2019 NWC Pick ‘Em: Week 3

Let’s roll!

It’s the last weekend before everyone takes a bye week to get ready for the start of Northwest Conference play.  And speaking of “conference” I need to freestyle here about a pet peeve of mine.  We (Linfield, PLU, Fox, Whit, etc, etc.) play football in a conference and not a league.  I cringed the other day when a Northwest CONFERENCE head coach kept referring to the NWC as a league and not a conference. It’s a minor thing to get worked up over but if there are any players or coaches around the NWC that do read this (I know you do) please remember this is college football, not high school.

I was mostly correct about how I thought Week 2 was going to play out for the NWC teams.  The only one I was terribly off the mark was Lewis & Clark.  That’s what I get for getting influenced by a stupid yearly article from Kerry Eggers on how great L&C is going to be.  Getting shutout by Pamona Pitzer is brutal way to start the season. It’s never cool to have to tell your boys that you got blanked by a team whose mascot is the Sagehens.

For the rest of the conference, Redlands embarrassed UPS, Pacific showed fight before falling to Dubuque, PLU had a feel good win over a bad CLU team (the Kingsmen looks like they forgot to pick up their offense at the Sea-Tac baggage claim), Willamette (sporting their all new white road uniforms (yes, another Linfield knockoff)) traded touchdowns against La Verne before dropping that game, and Fox brought the defense but their offense continues to clunk around in a 15-14 loss to Alfred.

After two weeks of play in the NWC, it’s Whitworth/Linfield and everyone else. Every NWC teams has some talent or good units, but in terms of complete football teams, I’m not seeing it so far around the conference besides at the tippy top. But growth can happen, and teams can start clicking as we move along.  Let’s get into Week 3 action which features exclusive SCIAC vs NWC match-ups.

Northwest Conference Games of the Week:

Whittier (2-0) over L&C (0-1) (at L&C):  Don’t let that 2-0 from Whittier fool you.  The Poets beat Luther from the American Rivers Conference (Luther was picked to finish 8th by the ARC coaches) and Whittier has the nads to count beating Lewis and Clark Valley College to their 2-0 record. C’mon man, that’s a JV scrimmage game.  Regardless, I want to pick L&C to win this weekend but the Pios have a new offensive scheme, and based off last week, the Pioneers are struggling to wrap their minds around it. Who knows, the Pios will be that team that I just can’t get right in 2019 and will probably score 56 points this weekend.

Willamette (0-1) over Oxy (1-0) (at Willamette):  Occidental topped the mighty Centro de Ensenanza Tecnica y Superior University Zorros out of Tijuana, Mexico last weekend.  Their press released did said this was an exhibition game, but their schedule is stating 1-0.  Whatever, Oxy needs any win they can get.  I think they have the Little Giants scheduled in 2020.  Willamette showed some offensive pop against La Verne last weekend and that gives me the confidence to have them go over the Tigers in Sause Town.

PLU (1-0) over CMS (at CMS): Break up the Lutes’.  PLU is a young football team and their offense looked like the 70’s/80’s Raiders with all the deep balls they threw in the 1st half against CLU (didn’t complete many of them). The Lutes’ are going to play hard and fly around on Saturday.  Not saying they’re a good football team yet but you can see they are well coached. CMS always have a few very talented football players surrounded by average to bad football players. The Lutes will get another SCIAC win and feel good headed into NWC play.

UPS (1-1) over La Verne (1-1) (at UPS): The Loggers will get a bounce back win over La Verne this weekend.  Yeah, the Loggers offense killed any chance they had to hang in there with Redlands with those 8 turnovers, but man, that Logger defense looked terrible.  I won’t be too harsh because Redlands is freaking good this year but any team that has any ability to throw the ball is going to carve up UPS like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Whitworth (1-0) over Chapman (1-0) (at Chapman): This should be a fun football game. Chapman had some impressive young talent at running back and have an absolute stud at receiver in Trevor Vile.  The Panthers should provide the Rats with a solid test but Whitworth is going to have too much to handle on both sides of the ball. Could be tight early but as the game moves along this should be all Whitworth.

Fox (0-2) over Pamona Pitzer (1-0) (at Fox):  I have zero confidence in the George Fox offense right now.  The Fox offense is built on establish the running game and GFU is averaging 86.0 yards in their first two games and haven’t broke the 20-point mark yet.  Hey, at least they set a team record last weekend in a 14-15 loss. Seriously, the leading line on their Alfred game story said the Bruins set a school record for distance traveled.  What an incredible accomplishment that isn’t listed anywhere in their actual record book.  For Saturday, Pamona shutout the Pios last weekend, so maybe this is another tight low scoring game?  I think Fox will have more talent and depth for PP to handle and that will allow GFU’s social media accounts to tweet/post results about the game instead of pretending like the games never happened.

Pacific (0-2) over CLU (0-1) (at CLU): Wow, CLU’s offense looked like the Bad News Bears last weekend up at PLU.  You don’t want to fully judge a football team based off their Week 1 performance, but if you did, the Kingsmen are not a good football team this year.  This will be the Boxers best shot at winning a football game yet. I’ll tip the cap to Pacific in defeat last week. They were down 28-7 to Dubuque late in the first half and could have tapped out but Pacific stormed back to get the score to 26-28 late in the 3rd before the Spartans were able to put it out of reach. Losing sucks but Pacific showed some growth that they can build on. Boxers get it done.

Wildcat11’s Week 3 NWC Power Rankings:

1. Whitworth: Champs had the weekend off before they continue their march to Linfield
2. Linfield: Big ‘ol challenge this weekend.
3. PLU: Everyone else lost so ‘Lutes get the honor of being the best of the rest.
4. Pacific: Showed fight and have pieces to make some noise in conference play.
5. Puget Sound: Their defense sucks but have an offense.
6. George Fox: Their offense sucks but have a defense.
7. Willamette: Showed some offensive punch in their week 1 loss.
8. Lewis & Clark: You got shutout by Pamona Pitzer. Just have to wear it this week, boys.