Wildcats willing to take chances

Northwestern has wins over Northeastern and Nevada and a loss last week to Duke.

COLUMBUS (AP) — It’s the yin and yang of college football: Northwestern’s spread vs. the Ohio State base 4-3 defense.

Sometimes Northwestern puts four or five receivers in the pattern. At times the Wildcats have a full backfield and at other times there’s nobody there but the quarterback. No tight ends, then two of them, a run up the middle followed by a 45-yard bomb.

This is Northwestern’s offensive philosophy: To appear to have no philosophy. To have no tendencies, no traits that a defense can prepare for and plan on. To make every snap an adventure. To make chaos an ally.

Favored but cautious

Even though No. 8 Ohio State is favored by three touchdowns to beat Northwestern and its fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants spread offense on Saturday, the Wildcats have the Buckeyes’ full and undivided attention.

“They make you prepare for a lot,” Ohio State safeties coach Paul Haynes said of the Wildcats offense. “You’ve got to be very, very sound against the run. And they have a very good controlled passing game.”

The spread, as the name implies, is an offense based on spreading a defense as much as possible from sideline to sideline. It came into vogue in the last 10 or 15 years, just about the time Northwestern lifted itself from decades of defeat.

Ohio State’s defense is not nearly so freewheeling as the spread. But at the same time, the base 4-3 relies heavily on reading the offense, intuition and reaction. A great defense, similar to an effective spread, also takes some chances, relies on a group dynamic and tries to make the other side guess what it’s going to do next.

They are opposing forces, yet in some ways linked.

Background

For years Northwestern, the smallest school in the Big Ten, tried to play smashmouth football with the rest of the conference. But the Wildcats were invariably smaller on the lines and not as fast on either side of the ball. Year after year it was one of the weakest teams in the nation.

Things began to change when Gary Barnett took over in 1992. After winning eight games his first three years in Evanston, the Wildcats went 10-2 overall and 8-0 in the Big Ten to win the 1995 conference title — the school’s first since 1936.

They did it, in part, with an offense that was difficult to pin down, that didn’t follow conventions. Speed trumped size; the playbook was wide open.

When Randy Walker took over in 1999, he embraced the spread. After he died suddenly in 2006, the new coach — former Northwestern linebacker Pat Fitzgerald — was stuck with the spread.

“One of the most creative teams in the league,” is what Ohio State coach Jim Tressel calls the Wildcats.

A tendency

The Wildcats come to Ohio Stadium Saturday averaging 26 points and 451 yards per game in wins over Northeastern and Nevada and a loss last week to Duke. But the Wildcats were without the linchpin of their running attack, scatback Tyrell Sutton, a former Mr. Football in Ohio, who was out with a sprained ankle.

Sutton is expected to return for the game against the Buckeyes. The Buckeyes sound as if they’re looking forward to playing against him — and the spread.

“That’s the fun part of football, you have to find a way to try to stop that,” Ohio State linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “We have to run around, we have to be swarming. We may not be perfect in every defense we’ve played, but at least we’re swarming around.”

They’ve been close to perfect. The Buckeyes rank third nationally in total defense, giving up 197 yards a game, and are fifth in scoring defense while allowing only 7.3 points a game.