HATURDAY HATPOCALYPSE HAT GAME BOWL GAME HAT

It is here.

Which team will qualify for a virtually non-existent bowl game in Detroit or somewhere spiritually aligned with the concept of a Detroit bowl game ? Which team can persevere in the face of intense media scrutiny?  Which team has what it takes to be the second-best team in the state?  Which team has a better back-up quarterback?  Whose cuisine will reign supreme?  Who wants The Hat, the universally-recognized symbol of the greatest rivalry in the history of college football?
 
Hat

It's Hat Saturday.  Haturday.  Win or go home.  The most important game between Northwestern and Illinois in the history of the rivalry and it's to punch a golden ticket to a Siberian bowl wasteland or be forever cast into the dustbin of forgotten teams that don't play in bowls even though the difference between playing in a crappy bowl game or not playing in one is for all intents and purposes meaningless.  This game is no less than the climax of the Tim Beckman era, and a win or die showdown for watered-down, grade-inflation bowl eligibility; it is the platonic ideal of a Land of Lincoln game.  This game could be a glorious continuation of Tim Beckman-related Hat Invincibility or it could go down as one of the most ignominious defeats in Northwestern history which includes losses via multiple onside kick returns, allowing the greatest comeback in the history of college football, losing to an FCS opponent at home, losing 34 consecutive games as students threw the goal posts in Lake Michigan in mock triumph, and failing to defeat Brady Hoke.

DO BECK MEN DREAM OF ELECTRIC HATS

Tim Beckman is one of the best things to happen to Northwestern football.   Illinois and Northwestern shared Big Ten Cellar-Dweller Solidarity, occasionally rising to the top of the conference and serving as a welcome breath of fresh air against the ceaseless and boring domination by the Ohio States and Michigans.  Illinois's football past is only slightly less bleak than Northwestern's.  I can't sum up the Illinois football experience better than the lede from this article: "Illinois senior football players were asked to name their favorite memory during their time in the program for the team's website. For most of the 18, the best memory was the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl."

The rivalry game, first for the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk and then vastly superior Hat, was a good way to end the season and usually seen as winnable.  Then Tim Beckman came to down, guns blazing, staring down piano players.

Beckman made no secret of what he wanted: state pride and its currency: Hats.  His introductory press conference was rife with references to destroying purple objects, referring to Northwestern as "that school up north," putting up that anti-Northwestern sign in the locker room, and probably getting angry at Kansas State and sending hate mail to the purple teletubby for what the producers of the that show would see as novel and unexpected reasons.  If you for whatever reason have read more than one entry of this blog, you've noticed that I think the War on Northwestern is an unending wellspring of hilarity.
 
Try to think of something funnier than this

But, in some ways, Tim Beckman has won.  Beckman, and the conversion of the trophy into a coveted Hat, has made the Illinois game a must-win.  It's more than just a win against an in-state rival (Beckman, who makes pronouncements with the understated, soft-spoken cadence of a desperate Depression-era carnival barker, declared this the "state championship," apparently oblivious to the existence of Northern Illinois).  The cosmic laws of the universe simply cannot allow a person who uses all of the ridiculous flopsweat-addled manufactured rivalry tricks on what is historically the worst program in the history of college football to prevail in that game.  Instead, Beckman functions best as a frustrated foil; Beck Man the Saturday morning cartoon villain whose plots are forever frustrated by his own incompetence.

If Tim Beckman had turned the Illini into a football juggernaut, his goofy Northwestern-baiting would be embraced as part of his motivational tactics.  But his Illini have not exactly set the world on fire.  Beckman has won a total of four Big Ten games since taking over in 2012.  His tenure has been marked by weird incidents on and off the field, including a public censure by the NCAA for chewing tobacco on the sideline, acquiring sideline interference penalties including the one linked above where he's simultaneously flagged and run over by a referee, and criticism for attempting to poach Penn State players seconds after sanctions came down.  I don't blame him for any of those things; there's no room for dignity in coaching college football and Beckman should be able to use whatever sideline substances he wants whether it's chaw or the chemicals that are constantly pumped into Ed Orgeron on gameday to prevent him from removing his shirt.  But it would also be fair to say that his position at Illinois is under siege, and he may well be coaching for his job on Saturday.

