You can blame it all on the sod. Seriously.

While 57,200 fans got to see Ohio State’s spring football contest, the Scarlet and Gray game, just a handful of relatives, boosters and media were present for Northwestern’s final outing before the fall.

For the third time in five years, the Wildcats were robbed of the chance to bring some much-needed excitement and enthusiasm to the program.

This year’s excuse was the resodding of Ryan Field, part of the attempt to ready the field for play in September. The “game” was instead held at a practice field behind Rocky Miller Park.

The resodding is a valid reason, as was last year’s excuse — inclement weather — which moved the contest inside Trienens Hall, the Cats’ indoor practice field.

And yet almost every other school in the nation, including those with natural grass, is able to hold a spring game.

Not every Big Ten school had quite the attendance of the reigning national-champion Buckeyes, but eight of the nine teams that held a spring game had fans numbering in the thousands, from Minnesota’s 2,300 to Penn State’s 26,000. (Michigan’s game was canceled due to weather and field conditions, but it was the first cancellation since 1996.)

“It’s always fun when you’re signing autographs and people are yelling,” said fifth-year senior Ray Bogenrief, who has only played in two spring games in his career at NU.

Fortunately there were cheers to be heard — but they were directed at the NU-Illinois baseball game played just a few yards away from the practice field.

Saturday’s extended scrimmage was little more than an 80-play practice, with players getting to see a number of different game situations without the benefit of a game atmosphere.

Even with the lethargy that plagues most NU fans, there would have been a decent crowd at Ryan Field for a sneak preview of the 2003 season, even on a chilly early spring morning.

“You want to run in that stadium. You look forward to that,” head coach Randy Walker said. “It’s a little frustrating. I think if we would have had a conventional game, we would have had a few thousand.”

And those few thousand would have gotten a nice look at a few interesting stories shaping up for the season: the quarterback play of both the projected-starter Brett Basanez and the coming-off-an-injury Alexander Webb, the injury to offensive tackle Zach Strief and the unimpressive performance of the kickers.

Walker said it would have been nice to play in the stadium before a crowd, but it just wasn’t meant to be this year.

“You like the ability to play in your house, but we weren’t given that ability,” Walker said.

NU football fandom desperately needs a shot in the arm. By failing to make the spring game a priority, the Cats missed a good opportunity to reach out to their supporters and give them a taste of what they’re in for in the fall.

It would have been nice to reward the faithful with a taste of the football yet to come.

But they couldn’t.

Just blame the sod.

Amalie Benjamin is a Weinberg junior. She can be reached at [email protected]