Anytime you can get a win against Washburn on the road it's a good thing.

Washburn is one of the few teams in our conference that matches up with us athletically as well as physically. What this game has given us is the confidence we'll need for close games coming up in the future. We won the game 24-21, and I really have a good feeling coming out of this game because I know that we can find ways to win close games and there is still room for improvement. The biggest key to our success right now is how much we want to improve. If we continue to practice well and improve as a team, there's no telling when and where our season will end.

Offensively, we moved the ball really well Saturday. We racked up more than 500 yards of offense, but didn't have that many points because of poor red zone execution. I was really proud of everyone on our offense. We had guys take what our coaches said to heart about going out there and being physical for 60 minutes. We had talked all week about how their safety is the key to their success and that they funnel everything to him. I was really impressed with our receivers, and how they got after Washburn's safety in the running game especially. Then in turn, that allowed us to sneak behind him on some deep balls off playaction. This was the first time all year we really hooked up on deep passes, and that will give everyone more confidence in them the rest of the year.

Our defense played really well again. They were pitching a shutout at halftime and did a nice job getting a turnover at the end of the game to seal the win. One of the guys that really shined on our defense was Myles Burnsides. He was named the MIAA Defensive Player of the Week for his efforts. Myles had the interception at the end of the game, but I thought his best play was when he took the snap on a fake punt and ran it down to the 1-yard line. That set us up for our first touchdown of the day. That play was huge for our team because it broke the seal on the lid. After that, we were much more relaxed and executed better down in the red zone.

This week we play at home against Emporia State on Senior Day. This game is really special to me because it will be the last regular season game I will ever play at Bearcat Stadium.

I can't believe how fast it has flown by the last 4-plus years. I feel very fortunate to have played at Northwest for Coach Tjeerdsma. He gave me the opportunity to come to Northwest to play both football and basketball, and I couldn't have asked for more from him.

What's crazy to me is that I had about 25 guys in my recruiting class when I signed with Northwest. Josh Gannan, Brant Gregg, Matt Nelson, Kendall Wright and I are the only ones left from the original class of '04. Then we have 8 other guys that either didn't redshirt, got an extra year of eligibility, or transferred here from another school that are seniors too.

Coach T always talks about leaving your legacy, and we really want to leave our legacy at Northwest by putting 2008 up on the press box under Conference Champions. If we win on Saturday, we can do that. Then we'll have to keep playing so we can put 2008 in some other spots on the press box as well.

Everyone who is a Bearcat fan knows the most important spot. If we keep improving, I have a really good feeling that will happen.

See ya next week,

Ozzy #12

Homecoming 2008 was a game to remember for myself and the rest of our team.

I had a good feeling leading up the game because we had a great week of practice. As I mentioned last week, what you do in practice carries over to Saturday. It showed in our poor offensive performance against Central two games ago and conversely in a 56-7 win against Fort Hays State Saturday.

We got off to a fast start thanks to a blocked punt by Myles Burnsides after the Tigers went three-and-out. That set up a short porch for the offense and from there, we scored on every possession except for one.

Our longest scoring drive lasted a little more than two minutes. If you weren't at the game and you saw the time of possession (47 minutes to 13 in favor of Fort Hays), you would have thought that Tigers were the winning team.

Our defense played well and only gave up seven points even though they were on the field for what seemed like the entire game. It seemed like every time Fort Hays was getting into our territory, our defense would clamp down and force them to punt or attempt a field goal.

Every year the MVP of the homecoming contest with the Don Black Award, and I was fortunate to earn the honor this year. I was honored to win the award, but it should've been shared with our entire offense.

If the offensive line wouldn't have played so great, then I wouldn't have had time to throw passes. If the running backs didn't block well or have great play action by making the defense think they had the ball, I wouldn't have been able to find my receivers down the field. Lastly, if the tight ends and receivers wouldn't have gotten open and caught the passes, then I wouldn't have had anyone to throw it to for a bunch of yards and some touchdowns.

It seemed like every time I threw it to a receiver, they were making it happen after the catch too. There were numerous times when guys caught the ball, made a defender or two miss and ran for more yards down field.

It seemed like every receiver/tight end caught two passes for a bunch of yards and a couple of guys had touchdown catches as well.

I was happy Brant Gregg caught a touchdown pass because he does such a great job blocking for us from the fullback position, and he deserved to be rewarded with a touchdown.