GET ON UP FOR THE HAT GAME YOU CHUMPS

What else can we say?  It's the Hat Game.  Northwestern is carrying a modest two-game win streak including a decisive 38-14 victory over a train accident Purdue team that was never really in doubt.  But the Wildcats suffered a massive blow on offense when Trevor Siemian injured his knee.  That means that the already-struggling Northwestern offense will turn to big-armed backup Zack Oliver.  Oliver looked good to close out the game.  It would not be surprising to see the 'Cats use their other quarterback in Alviti Packages because they sound like the Macguffin at the center of a heist movie.
 
Slide the briefcase across the floor.  Stay there.  I need to make a call.  If I don't call 
by precisely 2:30, we'll destroy the Alviti Packages.  You're not getting anything 
until my boss confirms he has the Colter Options

The Illini may also use their backup at quarterback.  Beckman replaced a rusty Wes Lunt with Riley O'Toole in their win against Penn State.  Northwestern fans may remember O'Toole from his cameo in the 2012 game, when he relieved Nathan Scheelaase in a Northwestern romp.  Lunt may also play.  Maybe the teams will switch quarterbacks at halftime just to mix things up.

The game will match one of the country's least productive offenses (playing with up to two quarterbacks, neither of which has ever started a game) against one of the worst defenses.  Northwestern plays defense better than anything the Illini do and are at home, albeit badly outnumbered by Illinois fans.  The 'Cats have beaten Wisconsin and Notre Dame while the Illini have felled mighty Minnesota.

Don't write off the Illini.  This game is for The Hat.  It is for a bowl.  It is for Tim Beckman's job, for continued irritation at the whole Chicago's Big Ten team thing, for a tiny crack of dawn in the darkness that has shrouded the Illinois football program since the Fall of the Zook Empire, and I expect the Illini to come out like maniacs to let that Hat radiate happiness around Champaign in the dismal winter months to come in The Greatest Rivalry in All of College Football.

COME OUT THIS SATURDAY.  It is the Hat Game.  It is going to be pleasant outside.  Are you prepared to sit idly by and ignore what will certainly be the hattest hat game of the century with a trip to Detroit at stake when you and your loved ones can be part of a braying purple throng ready to sweep Beck Man and the Illini down I-57, hatless and bowl-less, in the last opportunity to do so at Ryan Field this season, and with the only socially acceptable venue for yelling at college students who are running into each other for our amusement?  Don't let the Illini enact a Glorious Revolution and turn Ryan Field into a House of Orange.
 
Beckman's hatred for Northwestern is so intense, I 
can see him taking over another team and 
attempting to maneuver them into the Big Ten and 
use their resources to try to crush the Wildcats, like 
William III attempted to do against the Sun King, 
Louis XIV

HATURDAYS OF THUNDER

This is the greatest Hat Game in history.  A bowl is on the line in a win or go home thunderdome.  We might not have Tim Beckman to kick around anymore.  No one wants to see Beckman ever hold a Hat in triumph; the thought is sickening, appalling, disgusting.  At the same time, I want to see more on the line in this game.  Beckman's ridiculous, tone-deaf, absurd rivalry campaign has made this game relevant again and not even entirely ironically.  I hope he sticks around for many more Hats to come and for this game to be not about Detroit or whatever shitty bowl game the bowl gods conjure up but one day about Indianapolis or Pasadena.  

Even in a sport where wins and losses can swing the tenor of an entire season, this has been one of the most bizarre Northwestern seasons I can remember.  It featured at least three or four moments when all seemed lost.  It featured a heinous blowout at the hands of the hated Hawkeyes and a football game against Michigan so terrible that it was not played so much as perpetrated.  It continued the inexplicable and frustrating Northwesternings from last season, but also contained one of my favorite Northwestern games ever played when every single break Northwestern missed over the past two years came to their way in the service of ruining Notre Dame's day.  And it culminated in a knock-down drag-out fight to the death for a Hat, a crappy bowl game, and all that is worth rooting for in college football.

Haturn Devouring His Hat

HAT-- Hat!

Hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat.  Hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat?  Hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat; hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat!  Hat-- hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat.

Hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat hat.  Hat hat hat hat hat.

Hat hat hat hat?

Hat.

Hat.
 
Hat hat hat

Hat hat hat hat hat.

THE LAND OF LINCOLN TROPHY

It is Hat Week.  Hide your valuables.  Send your loved ones away.

