Northwestern football not expecting any givens following thrilling comeback over Hough

Determination.

That’s what Northwestern senior linebacker Will Massey said he saw from the defense in the final 15 minutes of the Trojans’ 45-44 win against Hough in Week 0.

A Northwestern missed field goal gave Hough the ball at its own 20 with 3:20 left in the third quarter and a 44-24 lead. However, the defensive leaders didn’t point fingers or get down on themselves; instead, they picked each other up.

Trying to salt away the victory, Hough put in its backup quarterback for the ensuing drive. On the first play, a mishandled snap resulted in a fumble. Northwestern senior defensive end Mason Grier dove for the ball but accidentally kicked it deeper into Hough territory where fellow senior defensive lineman Andre Pickett fell on it.

One play later, running back Zymier Gordon-Miles broke into the endzone on a 7-yard touchdown run to cut Northwestern’s deficit to 44-31 with 3:01 left in the third quarter.

“We didn’t even notice the backup was in,” Massey said. “We were just trying to play football and just trying to win the game.”

And Northwestern’s defense provided the stops to allow the team to do just that.

Hough drove into Northwestern territory on each of the next two drives, but a Massey forced fumble and recovery ended one drive and a group sack led by Kyle Robinson and Mason Grier stalled the other.

Quarterback Finley Polk threw a touchdown to receivers Daniel Caldwell and Kameron Vance on the following Northwestern drives to put the Trojans up 45-44 with 3:30 remaining in the contest.

However, the Northwestern defense needed to make one more big stand. After a 21-yard pass put Hough on its 45-yard line, the Trojan defense forced four straight incompletions to stall out another Huskies drive. The fourth and final incompletion was a deflection at the line of scrimmage by defensive lineman Dmitri Putman II.

The Trojans got the ball back and ran the rest of the time off the clock.

“It was crazy on the sideline,” Polk said. “We’ve been working with these guys all summer, so I knew we had it in us. I had no doubt in our mind they were going to make plays, but it was good to see it happen instead of just knowing it was going to happen. (The defense) made plays for me, and then (the offense) went out and scored touchdowns for them. It’s a team effort, and we put it all together.”

Many positives for Northwestern

Northwestern head coach Page Wofford said he’s happy with the win, even though falling to a 20-point deficit after allowing 24 unanswered points was not in the gameplan for his team.

The sixth-year head coach did see a lot to like from his team in their season opener as well.

The Trojans picked up 141 yards on the ground — 107 from Gordon-Miles — after rushing for only 41 yards across its two presesason scrimmages against J.L. Mann and Dutch Fork.

Northwestern’s offense was also rather efficient, scoring six touchdowns and a field goal across 12 offensive drives excluding the two drives to end the first and second half. Northwestern also went 8-for-15 on third down and converted both of its fourth-down attempts.

On top of all that, the team never gave up.

“They kept trusting and kept keeping each other up on the sideline,” Wofford said. “And we talked about that because I’ve been on sidelines where that didn’t happen, and it’s not a fun time. Football’s hard enough as is without it not being any fun, so we try to keep things as fun as possible.”

Next up: Ridge View

However, none of that will matter in the team’s upcoming road matchup against Ridge View.

Polk said that the Blazers aren’t going to give the Trojans anything just because of last week’s thrilling victory. If Northwestern wants to win, the team will have to earn it just like every other game. Even Wofford said he hasn’t had time to let the Hough win fully sink in yet, but the lessons learned on both sides of the ball will be invaluable for his team this season.

“(Ridge View is) not going to give us any points for it on Friday,” Wofford said. “We can’t go out there on Friday and say, ‘hey, we came back against Hough’. Ridge View is just going to say, ‘well, we’re not going to let you comeback on us.’”

“It’s the anatomy of the comeback,” Wofford said. “Hough had to turn the ball over and had to give us big penalties, and they did that. We had to protect the ball and we had to score when we had the chance, and we did that. We had to have guys make big plays...Seeing things like that occur and stuff that we talk about and stuff that we try to prepare them for happening in the games and our kids responding, it’s a testament to the coaching staff talking to our kids about how to be a winner and how to win football games.”

Kickoff for the game between Northwestern and Ridge View is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday in Columbia.