This is not the same Northwestern team of old. While that has been evident this season, it continues to be proven as the Wildcats enter their toughest stretch of the season. Rutgers isn’t that good of a team, but the ‘Cats did do a fantastic job of containing KJ Duff, who had his worst output of the season. Offensively, Aidan Chiles threw his first interception of the season, but also scored five total touchdowns. He is the ideal player in this Chip Kelly offense, and it keeps showing up on film.
All smiles for Chiles
Chiles has been very, very solid as a passer this season. He’s improved his accuracy from when he played at both Oregon State and Michigan State, and he throws one of the most catchable deep balls in the FBS. The Wildcats have the best deep-passing attack in the country, completing over 61% of their deep throws. One of the most impressive things watching the tape besides Chiles is seeing how Griffin Wilde is almost always open, even when defenses know he’s likely to be targeted. Wilde hasn’t dropped a pass this season either, which speaks to his ball skills and again, his ability to get open.
On the first play, Wilde runs a corner route to the right corner of the end zone, and Chiles uses the play-action fake to buy himself enough time to allow Wilde to come open. Wilde gets a step on the safety and Chiles puts the ball to where only Wilde can make a play on it. The second play is another Chiles —> Wilde pass. Even with three defenders around him, Wilde finds the hole in the zone on the deep out route, and Chiles puts the throw on the money. Chiles on this play doesn’t go through progressions as Wilde was the first read, but he has all the time necessary to do so if needed; something he doesn’t always have the luxury of having.
The third play is a shot up the seam against man defense. Wilde makes one small cut in his route to turn it into more of a post than a 9 route, but he beats his defender off that break and Chiles feeds it to him on the inside where the defender was trailing from the outside. The fifth play is a shallow cross concept, with Hayden Eligon II running a curl on the left, Wilde running a post on the right and Alex Honig running a drag route from his initial spot inline on the right. The play-action gets the defense to bite enough to the right side of the field, allowing for Honig to spring wide open on the drag. Great play design.
The sixth and seventh plays are both examples of Chiles’ improvisation. He sees the pocket collapse on both, takes off with his legs, but stays behind the line of scrimmage long enough to make a throw. Despite his ability to scramble for yardage gains, Chiles wants to pass first before he tucks it and runs. These two plays show that. The threat of him taking off causes defenses to allocate an extra guy to watch him, which allows for receivers to get open more easily against fewer defenders.
Chiles the running back
It feels like I’ve included this same play every week. The first play of this cutup is one of the most effective plays by any team this season. Chiles’ success rate on short-yardage designed runs this season with a relatively large sample for a quarterback is tremendous. He does such a great job both sneaking it inside, but also reading these sneak plays to instead bounce it outside. This one is more of a straight design for him to bounce it outside, but he does initially extend the ball out for a fake to Gavin Sawchuk, adding an extra possible wrinkle to this play with a potential counter/draw handoff.
The second play, Chiles keeps it himself on a speed option. He’s been exceptional this season at deciding when to keep the ball versus when to hand it off on read-option plays. Even though this gain isn’t anything super crazy, he does a great job reading the defense here while also taking his time to read the blocking so he can make the cutback.
The final play here, whether it was designed to be a keeper the whole way or a read option, the fake did such a great job that the camera followed the running back. Chiles’ fake to Sawchuk got the entire Rutgers defense to bite, giving Chiles the right side of the field all to himself for the walk-in touchdown.
Komolafe!
Caleb Komolafe had multiple explosive runs in this game. Northwestern’s rushing attack has been very successful in generating explosive runs, with Komolafe in this game averaging 11.5 yards per carry. Per puntandrally.com, Komolafe is averaging 4.18 yards after contact this season, which is T-35th in the FBS and T-6th in the Big Ten.
On this first play, Komolafe spins out of a tackle early and then breaks into the open field. For Joseph Himon II as well, breaking an initial tackle and having green grass ahead is a recipe for disaster for opposing defenses with both their top-end speeds. On the second play, Patrick Schaller does a great job of clearing the C-gap for Komolafe to break into the second level. Schaller has been a bit of a revelation at left tackle, especially considering he was a tight end last season and got his first-ever start at the position against Penn State.
This third play, it’s Schaller and Honig who are the main blockers that allow Komolafe to cut back to the left around the line and find daylight. The fourth play is the only of these clips where Komolafe breaks a run going right the whole time, using Grant Seagren’s block at right tackle to give him the extra second to get around the pursuing defender.