Northwestern's season has come down to this.  The Wildcats have not won a football game since September 21st.  They will not be bowling.  They have suffered a litany of football indignities too gruesome to describe on the way to a stunningly awful season.  There is no hope.  There is no redemption.  There is only Hat.

Last week, Michigan State did something only few other teams have been able to do on a miserable, cold, windy day in Evanston (and lest you think it was not windy, I defy you to rewatch the game and count how many seconds it would take ESPN's ace announcing crew to refrain from talking about the wind.  That's why Northwestern is Chicago's Big Ten team-- because the announcers will not stop talking about wind conditions).  They decisively beat the Wildcats without having to resort to some bizarre, last-minute, physics-defying, deity-intervening play.  The 'Cats moved the ball well on the Spartan defense in the first half, but the loss of Kain Colter to injury and some big offensive plays from Michigan State tipped the game in their favor, Northwestern lost, and now hat.

There is one indignity so wretched and one low that Northwestern has avoided so far: to lose The Hat to a woeful Illinois team coached by Beck Man.  And that reduced this season to a single game.

I don't care that the 'Cats are not going to Indianapolis, and I don't care that they're not ranked, and I don't care that they have lost every game in an increasingly horrifying fashion that has convinced me that we are living in Homeric times and Pat Fitzgerald has accidentally started a petty feud with a lesser ancient Greek demigod who has decided to punish his fist-pumping hubris with a series of outlandish defeats.  This season has been a waking nightmare, but these seasons happen and Northwestern will return to bowl contention.  But I care deeply about the Hat and all hat-related ideas, and I refuse to see the Land of Lincoln trophy spirited away by that purple-hating, no Northwestern sign-having, "that school up north" referring, visor-wearing, sub-Zookian geek show from Champaign-Urbana.

THE HATFIELDS AND THE NO HATFIELDS

General Beckman was confident coming off his first conference victory at West Lafeyette.  By the end, soldiers had written that he was at the end of his rope.  He had in the past been reprimanded for sideline interference and the unauthorized use of mouth tobacco, so it was no surprise that he had attacked a subordinate with a spittoon.  There's no evidence for this, but a rumor had started that said he had long, bleary-eyed late night conversations with a hat that he whittled.







Historians now believe Beckman's campaign was derailed by 
his unceasing obsession with hat-vengeance

Letter from the front of Tim Beckman's War on Northwestern

November 25

Dear Mother,

It is cold.  The lads were heartened by our victory in West Lafayette.  We were far from home and the enemy had a train and a drum.  Gen. Beck-Man had us return home and dig trenches around the hat.  We are tired, we are strained, we have a losing record.  One weary soldier has mentioned something about basketball season, and when Gen. Beck-Man heard about this, he said I'll show you a basketball and tried to dunk on an entrenched artillery piece.  He has reprimanded us ordering the officers to violently rip hats off of our heads.  They do this half-heartedly.  I long to come home, but I suppose we may not until Gen. Beck-Man finally gets his hat or is fired out of a cannon.

M.F.B.

Beckman's men were exhausted.  He had marched them day and night from Indiana, but refused to proceed in a Northern or Western direction because they didn't do that in his company.  He had an officer plot out a route that included an Atlantic crossing and the Cape of Good Hope.  Instead, the officers ceremonially renamed the directions "Chief" and "Dee Brown."  Their compasses were artfully redesigned (chuckles softly to no one).





November 29

Dear Mother,

We are under constant watch.  Some of us have begun to refer to Gen. Beck-Man as "Lord Stovepipe."  He has taken our razors and made us wear long beards to look "more civil warry."  Only one man has tried to desert, but he was found by J Leman and ceaselessly pelted with monocles.  We have been building a giant Pat Fitzgerald out of straw and our unit must attack it each day and take the hat from its head.  It is shoddily built, and has fallen on many good men.  We dare not question or protest.  We can only shout "Chicago's Big Ten Team," affix our bayonets, and hope that we avoid its flailing fists.

M.F.B.   

HAT, NOW

This is the last game of the season.  The Wildcats can salvage some hope against an equally downcast Illinois team or face a cold, hatless winter.  Let us endure one more game, let us rally for The Hat, let us flood Memorial Stadium with our Lincoln regalia, let us spend the rest of our lives taunting our Illini friends and loved ones by wearing nothing but stovepipes in their vicinity, let us hope we have Tim Beckman to kick around for as many seasons as it takes to drive him into hat-madness. 