I was also glad to see Jake Soy catch his first touchdown of hopefully many more to come in his career. Jake first saw action against UNO because he was injured at the beginning of the season. Even though this is the first season I've worked with him, I feel very comfortable looking his way on game day.

I was extremely glad to see Josh Gannan get a couple of catches. His first one was pretty sweet because he broke a tackle and rumbled down the field for about 50 yards. He's fought through a lot of pain this year, but he does a great job for us at tight end.

This week we travel to Washburn in Topeka, Kan. Washburn is the last conference opponent that has defeated us. Every time we've played them in the last couple of years, the games have been close and extremely physical.

The thing about them is they always have great athletes on defense. This year is no exception. We will need to have another great week of practice in order to play well.

It's no secret that we play much better when we are loose and having fun. If we continue to do that, we will play better than we have all year on Saturday. I'm looking forward to this week's practices and the game on Saturday.

See ya next week,

Ozzy #12

I apologize for not wanting to chat much about last week's game, but honestly I thought it was our worst game of the year offensively. We got the win (20-13) and LaRon had a 99-yard touchdown run to cap another solid performance, but personally I'm ready to move on and forget about last Saturday. Our defense played great, securing two first-quarter interceptions, ending with five sacks and putting a beating on the quarterback for Central Missouri.

The sign of a good team is when you can win on the road against a top-25 team and we did that even though we didn't play our best. We kept all of our goals in line by staying undefeated in the conference (5-0) and keeping ourselves in control of the conference race. Winning this league always puts you in a good position come playoff time.

This week is homecoming and we're not thinking about the playoffs, we're thinking about Fort Hays State (2-5, 1-4). We're also focusing on ourselves and what we need to do to get better as a team.

First on my list is practicing better than we did last week. Coach T tells us religiously that if we practice well, it will lead to a better performance on Saturday's. After last week, those words couldn't ring more true. We have to practice better and be ready to go against the Tigers, who have one of the top defenses in our league.

I'm one of 13 seniors on our team and we only have four more guaranteed games left on our schedule. More than anything, I just want to have fun playing football for however long this season lasts, because having fun usually translates into us playing well.

There really isn't much more to say about this week other than the fact that it is my last Homecoming at Northwest. Hopefully I'll be writing next week after a big win against Fort Hays.

See ya next week,

Ozzy #12

We practiced well last week and it showed in our performance at Arrowhead as we won 35-10 over Pitt State in front of 21,000-plus people.

We got off to a fast start offensively, and our defense turned in another dominating performance. The thing I'll remember the most about my last game at Arrowhead is just the overall atmosphere, and the play where I was running for my life and ended up throwing a touchdown pass to Nick Rhodes.

It was a broken play, and I was trying to get outside of the pocket. However, when I tried running to the right, there was a defender there. I had to make up my mind quick because I was about to lose 15 yards or so on the play. So I veered back to my left and somehow the defender didn't get me.

When I was running, I saw Nick wide open in the end zone and threw it as far as I could hoping it would get to him. It landed in his hands and looking back, I feel like that play broke Pitt State's back because it looked like they were going to sack me for a big loss and then it turned into a touchdown for us.

Our offensive line played extremely well again in paving the way for LaRon Council to run for 144 yards and 4 touchdowns. LC was named the MIAA Offensive Player of the Week for the 3rd time already this year. He had a great performance on Saturday and was one of the major keys to our success.

Kendall Wright also had a breakout game. He caught 11 balls for 157 yards, and it seemed like every time we were in a 3rd down situation he would come up with the first down. Every time Kendall touched the ball, it took about 4 Pitt State guys to tackle him because he would juke out the first couple of guys.

On one play, I swear that he made the entire Pitt defense miss him. It was a great win for us because this puts us in the driver's seat for the conference championship.

We play at Central Missouri State this week, our third straight nationally-ranked opponent. This completes our 4 game road trip, which has to be one of the toughest stretches for any team in the nation.

We've played better as a team in each game. Our defense has been suffocating, and offensively we've been finishing better than we did at the beginning of the year. Being more physical than our opponents continues to be our strength.

Central is 5-1 overall and 3-1 in the conference with their only loss at Pitt so they will pose a challenge for us. Since Central is still in the running for the conference title this year, I'm expecting a great crowd for the game.

The keys to our success are the same as they've been the whole year. We need another great week of practice, and then we need to get out to a fast start especially since the game is at Central. If we win the turnover battle, it will put us in a good position to win the game.

See ya next week,

Ozzy #12