Northwestern coach Randy Walker had a day to mull over the loss to No. 22 Michigan before his news conference Monday.

“I didn’t respond well,” Walker said. “I know my anger and emotion probably got the best of me. I know our kids were upset. It’s just, let it go. Let’s go forward and take that out of our football and play better this week.”

After the Wildcats’ last Big Ten defeat, they had a bye week to regroup. NU proceeded to reel off three straight wins after the 34-29 loss to Penn State on Sept. 24.

Walker said it will be easier to get past the loss to the Wolverines because his team now knows it can be successful.

“(After) the Penn State loss, we still didn’t have a lot of evidence that we could be a good team,” Walker said. “There was still a crisis, perhaps, in our confidence. Since the Penn State game, I think we have evidence that we can be a good football team.”

Senior linebacker Tim McGarigle said his team is over the loss already.

“We’re going to bounce back like we did after Penn State,” he said. “There were three games after Penn State, and (now) there’s three more. So we’re just trying to get on another run.”

NU faces two of its final three opponents on the road, where the Cats are 2-0 in the Big Ten this season.

Walker said NU has to move beyond the loss and prepare for Iowa.

“They aren’t going to forget about what happened,” Walker said. “They were bitterly disappointed. They were very upset after the game.

“But if we go out and show up and the right Northwestern team shows up, we’ll be fine.”

After weeks of domination on offense, the seemingly unstoppable unit stalled against Michigan.

Walker said penalties, especially the holding calls, were a major factor in his team’s sputtering offense.

“It’s just like you didn’t have a chance,” he said. “You got the ball taken away from you some and you just really didn’t have a chance to make some plays. Had we had a chance and they stopped us, that’s one thing.”

After scoring a touchdown with 11 seconds remaining in the first half, NU made it into Michigan territory in just two of its final seven drives and didn’t score the rest of the game.

Walker said because the offense had been so successful prior to this weekend, it was somewhat taken by surprise when it couldn’t execute as well.

“We had been on a roll, and we were used to getting on a roll as an offense,” Walker said. “When we weren’t able to play like that it bothered us.”

He said while he is frustrated with the loss, his team is about where he would have liked it to be.

“Every year in August when we start, I say I hope we get to November with something to play for and still have a shot at something meaningful,” Walker said. “And we find ourselves entering the month of November still having a shot at being league champions, we still have an opportunity to play for something meaningful.

“There’s a whole bunch of football teams that have already been eliminated from that.”

Reach Abe Rakov at [email protected].