Hat?

Hat.

Bowl Game Part V

It's nearly 2013, which means that Northwestern fans have an opportunity to recover from their New Years' revels, roll out of bed, scrape the vomit from their hair and clothing and extremities, and watch the Wildcats take on Mississippi State in the Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl.

This year's postseason had less intrigue than other mid-tier bowl selections.  This is a shame, because I really enjoy baselessly speculating about the machinations of bowl executives planning the football team's fate in a walnut-lined state room where national bowl representatives and corporate sponsors meet to wheel, deal, and bet on brutal animal-baiting tournaments away from the prying eyes of polite society. 

Bowl officials take a break after a grueling morning filibuster from the Beef 
O'Brady's people before a leisurely afternoon picking the Belk Bowl matchups 
and then hunting the ultimate prey: man

Every year, someone will mock the proliferation of crappy bowl games, bemoaning their necessity, mocking their increasingly ridiculous corporate affiliations, and deriding them as all but meaningless in the standings.  These are ridiculous accusations.  Bowl games are more college football and allow you to turn on your television at 4:30 on a weekday and be pleasantly surprised by a game that usually includes one potential Future Big Ten team.  Corporate names will serve as a useful footnote in history books that want to explain how a goofy-looking puppet served as the business plan of several late-90s internet enterprises that were rich enough to purchase naming rights to a crappy bowl game.  And no fan base in the history of crappy, also-ran bowl games wants to win the Gator Bowl this year as much as fans of Northwestern.

The 2012 football season has seen the Big Ten devolve into a joke, its best team undone by the promise of free tattoos,  its reverse Manifest Destiny expansion eastwards into an ever-bigger Ten, its school-grabbing setting off another wave of conference realignment.  None of this matters to Northwestern, losers of nine bowl games since 1949.  While this season has been a pleasant surprise, a bowl win could topple the last barrier standing between Northwestern's awful football history and current football decentness.

NOW WE HAVE A TOP HAT HO HO HO

The last game of the 2012 season was more than an intrastate struggle between a surging Northwestern team and an Illini team down on its luck.  It was a reckoning.  The Illini had been in possession of the Hat for two unbearable years.  Northwestern fans suffering from a nervous disorder commonly referred to as "hat fever" screamed about hats in their sleep, removed all hats from orange-wearing persons in their vicinity, and even constructed crude hats out of paper in order to cope.

Those affected with hat fever may take solace in scholarly Lincoln research or by 
covering their walls in homemade Lincoln paraphernalia, such as the Lincoln 
constructed by University President Morton Schapiro

In the first half, the Illini startled the Wildcats by moving the ball with ease.  It seemed as though Tim Beckman's anti-Northwestern saber-rattling had lit a fire under them, and that is not a mixed metaphor because I am implying that the saber could be rattled against a stone, creating a spark that could ignite some kindling beneath the Illinois players, which is a very common motivational tactic at the highest levels of competitive football.  Northwestern fans braced for another harrowing game coming down to the final seconds.

That did not happen.  The game got out of hand in the second half.  Illini drives stalled and extended Northwestern possessions with penalties, including two on Coach Beckman himself for sideline interference.  The video of one of the penalties involved the official chasing the play along the sideline, running over Beckman, and, without a moment's hesitation, throwing a flag down on his prone body to add insult to injury.  That may not even be the strangest Beckman sideline moment this season; he was reprimanded by the NCAA earlier for surreptitiously dippin'.  I don't blame Beckman for that.  College football coaching is a stressful job, and coaches should be free able to use all of the smokes, chaw, snuff, and opium products they desire during the course of a football game besides their traditional recourse to ass-slapping and screaming at someone without the slightest modicum of human dignity.

No one should be allowed to get this angry without having immediate access to 
chewable barbiturates or a horde of hearty fellows sworn to medieval vengeance 
upon an unsavory duke

The 50-14 rout was one of the most lopsided wins in Northwestern history against a Big Ten foe.  By the end, Fitzgerald seemed more concerned that all of the seniors got a chance to play, even if that meant putting Bo Cisek in at running back to achieve some measure of Ditkaness.  The big win was enough to put Northwestern back into the polls at #20.  More importantly, it meant that The Hat has returned to its home in Evanston, where it will hopefully remain as Beckman fumes and comes up with more ways to comically denigrate Northwestern football.

