After Northwestern’s 28-21 overtime win against Illinois on Saturday, Wildcats coach Randy Walker said his team came close to setting a mark besides its NCAA-best four overtime contests in one season.
“We were about to set a world record for penalties too,” Walker said. “I don’t know how many holds we had today.
“I can’t explain it. There were a lot of holds.”
The Cats were called for 11 penalties costing them 113 yards, both season highs for NU. Illinois was called for only five penalties that cost the team 44 yards.
The most NU had been penalized before the game was in the Cats’ Big Ten opener, a 43-17 loss to Minnesota. NU’s nine penalties against the Golden Gophers cost them 77 yards.
“You play 10 weeks a season, and all of a sudden we get six holds or something in one game,” Walker said. “If we’re doing this all year, why aren’t we getting called? So I don’t know.
“But I saw the holds. I think they were good calls.”
Penalties hurt the Cats’ offense, which managed just 339 total yards against the Big Ten’s second-worst defense, a squad that allows 424 yards per game.
NU was called for just two penalties on the three offensive drives in which it scored a touchdown.
But for the Cats, the biggest problems caused by penalties were in field position. NU was called twice for illegal blocking, once on a punt return in the first quarter and once on a kickoff return in the second quarter.
The Cats were forced to punt on both possessions.
“Every time we got a little something, we were chipping our way out of a hole,” Walker said. “And it really set our offense back. But we just need to take that out of our offense and defense and other things. I can’t explain it though.”
Running back Noah Herron said he thought the referees were preventing the normal flow of the game by calling so many penalties.
“Coach Walker always says he doesn’t want you to take your stinger off,” Herron said. “He wants you to play hard.
“We felt like offensively we were playing hard, and (the referees) just weren’t letting us play.”
The Cats have struggled with penalties all season. They’re the second-most penalized team in the Big Ten, losing 52.1 yards per game.
“It’s always frustrating when we beat ourselves,” junior quarterback Brett Basanez said. “It’s been our story all year. Whether they were or weren’t penalties, how close they called it, the referees call it as they see it, and they’re right.”
Even with 11 penalties, NU managed to win in overtime.
But Walker said it was difficult to gain momentum on the Cats’ sideline until fewer than three minutes remained in regulation, when junior cornerback Jeff Backes returned a punt 73 yards for a touchdown.
And that momentum was contained, as Illinois’ Thomas Pierre returned NU’s next kickoff 62 yards to the Cats’ 30-yard line.
“We just got so many penalties and were so disjointed that it was hard to get a real comfortable feeling as a football team,” Walker said.
