WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. –
And just when you think you know a team, it goes and does something like this.
After the first two games of the season, I thought: “Well, they’re beating the teams they’re supposed to. But that Nevada game was closer than it should have been.”
After three losses in a row, I thought: “Looks like the rebuilding process is going to take at least one more season.”
After three wins in a row, I thought: “This offense can keep the team in any game.”
After Saturday’s 35-17 loss to Purdue, I thought: “Huh?”
With the history of these two teams, I was expecting 1,200 yards, 80 points and zero punts. What I got was Purdue and Northwestern taking turns looking impressive and awful, leaving me with a funny feeling in my stomach at the end that neither team was ready to play 60 minutes of quality football.
This has been a recurring theme for the Wildcats. In nine games this season, NU has taken on about seven different identities, none of which could string together four quarters of solid play.
From all accounts, this identity crisis has come from “inconsistency,” a buzzword that the team has been throwing around about as frequently as C.J. Bacher threw the ball against Minnesota.
And this inconsistency has been repeatedly contributed to a kind of nebulous concept: the Cats’ inability to play “Northwestern football.”
“I don’t think we played up the cornerstones of our program today, ” said running back Tyrell Sutton, who saw his first meaningful game action Saturday after sitting out the majority of the last two months with a “foot” injury.
NU has been inconsistent. Very inconsistent. And, like coach Pat Fitzgerald has said, the Cats have yet to put together a perfect game.
But the problem runs a little deeper. For as inconsistent as NU’s play has been, the play calling has been exceedingly consistent: the same week after week after week.
No matter which team NU plays, no matter how the Cats are performing that day, the team sticks to its vaunted game plan.
It doesn’t matter if Sutton or Omar Conteh is the featured back. Whoever it is will get fewer than 20 carries.
It doesn’t matter if NU is playing Ohio State, which feeds on the run, or Minnesota, which gets fed on. The Cats will still pass the ball about twice as many times as it runs.
It doesn’t matter if Bacher throws three interceptions in the first half against Purdue. He’s still going to throw the ball eight times on 10 fourth-quarter plays.
There’s something to be said about not letting the opposition dictate the way you play. There’s also something to be said about learning a little improvisation when things aren’t going right.
“Each play something different went wrong,” junior wide receiver Eric Peterman said. “It was good play-calling and the plays were there. We just didn’t execute.”
After the game, Peterman offered an explanation as to how NU is able to make all the comebacks it’s so famous for.
He said the Cats keep “pounding the rock.” Well, they pound and they pound and they pound, and eventually it breaks.
It broke against Nevada and Minnesota, just like it’s broken against so many opponents over the years.
But it wasn’t going to break down the stretch against Purdue. It didn’t even look like it was cracking.
The Cats don’t have the ability to just step around the rock right now. When things go wrong, they just seem to keep pounding futilely.
But I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong about the Cats at least three times before in the course of this season.
Sports editor David Morrison is a Medill senior. He can be reached at [email protected].