Here's something to denigrate: somebody give me the name of the person 
responsible for making a hat trophy attached to a base, denying all of us in 
attendance the opportunity to see various Northwestern players parading around 
Ryan Field while wearing the trophy as a hat while haranguing anyone in the 
Illinois football organization named Douglas

OFFICIAL BYCTOM BOWL PREVIEW

Mississippi State, like Northwestern, started the season on a tear.  They began 7-0 before the realities of life in the SEC West led them into a brutal three game stretch against Alabama, LSU, and the Johnny Football Men.  They managed only one more win the rest of the season, against a reeling Arkansas team in its death throes of the John L. Smith era.  Nevertheless, the Bulldogs, like every Northwestern opponent in the history of Northwestern football, see the Gator Bowl as a winnable game and a way to end their season on a high note.

The Bulldogs boast two of the top cornerbacks in the country in Johnthan Banks and Darius Slay.  Between the involvement of Taxslayer.com and Darius Slay, this will be the slayingest bowl game in the country, especially if Slayer can play the halftime show that consists of them acting out the dozens of crappy movies and TV episodes entitled "Slay Ride."

Slayer members have the choice to act out a T.J. Hooker episode described 
on IMBD as: "Stacy realizes a couple who foiled a drug raid are a team of 
robbers" or a Kojak episode with a plot summary that contains the sentence 
"Discovering that a young Army wife had fallen from a roof at an earlier 
convention (which they had attended) leads Kojak to her call girl sister."

Fortunately for Northwestern, the Wildcats no longer throw the ball, so Slay and Banks will be spending most of their time trying to tackle Mark or Colter.  The Bulldogs do have a terrifying wide receiver in Chad Bumphis, and, while the 'Cats have shown some improvement in pass defense, they are still vulnerable to the big play.  Mississippi State is less terrifying on the ground, where it averages about 140 yards per game, good for 88th in the country.  Conventional wisdom would suggest that Northwestern's best chance for a victory will involve stymieing Bumphis and successfully keeping it on the ground and away from their rapacious defensive backs.  But because this is Northwestern, I predict that the best way to win this game is to go out to a significant first half lead, collapse entirely in the second half, and allow the Bulldogs to get within 45 seconds of winning the game but hope that the final hail mary falls three centimeters short of Bumphis's grasp in the endzone as unconscious Wildcat fans plummet down the stairwells at EverBank field because their nervous systems can no longer bear the strain except for the fat-cat alumni who have had fainting couches installed in their private skyboxes.

AND I AIN'T GOT A DURN THING AGAINST PA

Northwestern may not be playing a bowl game in the state of Texas, but that does not make the early twentieth century reign of the Fergusons any less fascinating, as described in Randolph Campbell's Gone to Texas and James L. Haley's Passionate Nation.  In 1914, an obscure banker named James E.Ferguson came, essentially, out of nowhere during the Democratic gubernatorial primary.   Like many Southern states, Texas was governed by one party.  The fractious Democratic Primary in most elections determined the winner of the election, and was therefore more spirited and hard-fought than the general election. 

The major issue in 1914 was prohibition, and Ferguson's opponent, Thomas Ball, was an ardent prohibitionist.  Ball, however, belonged to a country club that served drink, and, while he claimed he did not imbibe, his membership created a clear "I did not inhale" situation in 1914 Texas terms.  Ferguson ignored prohibition and declared that he would treat any legislation for or against prohibition the same folksy way: "I will strike it where the chicken got the axe," he proclaimed, although the historical record is less clear about whether or not he hooked his thumbs into his suspenders.

Ferguson was a populist candidate, and "Farmer Jim" ran on a platform promising rent relief to tenant farmers.  He was an expert at hurling invective at his opposition, mustering every Southern blowhard trick in the book to go after Ball.  When President Woodrow Wilson endorsed Ball, Ferguson portrayed it as Yankee meddling, invoking the "sacred principles for which the gallant Confederate soldiers fought and bled on so many Southern battlefields," which is the rhetorical equivalent of dressing as a giant thumb and hooking yourself to a 30-foot wall-mounted suspender.  He won the nomination and the general election.
 
