Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1038527
28 > > > Northwestern Digital Program THE SKIP REPORT: By Skip Myslenski NUsports.com Special Contributor Upon further review. . . . *NORTHWESTERN led Michigan State by eight at halftime, but in their locker room the elephant could not be ignored. They had not, in three of their four previous games, scored even a single second-half point. "Back-to-back weeks I haven't had to bring it up. The guys bring it up before I do. Older players," Pat Fitzgerald said Monday when asked if he had done just that. "I think from the standpoint of, especially in Big Ten play, teams are going to respond. They're well coached. There's great talent. There's a lot of pride with every program. We knew both teams, Michigan (a week earlier) and Michigan State, would respond and"— here he chuckled softly— "we can't turn the ball over. We just can't do that. We've got to eliminate those self- inflicted wounds. But I really liked the way our offense responded there at the end. We were able to finish it the way we needed to on the road in a hostile environment against a really, really good football team." *THE 'Cats, three weeks earlier, did score 13 second-half points against Akron. But that afternoon, in those same 30 minutes, quarterback Clayton Thorson threw a pair of pick sixes and suffered a strip sack that delivered the Zips six additional points. Now, after the Spartans have cut their deficit to two, he is intercepted at his own 33, and two-and-a-half minutes later the 'Cats are down five. "In a game there's pressure at all times," the superback Cam Green will say when asked if the offense felt that here. "Whether you're up big or whether you're up a little, any team can come back and make plays. So, yeah, there's pressure. And we knew that we hadn't scored that many points in the second half. But it was more continuing to try and finish the game. Try to get more points on the board. We were just trying to win the game. But of course there's pressure. There's pressure at every level." *THIS time the 'Cats, and Thorson in particular, stared pressure down and spit in its eye and unfurled a nine-play drive that ended with Green making the catch in the end zone that put the 'Cats back up three after a two-point conversion.