Football

For all the talk about Northwestern’s dormant offense this season, Saturday’s game against Purdue came down to something else: two field goal attempts.

With 2:30 to play and the Wildcats nursing a one-point lead, Charlie Kuhbander sent a 32-yard attempt off the left upright. On the ensuing drive, J.D Dellinger nailed a 39-yarder to help Purdue steal a 24-22 win in front of 37,194 fans Saturday at Ryan Field.

“My pregame range was about a 47 yard field goal,” Dellinger said. “So we were in it. It’s still a tough kick with the gusting wind, and it was pretty much right in my face…I played a lower, slow-rising ball. It took forever, it seemed like, to go in.”

When it did sail through the uprights, it delivered the latest heartbreak in a season of disappointments for NU (1-8, 0-7 Big Ten), which lost its seventh straight game. Behind a third-string quarterback making his first career start, the Boilermakers (4-6, 3-4) kept their bowl hopes alive thanks to a host of NU penalties and Dellinger’s clutch kick.

“J.D. has been our most consistent guy all year,” Purdue coach Jeff Brohm said. “We had great confidence that he would make that.”

Coming in to Saturday’s contest, the Cats hadn’t scored a touchdown since the Oct. 5 game at Nebraska. Junior Kyric McGowan ended the drought in the first quarter with a 79-yard run, and Smith added two touchdowns through the air. But NU’s rally ultimately fell short.

Because NU has trailed so often this season, there haven’t been many field goal situations and the Cats have barely moved the ball into field goal range. Late in the fourth quarter and up 22-21, the Cats drove into the red zone but were backed up after a holding penalty, forcing them to settle for a field goal attempt. It was a key moment for Kuhbander to extend the lead to four and help NU close out the game.

But the kick doinked off the left upright. After the game, coach Pat Fitzgerald didn’t have much to say on the missed kick.

“It looked like it hit the post, right? That’s what went wrong from my vantage point,” he said.

NU has had a lot of things go wrong this season. As the offense has struggled mightily and the defense has had a rough few weeks, the special teams unit has sometimes been a lone bright spot. Earlier in Saturday’s game Andrew David gave the Cats some momentum when he took a fake punt for a first down. But in the end, Purdue made their kick and NU didn’t. That was the difference.

Sophomore receiver Jace James summed up NU’s loss with a short sentence.

“Just too many mistakes.”

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