Northwestern is incapable of losing in normal fashion.
This past week, they were up 21-0 against Penn State. They lost.
Three weeks ago, they were up 17-0 against Michigan State. They lost.
Eleven months ago, the Outback Bowl happened, and I’m not fully sure what went down because the events of that game caused me to spend the next 72 hours in a weeping-induced blackout where I’ve been told I spent more than $7,500 on Kleenex, prescription painkillers and, of course, black tar heroin.
I can keep going. Any Wildcats fan can. You might think that NU are heartbreakers, a.k.a. the Taio Cruzes of football. (Also, that it is like Dy-no-mite.) NU football has led or been tied in the fourth quarter in all 25 of their last contests. They are not 25-0. I would list all of them, but I only have a few hundred words to write and NU has blown comically large leads in football and basketball several million billion times in only the 100 or so years that collegiate athletics have been contested.
NU fans are disheartened. Nobody wants to talk about what happened Saturday. I can probably guarantee that you don’t want to read about it.
But it’s these same people with their heads in the proverbial sand that are the quickest to point out NU’s knack for exciting victories. You know, the squeakers, whether they be against ranked opponents or against, let’s say, 0-12 Eastern Michigan, who would have had trouble beating my freshman year IM football team. The Cardiac Cats wins. The comebacks. In the same way I don’t have enough space to list NU’s heartbreakers and tearjerkers, I don’t have space to discuss all their nailbitersfor wins. Of NU’s 12 victories against FBS schools in the past two seasons, ten came by a touchdown or less.
The reason we pay attention to sports is because it’s unpredictable. This is why the genius video game developers who were paid to take all the best aspects of basketball and put them in NBA Street Vol. 2 made it essentially impossible for either team to hold a lead of any amount of points, so that every single game gets decided on a last-second off-the-backboard reverse tomahawk dunk.
I’m not telling people to be happy after their team blows a 21-point lead against a mediocre opponent. Like, uh, NU did last Saturday. I’m just saying to remember why sports is great a few days before a game where virtually nobody gives the floundering Cats a chance.
Northwestern’s mini-rivalry against Iowa is a perfect example of why people shouldn’t go postal over a frustrating loss. Over the past four years, NU – normally the lesser team – has won three games against Iowa, all three on the road. NU trailed 17-3 before forcing five turnovers en route to a 22-17 victory two years ago, and went down 10 before running off 17 straight and downing undefeated Iowa.
It’s not that NU has a jinx on Iowa, or that Pat Fitzgerald has voodoo dolls of Iowa’s running backs and quarterbacks. It’s that this is football. We watch it because it’s so unpredictable. Sometimes you feel great. Sometimes it makes you think that you and only you are doomed to suffer on this earth because of Stefan Demos.
NU plays No. 13 Iowa this weekend, and by all rights, they should get their nonsense smacked. But I won’t predict a loss. I also won’t tell you that they’re not going to break your heart, Taio-style.
Deputy sports editor Rodger Sherman is a Medill junior. He can be reached at [email protected]