Texas Governor James E. "Farmer Jim" "Pa" Ferguson 
grafted his hands onto state monies as effectively as 
he cultivated home-spun nicknames

Ferguson's first term had some successes.  He passed a bill to lower and fix tenant rents for farmers (although it was eventually ruled unconstitutional), formed a state highway commission, and passed a bill for compulsory education.  Soon, he began interfering with school administration, high-handedly ousting the president of Prairie View Normal and Industrial College.  Edward Blackshear had drawn the ire of Ferguson as a supporter of Ball and as an African American academic whose rise to prominence contrasted with Ferguson's virulent white supremacy.  Ferguson then turned to the University of Texas.  He threw his weight around, attempted to remove the president, demanded the firing of several faculty members whom he believed had crossed him, and signed an official proclamation demanding the trustees present him with their lunch money at the capitol every afternoon. 

The fight with the university made him powerful enemies, who quickly latched onto allegations of corruption.  Ferguson moved more than a hundred thousand dollars worth of state funds into his own private accounts and mysterious loans of dubious origin floated into his coffers.  He was indicted, impeached, and convicted of fraud and embezzlement and barred from state office.  But a simple conviction of fraud would not keep Ferguson out of politics.

In 1924, Miriam A. Ferguson appeared on the ballot.  James Ferguson had opposed women's suffrage; now his wife ran for governor with the thinly-veiled understanding that newly-dubbed "Ma" Ferguson came as a package with "Pa."  Running under the slogan "Me for Ma, and I ain't got a durn thing against Pa," the Fergusons swept back into power on a platform opposing the rising influence of the Ku Klux Klan.  Miriam Ferguson became the first woman elected as a state governor, but "Pa" clearly pulled the strings.  The impeachment and conviction had not slowed down Fergusons' gleeful corruption; they began selling pardons to anyone willing to pay the vastly inflated price of Ferguson livestock and meted out state contracts to those willing to pay for expensive advertising space in their newspaper. 

The Fergusons on the campaign trail striking a blow for equal rights 
for women in terms of graft and state-wide corruption

A reformer swept out the Fergusons in the next term, but they reappeared during the Depression.  Ma Ferguson returned to Austin in 1932, just in time for them to control the distribution of New Deal federal relief funds.  The Fergusons throughout remained dedicated to their principles of lining their pockets, attacking people with pointed folksiness, and, disparaging academics as "mutton headed."

LET US FINALLY WIN A BOWL GAME FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING

The Wildcats have had a surprisingly successful season mixed with gut-wrenching disappointment and ulcer-forming excitement.  These are also ways to describe Northwestern's bowl appearances, as they have continued to come up just short for several frustrating years.  This year, the 'Cats seem primed for another close game against an evenly-matched squad.  They will almost certainly try to kill you, me, and our friends and loved ones because that is how Northwestern plays football this year except against Illinois and FCS teams.  There's nothing more to be written that has not already been written or personified in plush monkey toy form about the unfortunate bowl victory drought of more than 60 years.  Many fans may not care whether or not their team wins their crappy bowl game.  I intend to celebrate the only way I know how: by renting a gigantic alligator costume with a GATOR BOWL CHAMPION sash and crown and proclaim myself King of the Alligators on the steps of City Hall.    

Two Minutes Hat

Hat Week has arrived, and Northwestern is poised to take on Illinois in the high-stakes Battle for the Land of Lincoln Trophy, the Champaign-Urbana Campaign-Urbana, the Uproarial at Memorial, The Donnyzook against the Fistgerald.

I can only use Don King language to express the pugnaciosity of the
hatritude of these two teams. Incidentally, a cursory google image search
for pictures of Don King reveals that apparently he now makes public
appearances only in air-brushed patriotic jackets, although the image to
the right from a Spanish-language version of his wikipedia page
demonstrates perhaps Don King's most audacious publicity strategy yet

One of the first BYCTOM posts expressed the thesis that the Northwestern-Illinois rivalry (then contested for the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk) was the wost rivalry in all of college football. Things have apparently gotten a bit more intense in recent years. One reason for the ratcheting of tensions between the Illini and the Wildcats is the national attention from the Wrigley Field game. Of course, most of that attention stemmed from the setting of the game at the Friendly Confines and because eleventh hour safety concerns caused the creation of the Forbidden End Zone. People tuned into that game for the novelty and to see if straying near the Forbidden End Zone would trigger some sort of Indiana Jones trap that would cover center field with an array of impaled corpses, impossibly disgusting Hollywood insects, and an unnecessary Kate Capshaw musical number made entertaining only by the presence of the guy who has some sort of modified tommy gun that only fires when he is also maniacally cackling.

