta stunned Vega to some degree with a short right early in the final round, he followed with unrelenting barrage of largely unanswered punches that forced referee Mark Nelson to stop the fight.
The official time was 1:03 of the round.
With the victory, Palmetta, 29, took a significant step toward becoming a contender. The 24-year-old Vega, a significant prospect going into the fight, will have to work on deficiencies.
In the co-feature, a 10-round light heavyweight bout, Escudero (10-1, 9 KOs) came out firing at the opening bell and never stopped throwing, outlanding George (10-0, 6 KOs) roughly 2-1 in punches. The Argentine routinely forced George against the ropes, where the winner was content to cover up and take punches.
George had his best moments when he had space to work in the middle of the ring but he didn’t have the opportunity often, as Escudero controlled distance for most of the fight. In other words, he imposed his will on George.
That’s why Boxing Junkie scored it 97-93 – seven rounds to three – in Escudero’s favor. The official scores: Two judges scored it for George (97-94 and 97-93), one had it for Escudero (96-94).
Marcos Escudero (right) seemed to do enough to beat Joe George but the judges saw it differently. Greg Mandel / Showtime
Escudero definitely was busier than George. Perhaps the two judges who scored it for the winner gave the loser little credit for the punches he threw when George was against the ropes because they believed he landed mostly on his gloves and arms.
And maybe they thought George landed the bigger shots. He seemed to stun Escudero with a right hand in the ninth round, arguably the biggest punch in the fight, but he couldn’t follow up as Escudero held on until he recovered. When he did, he went back to outworking George.
And, in a scheduled eight-round middleweight fight, Amilcar Vidal Jr. (10-0, 9 KOs) stopped Zach Prieto (9-1, 7 KOs) with one second remaining in the opening round.
Neither fighter had dominated the first few minutes when, in the final seconds, Vidal landed a left hook-upper cut that put Prieto down and hurt him. The product of Las Crucez, New Mexico was able to get up but went down again under a barrage of hard shots, prompting the referee to stop the fight.
Considering the Wisconsin Badgers’ situation relative to the Minnesota Golden Gophers after UW’s win over the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Had the Minnesota Golden Gophers not beaten Penn State and made themselves an even bigger target for the Wisconsin Badgers, we wouldn’t be devoting quite as much time or energy to the task of beating the Gophers on Nov. 30. Yet, one can’t work with events as one wishes they would be. One must deal with events as they actually are. It’s called living in the real world.
Minnesota has made itself more of a problem for Wisconsin. It’s not what UW fans wanted, but it is the reality the Badgers must confront. That will be a very hard game to win. Therefore, it is worth spending some of these November days focusing not just on Nebraska and then Purdue, but on P.J. Fleck and his folks. How will the Badgers go into Minneapolis and come away with Paul Bunyan’s Axe?
Based on Wisconsin’s win over the Iowa Hawkeyes this past Saturday, a number of interesting questions and attached tension points have emerged. The question I will explore in this particular piece is as follows: Can Wisconsin win this game simply by eradicating mistakes, or will the Badgers need to push themselves far beyond their limits?
Yes, the best answer is “both,” but let’s be clear before we continue with this brief piece: Against Ohio State (or, to use a non-Big Ten example, LSU or Clemson), it is obvious that Wisconsin and other second-tier teams in the United States have to play way over their heads and make “value-added” plays to have a real chance to win. Is Minnesota that kind of opponent? I am inclined to say “no,” but my opinion doesn’t matter that much. A reasonable middle ground on this question is that while Minnesota certainly isn’t in Ohio State’s league, the Gophers made Penn State look bad for much of this past Saturday’s game and — had they not fumbled when leading by two scores in the third quarter — could have blown the doors off the Nittany Lions.
Minnesota went from being “a team which beats up on the bottom of the Big Ten” to “a team that is for real” against Penn State. Do we know yet if the Gophers are not merely “for real” and “a team to be taken seriously,” but genuinely ELITE? I don’t think so.
The tricky part for Wisconsin: The Badgers can’t use that lack of knowledge to assume they can win merely by avoiding mistakes against the Gophers. This leads us into the heart of this piece, and one of the most fascinating tension points of the game on Nov. 30 in TCF Bank Stadium:
Lots of talk about the #Badgers' illegal formation penalties. UW also had three false-start penalties in opening quarter. None after that, however.
The Badgers’ offense improved when the dumb penalties ceased. Wisconsin’s offense got out of its own way. Its running game flourished when the Badgers weren’t behind schedule. Two plus two equals four.
However, after the offense got out of its own way, the defense allowed a 75-yard touchdown and endured another one of its fourth-quarter swoons, the previous one being against Illinois. We wrote about the problems in the secondary which have allowed that alarming detail to remain part of this team’s identity in the second half of the season.
