Northwestern Football: Key takeaways from Wildcats romp in Citrus Bowl

Northwestern football capped off a fantastic season with a dominant win against the Auburn Tigers in the Citrus Bowl. Here are three takeaways.

Northwestern football might have better athletes than it gets credit for. This afternoon in Orlando, Florida, the Wildcats represented the Big Ten well with a dominant win over the Auburn Tigers this afternoon in the Citrus Bowl. The Big Ten runner-up posted its second-highest point total of the season with 35 points.

Northwestern football quarterback Peyton Ramsey waited until the last game of the season to play the season’s best game.

Ramsey threw for a season-high 291 yards and three touchdowns and the Wildcats sent long-time defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz out with a bang. Hankwitz is set to retire after the game. The win gave Hankwitz 400 wins as an assistant coach.

For the Auburn Tigers, Kevin Steele led the Tigers with Gus Malzahn fired last week. The offense sputtered most of the game. Though Bo Nix threw for 292 yards and a touchdown, the Tigers’ offense never seemed to have a consistent rhythm most of the game. Auburn struggled to run the football against Northwestern’s great linebackers totaling just 61 rushing yards on the day.

The Auburn defense did not play poorly most of the game. The Tigers’ defense had issues keeping the game close late. Northwestern freshman running back Cam Porter had 98 rushing yards, most coming in the fourth quarter when Northwestern put the game away.

Here are three takeaways from Northwestern’s dominant Citrus Bowl victory.

3. Consistency matters

Coming into this game, the Auburn Tigers lost their head coach. Gus Malzahn was fired last week, and defensive coordinator Kevin Steele was pegged to lead the team. Football players are creatures of habit. Preparing for this game had to be difficult for Auburn without their head football coach. Even with offensive coordinator Chad Morris still there, the offense had its struggles.

The Tigers were without Tank Bigsby and Anthony Schwartz on offense. K.J. Britt and Christian Tutt were missing for the Tigers offensively.

Though Northwestern was missing players, none of them impacted Auburn’s missing players had except defensive back Greg Newsome II. Though the Wildcats did have some players also enter the portal, their frontline was not affected.

It was obvious most of the game who did and who did not have their key players in the game. The Wildcats looked more in sync throughout the game than Auburn.