Northwestern Wildcats Very Undisiplined in 30-25 Victory Over Central Michigan

On Saturday afternoon the Northwestern Wildcats improved their record to 4-0, defeating Central Michigan 30-25 in a penalty-filled game.

The Wildcats committed seven penalties in the first half, five of them in the first five minutes. They ended the half with more penalty yards (69) than rushing yards (48).

Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald was shocked with the number of penalties and the Chicago Sun-Times reported he promised to kill the penalties this coming week.

"That's not Wildcat football. When you've got something wrong, like a weed in the yard, you get weed-killer. I'm going to kill the penalties, I promise you that."

Quarterback Dan Persa continued his impressive season, completing 23-of-30 passes for 280 yards and two touchdown passes to receiver Jeremy Ebert. He did throw his first interception and Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune reported Persa blamed himself.

"I made a bad play-fake and didn't suck the linebacker in, and he dropped into where I was throwing," Persa said. "But I shouldn't have thrown it anyway."

Tailback Arby Fields fell back into his bad habit of trying to outrun the defense and gained 16 yards on seven carries with a fumble. Jacob Schmidt and Mike Trumpy took over for Fields and performed well. Schmidt had two scores on six carries for 32 yards while Trumpy lead the Wildcats ground game with 12 carries on 53 yards.

Greenstein reported that Fitzgerald couldn't say who will start at tailback.

"The way the guys practice and compete will determine where things will go," Fitzgerald said.

Saturday the Wildcats will travel to Minnesota to battle with the 1-3 Gophers. Fitzgerald sees the Gophers as much better than a 1-3 team.

"Schematically, they do an outstanding job in all three phases. They have great athletes all over the place. Timmy has recruited outstanding...this is the best team we will have played."

Last week Northern Illinois tailback Chad Spann rushed for 223 yards on 15 carriers against the Gophers and this has Jacob Schmidt excited.

"We're excited," Schmidt said. "The Northern Illinois guy proved they can be run on. So that's our goal—to shove it down their throat," according to Greenstein's report.

ESPN will broadcast Saturdays game live from Minneapolis at 11:00 a.m. CT

GO CATS!