Tuesday Northwestern-Iowa Reading Room: Mark says take Northwestern and the 12 points against Iowa

I don't know who this Mark is, but he has a lot of words about Iowa-Northwestern right here at sportschatplace.com.

Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune, meanwhile, is making no prediction in this piece about the Wildcats. Excerpts:

Here's the number that every Northwestern defensive player should commit to memory - 27.

That's how many tackles the Wildcats missed Saturday, when they allowed Penn State to score five straight touchdowns in a 35-21 defeat. ...

Said defensive tackle Corbin Bryant: "We just lost focus and technique. We're flushing all (the mistakes), but we will play with a chip on our shoulder and get better." ...

Lindsey Willhite of the Daily Herald had a good lead in this story about Northwestern's missed tackles at Penn State.

If you thought Northwestern whiffed on 400 tackles Saturday as an ode to Joe Paterno's milestone victory, you weren't off by much.

Willhite continued:

“We missed more tackles on Saturday than we've missed in the previous, I think, five or six games combined,” said Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald.

In that case, it's little wonder the Wildcats surrendered 375 total yards and 35 points in the final 30 minutes and 50 seconds. Northwestern can't afford anything close to that disaster this week if it intends to knock off Iowa for the fifth time in six years.

The Hawkeyes (7-2, 4-1), who sit at No. 13 in the BCS ratings, average 30 yards and 8 points per game more than Penn State.

Willhite also wrote about Fitzgerald's praise for Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi:

Pat Fitzgerald knows a little bit about efficient quarterbacks NU's Dan Persa ranks 10th in the country and loves what he sees on tape.

“When I study quarterbacks and I'm looking at them, I look at mistakes that they make,” Fitzgerald said. “And I haven't seen one mistake that I've seen Ricky make. I haven't watched every rep of the year, but I have not seen him make a poor choice yet. And I think that's what makes him so impressive.”

Former Chicago Tribune sportswriter Skip Myslenski is someone whose work I've always liked and respected. When the Tribune Company had a bloodletting a couple years ago and either laid off employees or offered buyouts, a lot of good reporters left the Trib, including Skip. He went to Northwestern to cover ... Northwestern.

Kudos to Northwestern for valuing the written word and hiring a pro to provide it. Here is an archive of Myslenski's stories for nusports.com.

In Skip's Monday story for the site, he gives Fitzgerald's reaction to the 'Cats Big Ten losses to Purdue, Michigan State and Penn State. Northwestern held third-quarter leads in each of those games.

"I think there's one common theme. We didn't make a lot of plays in the second half of both those games. We were one play away. We were driving to win the game against Purdue and shot ourselves in the foot. Against Michigan State we had the opportunity for a bunch of plays and didn't make them. The same thing on Saturday. That would be the common theme. Opportunities. You have to take advantage of them in Big Ten games. You look at some of the scores from this past weekend, it's a fine line. The margin for error is very small in these games. That's what makes it so much fun to be part of and such a challenge to win."