Despite any recent intra-nois feuding between the two teams, this is a rickety shell of a rivalry game for a number of important reasons. For one, the Illinois-Northwestern game, as far as I can tell, has never had any bearing on the Big Ten title, at least not since college football has abandoned archaic rules such as the Musket Point or the Falconry Circle. Nor has a loss for one team been catastrophic enough to knock them out of any serious contention, with the exception of maybe the last Big Ten slot in a bowl game so lacking in prestige that it was the undercard to an illegal monkey wrestling championship.

"The saber pierced the monkey's liver. He howled for a minute
then lay on the ground, done for. Jake was also done for. He had
1300 pesetas on the big one. The one called El Apuñalador. Jake
swallowed his whiskey. He stopped only to punch his monkey-
minder on the way out of the door. 'Bad advice,' Jake said."
Hemingway ended up cutting the entire monkey stabbing
scene from the The Sun Also Rises.

A college football rivalry should stir up inexplicable passion in both fanbases. There should be the feeling that a crappy season can at least be salvaged a victory over your team's rival. As a Northwestern fan, I do not really get that feeling about the Illini, who I tend to support in Big Ten games out of Big Ten former cellar-dweller solidarity. And I'm certain that no fan of a team in the Big Ten has ever uttered the phrase "at least we beat Northwestern" to console themselves because Northwestern, despite its recent run as a respectable college football team is still historically the worst team in the history of big-time college football, and Big Ten teams are still reeling in disbelief that they can lose to Northwestern under any circumstance, even blatant Northwestern chicanery such as surreptitiously replacing the offensive line with farming equipment or switching out an opponent's regular hypnotist with an evil hypnotist.

There are some sources of rising tensions between the teams and fans (I enjoy using the diplomatic reporters' phrase "rising tensions" when I'm talking about something as hilariously inconsequential as college football, as if Zook has given some sort of saber-rattling speech on the steps of the Illinois athletic department announcing a tariff on crew cuts or Fitz has recognized the Illinois backup as their legitimate quarterback and will only agree to play defense against him). On this Champaign-area radio show, for example, the co-hosts play a clip of Illinois coach Paul Petrino complaining about Pat Fitzgerald's description of Northwestern recruits followed by one of the hosts heroically attempting to get angry about Northwestern (the callers, for their part, don't seem to share his enmity about Northwestern and are mostly cautiously optimistic about the 4-0 Illini in a shocking display of reasonableness by callers to a sports talk radio show). Chicagoland Illini players led by Martez Wilson seem to take exception to Northwestern's "Chicago's Big Ten Team" slogan after the 'Cats's marketing strategy has successfully managed to make Northwestern a household word in Chicagoland households filled with Northwestern alums or fans of a Big Ten team that is currently playing Northwestern.

An Illini fan takes exception to the self-proclaimed
"Sausage King of Chicago" noting that there are
representatives from the finest Midwestern sausage
factories all throughout the Chicagoland area

I'm always fascinated by athletes such as Wilson applying ex post facto bulletin board material to their wins. After all, it takes an exceptional amount of skill, dedication, and focus to become a college athlete. I'm assuming that Martez Wilson would have played well even if Northwestern's athletic department had marketed the team as the Mewling Feeblemen of the Big Ten because he's Martez Wilson and he tends to play well in football games because he is a very good football player. This effect, however, permeates football on all levels. Perhaps the most dramatic examples come from the Patriots episodes of NFL Films's excellent America's Game Superbowl retrospectives. Patriots players constantly talk about getting motivated by slights such as a team packing its luggage to the next playoff game. In one hilariously melodramatic scene before the 2005 Super Bowl, Bill Belichick's pregame speech consists of reading out the Eagles' planned parade route. The players claimed in interviews how much this speech motivated them, although I suspect that most of their impetus to win came from their life-long dedication to excelling in football culminating in the most important game in their professional lives. What I find great about these slights is that players and coaches are apparently furious about foresight and logistics more than anything, as if Boston did not have plans for a championship parade and at the last minute just found a bunch of cars and ticker tape sitting unused in a basement in Faneuil Hall.

