Before you start burning Jake Simpson in effigy, please, dear reader, a word. As I’m sure many of you know by now, Mr. Simpson wrote an article for the last issue of The Weekly titled “What If Northwestern Said Goodbye To the Big Ten?” It looked at potential repercussions and benefits if NU football were to secede from its longtime conference. The article was greeted with the kind of vitriol this school usually reserves for holocaust deniers and pro-lifers. On my last count, it had racked up 30 comments on dailynorthwestern.com, and there is now an entire forum devoted to it on the NU Rivals Web page. One of the nicer posts: “The hideous writing is overshadowed only by the author’s general lack of knowledge.”

I’m all for reader feedback, but I can’t help but feel like something has been lost in translation. The article was not – I repeat NOT – intended as an argument in favor of leaving the Big Ten. The Weekly’s “What If” feature takes a hypothetical, no matter how unlikely, and explores it. In the past four weeks, we’ve run pieces looking at what would happen if Lindsay Lohan decided to enroll at NU and how campus police would handle a student shooting. We were not advocating homicide. We were not advocating LiLo.

I am not trying to belittle the students and alumni who were ticked off by the piece. Rather, I am a little confused. Some posters clearly got what Simpson was driving at (Wrote one: “It certainly doesn’t appear the author is advocating NU leaving the B10.”) Others disputed his facts, albeit not very persuasively. Most, however, just expressed a general sense of outrage, over what seems to me like a non-issue. So why the confusion? Are some NU fans so tightly wound that even breaching the topic qualifies as apostasy? Was the article just unclear? Please, feel free to send feedback. Not that I need to tell you that.

– Jordan Weissman

The Weekly Editor