Imagine, then, if both the offense and the defense spend a full game not making huge mistakes, with the level of performance we saw from Jack Coan (tolerable, but not spectacular). Is that going to be enough against the Gophers? It’s an interesting query. One could go back and forth on that topic.
The strength of the argument rests with the offensive line. If there aren’t any false-start penalties and Jonathan Taylor gets four or more yards per carry, the Badgers could pound Minnesota’s defensive front and turn this game into the trench warfare battle they want. A game based on the elimination of mistakes could be all Wisconsin needs.
The weakness of this argument is based on the awareness of how much speed Minnesota has, not only in relationship to Iowa but to a Wisconsin team which was outflanked at times by Illinois. Keep in mind that if Jack Coan throws the ball against Minnesota the way he did against Iowa, the Gophers’ closing speed in the secondary might turn Wisconsin catches into incompletions on successful pass breakups. Eliminating bad mistakes from the ledger sheet will put Wisconsin in position to win, but that might not be enough to put UW over the top.
Yes, Wisconsin’s offense fixed its problems versus Iowa, and the team in general took a clear step forward from the previous two games. Yet, will that be enough to beat Minnesota? You don’t have to answer that question right away… and that’s part of the point. Wisconsin will have to wrestle with that question over the next few weeks. This is the reality facing the Badgers, now that the Gophers have made themselves such an obstacle, at least in 2019.
An assessment of Wisconsin Badgers quarterback Jack Coan after Saturday’s win over the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Jack Coan wasn’t bad for the Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday against the Iowa Hawkeyes. For the most part, the football went where it needed to go. Coan made enough of the throws he had to make to assist the running game and Jonathan Taylor. Wisconsin needed every one of the 24 points it scored to fend off Iowa and move to 7-2 on the season, keeping alive hopes for a New Year’s Six bowl bid.
Coan was solid. He did what he had to do. That certainly rates as progress after an Ohio State game which quickly went sideways and never got back on track. If Coan can make steady progress in and through the month of November, Wisconsin can beat Minnesota on Nov. 30, the game which looms as the defining moment of this season for the Badgers.
When considering Wisconsin’s checklist against Minnesota — a team which currently stands above the Badgers in the Big Ten pecking order due to their win over Penn State — one thing which has to happen is that Coan has to become a far more accurate quarterback. Explaining this point requires a look back at the Iowa game.
If you go through this contest, you will note that even when Wisconsin hit an intermediate or deep pass, the receiver gained enough separation from an Iowa defender that Coan didn’t have to be letter-perfect with his throw. Whether we are talking about zip, touch, angle, or placement, Coan was not at the height of his powers. He did get the ball there, but that was more a reflection of his receivers’ ability to separate from defenders.
Against Minnesota’s team speed (on a general level) and its secondary (on a more particular level), Coan will likely not have the same large windows to throw to. Margins are likely to be smaller. The Golden Gophers’ closing speed was a problem for Penn State and quarterback Sean Clifford, who was unable to gun the ball into coverage. His throws were often lobbed toward his receivers, and Minnesota was able to pick off multiple passes as a result.
Coan has to look at film of Clifford versus Minnesota (not this week, but certainly during game week in late November) and understand just how important it is that he not float passes into traffic. That is one part of the equation Coan needs to figure out in the coming weeks.
The other part of the puzzle for Coan — if Wisconsin wants to have the best possible chance of beating Minnesota — is that he has to be more precise with his throws. Think of Josh Hader this past season. His regression from 2018 cost the Milwaukee Brewers a division title and the National League Wild Card Game against the eventual World Series champion Washington Nationals. Hader simply didn’t hit his spots often enough. So it was for Coan against Iowa, even though he still made enough important completions to deliver the win.
Go back to the Iowa game and notice all the times Coan completed a short or intermediate pass into the flat or outside the numbers. On several of those occasions, a receiver had to reach up or to the side to gather the ball. This process of extending for the ball — instead of having the ball thrown to the place where the receiver could easily catch the ball in stride — slowed down the receiver’s momentum. A receiver could not make a catch and then quickly turn upfield to either avoid the Iowa defender entirely, or at least make an upward cut to gain five or six more yards after the catch.
Against Minnesota, Jack Coan will need to hit receivers in stride, so that the plays which gained seven yards against Iowa will gain 13 against the Gophers, and plays which gained 20 yards can become 30-yarders. The 30-yarders can turn into 60-yard home runs.
Jack Coan’s imperfect placement wasn’t punished by Iowa. An effective running game and a strong offensive line enabled Wisconsin’s passing game to be more effective, since Iowa was so focused on stopping Jonathan Taylor. Against Minnesota, though, Jack Coan will need to be more precise. It would hit the spot if the Badgers can make the Gophers miserable. Hitting the spot will happen, however, only if Jack Coan hits the spot himself.
