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Skip Myslenski: That's a Wrap!

NUsports.com Special Contributor on NU's 33-31 win over No. 17 Wisconsin

Mike Kafka for Big Ten Player of the Year? Pat Fitzgerald thinks so.

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Nov. 21, 2009

By SKIP MYSLENSKI, NUsports.com Special Contributor

• It was one of his mantras throughout the fall, a bit of belief he repeated with regularity. The goal, 'Cat coach Pat Fitzgerald would intone, is to be playing your best football at the end of the season. "I would say so," he said Saturday when asked if that was, in fact, the case. "To go 3-0 in November is a statement about where our program's at right now.

"We've worked our tails off to get better. The adversity that we faced at the end of last year and the amount of off-season surgeries that we had obviously led to a slower start than we would have liked. But to the young men's credit, to the coaches' credit, they just stayed the course and they kept working their tails off to get better and to get over those injuries. Then we had a little rash there in the mid-part of the season and we had some guys step up, assume some new roles. The credit goes to the young men in the arena. They just really battled their tails off all year.

"It wasn't smooth sailing the whole year. But to get to eight wins, I don't think any of you guys would have said we were going to do that back six weeks ago. So I guess we proved some folks wrong. But what's important is we proved to ourselves that if we stick to what we value. . .we give ourselves a chance to win."

• "Finish. It's one of our values. We talk about it every single day." That is what safety Brad Phillips said when asked why the 'Cats were able to close out their regular season with a flourish.

"Just consistency," wide receiver Andrew Brewer said when asked the same question. "We've always, this whole year, been a great practice team. That's been evident from Camp Kenosha. But we were having trouble translating it earlier in the season to game day. I think finally we've gotten over the hump and are executing more consistently in all three phases."

• One player who has not been at all consistent this season is corner Jordan Mabin, whom some defenses have treated as rudely as a pinata. But Saturday, in the last minute of the 'Cats showdown with Wisconsin, he preserved their win with his second interception of the year. "There were about 50 seconds left in the game and I knew they didn't have any time outs left," he would say, describing the play. "So my mindset was don't bite up on anything too short, try to keep them in bounds. The receiver came off and he tried to run a double move. So I didn't bite on that. I felt if they threw that I'd just come up and tackle him. So I was just getting depth and I looked up I saw the ball coming up and I was like, 'Oh, wow, it's here.' Then I had to go up and get it. I just went up and made a play and came down with it-"

"Came down with a huge smile on his face," Phillips, with his own smile, interrupted here.

"It felt great," Mabin, also smiling, then concluded. "It was amazing. It's hard to explain that feeling. It was just a good feeling."

• Quarterback Mike Kafka, as he has throughout the season, was certainly feeling it against the Badgers, whom he torched for 26 completions on 40 attempts for 326 yards and a pair of touchdowns. His performance far outshone that of Badger running back John Clay and earned him this bit of tub thumping from Fitzgerald. "I thought today was a battle for the Big Ten Most Valuable player between John and Mike," he said. "I'm a little biased, obviously. But I don't think there's any player in the conference who means more to his football team than Mike Kafka and, to me, that's what an MVP is. I think Mike Kafka is not only obviously our MVP. I think he's an All Big Ten quarterback and the MVP of the Big Ten Conference."

"That's great. I'm glad my head coach said that about me. That's a great feeling. But I think all the praise really should go to the offensive line," Kafka said when asked about this endorsement. That was modesty speaking, but this day there was also good reason to pass on that credit. Against a Badger defense that was averaging 2.5 sacks a game, he suffered only one.

• He had a 49-yard completion to Sidney Stewart and another of 26 to Jeremy Ebert. He had a 26-yard completion to Drake Dunsmore and another of 21 to Zeke Markshausen. He had a 34-yard completion to Brewer and another to him that went for 26 and a touchdown, one of two the receiver scored on a big day. "With their quarters defense, we were going to try to isolate me one-on one with their corners," Brewer said when asked about his success. "On both those touchdowns I was able to take advantage of my speed and get past the corners."

"When they play a little quarters, that means we have a lot more of the flats open and they're a little bit more down toward the line of scrimmage, so we can also go vertical," explained Kafka when asked about the emergence of this vertical game. "Those are some things that we exposed. We had some double moves on that Sid and Brewer used to get open."

• The Badgers did score four touchdowns, but this should not be forgotten when considering the performance of the 'Cats' defense. One came on a punt return and the others came after Wisconsin started drives on its own 43, on the 'Cats' 37 and on its own 46. None, in other words, followed long marches. Nor should this be forgotten. It limited Clay, a load and the conference's leading rusher, to 100 yards on 23 carries, which was 12.4 yards below his season average. "I bit his ankles all night," said Phillips, who led the 'Cats in tackles with 11. "There were a couple times I hit him up top and I'll feel it tomorrow. But going into the game I knew I was going to hit his legs all day."

• The 'Cats defense gave a game ball to Mike Hankwitz, their coordinator who two years ago had the same job with the Badgers. "It felt good for us to give him a win," said Mabin. "So I know he has to be feeling really happy right now. It was just a great feeling for him."

• When Brewer, up above, talked about the 'Cats' greater consistency in all three phases, he was offering up more than lip service. Consider: They entered this game averaging just 19 yards per kickoff return. But in it, Stephen Simmons rolled up 155 yards on four returns; that averages out to 38.7 per.

• One last shout out should go to 'Cat running back and Wisconsin native Jacob Schmidt, whose blocking on those returns and against the Badger blitzes was impressive enough to be noticed. "Well, he had a little motivation," Fitzgerald said when asked about his work. "I mean, you know, who you kidding now? We stole him. He looked like a madman out there today."

• Then there was that touchdown pass Markshausen threw to Stewart. "I didn't look at any safeties. I just saw that he was open. I threw it up there and was hoping no one would come in front of him and grab it," Markshausen said when asked about this bit of trickeration. "I kind of did the Brett Favre backpedal, what I've always seen him do. I think that was my first ever touchdown pass. So I can't say I really knew what I was doing."

• Which brings us to the post-season, which the 'Cats will likely spend in Orlando at the Champs Sports Bowl or in Tampa at the Outback Bowl. "I assume we'll be playing some champion from some other league like we did last year, so 99.9 percent of the country will pick us to lose like they did last year. So I don't have to motivate our guys a whole lot," Fitzgerald said when asked the inevitable. "And obviously we're a couple miles away from the crest of the mountaintop. . . This is a mountaintop (a bowl win) we've talked about for a couple of years that we need to get over to eliminate all the naysayers and the negativity toward our program."

"That's the next mountain we've got to get over," Phillips was concluding minutes later. "When we (the seniors) went out to take a picture with the scoreboard behind us, that's the one thing we said. 'We're not done here. We're not satisfied. We've got to win that bowl game and take this program to the next level.'"