A respectful lack of preparation left Boston
desperately lacking festive implements for
the Patriots' championship parade left
players triumphantly waving around
artifacts such as Gouveneur Morris's leg
stump

Another factor weighing against this inconsequential rivalry game is the Land of Lincoln Trophy, which I've taken to calling The Hat. This is clever because the trophy is literally a hat. But in a college football world littered with hat-based trophies, it is the worst of all possible trophy hats. The Land of Lincoln trophy is a hat trophy permanently attached to a base. This is disastrous. If your team is saddled with a hat trophy, the least you can do is go whole hog and make it into an actual hat that you can put on your head in triumph. Instead, all players can do with this trophy is hold it up or, more satisfyingly, rip it violently from its base and then parade around with it in all of its goofy hat trophy glory while yelling Lincoln slogans such as "A hat trophy divided against itself can be worn." On the other hand, at least it is not as ridiculous as the trophy ideas up for vote for the Iowa-Nebraska LEGENDS DIVISION showdown.

Options include a corn bowl FILLED WITH REAL CORN or a corn cob shyly
waving a husk arm

Of course, possibly of more interest to Northwestern fans is how the team rallies around all-everything quarterback Dan Persa. If Persa can return to last year's impressive form, the Wildcats could be a factor in the Big Ten, but if it sputters against the impressive Illini defense, it may be a short season.

AMERICA'S GAME FOR AMERICANS

If you do choose to check out the America's Game retrospectives, I highly recommend watching the 1976 Raiders episode. It captures the essence of the 1970s raiders: a fully functioning Al Davis in his prime, John Madden calling refs "jerks" before succumbing to the sweet life of luxury buses and multi-fowl meat concoctions, players alighting from buses wearing full-length mink coats, and this guy.

Raiders announcer Bill King spent the 1970s nearly indistinguishable from a
Get Smart villain called the Groovy Guru

I would say that the 2000 Ravens one is also notable for Trent Dilfer's appearance and the comical discrepancy between the amount of credit he gives himself for the Ravens' victory versus everyone else in the entire universe, but now you can watch ESPN and get the same effect with the unfortunate omission of Shannon Sharpe soliloquies.

CLASSICAL MUSIC RIOT

Hopefully the spirited rivalry between Northwestern and Illini fans will remain in check this weekend and no major riots will ensue. Of course, while a Wildcat-Illini imbroglio seems relatively unlikely, there are all sorts of triggers to incite crowds, such as operas and ballets. Wikipedia has helpfully compiled a list of classical music riots, although the writer of the page serves as a wet blanket to the whole thing by noting that "the usual respectful and sedate manner of classical music audiences means that any sort of rough behavior, ranging from catcalls to shoving, can be seen as a comparative 'riot'."

Probably the most famous of these disturbances is from the Paris premier of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The combination of the music and Vaslav Najinsky's choreography apparently stunned the crowd, who reportedly began yelling, and inevtiably descended into fisticuffs in the aisles, as one does. There is even a disputed account of French composer Camille Saint-Saëns taking umbrage at the use of the bassoon and storming out. The most influential opera riot is certainly the 1830 performance of Daniel Auber's La Muette de Portici, which ignited national sentiment and spurred opera lovers into the streets to rebel against their iron-fisted Dutch overlords.

This 1831 Jacobus Schoemaker Doyer
painting depicts Dutch ship captain Jan
Van Speyck detonating his gunboat before it
can be captured by Belgian rebels. Van
Speyck can't believe it either

Few of the other riots seem as dramatic. For example, one of these riots involves a 1927 performance of George Antheil's Ballet Méchanique, a piece that utilized mechanical sounds, such as fans simulating airplane propellers. According to the wikipedia page, "the fans were positioned to blow into the audience, upsetting the patrons." Another ended poorly for composer Erik Satie. His surrealistic ballet Parade involved collaboration with Picasso who built the sets, and Serge Diaghilev Ballets Russes company. Satie took exception to a poor review and sent an angry postcard to the reviewer. The reviewer then sued him and, again, as whoever wrote this wikipedia page put it "at the trial Cocteau was arrested and beaten by police for repeatedly yelling "arse" in the courtroom. Satie was given a sentence of eight days in jail."

LESS CHAT, MORE HAT

They're coming for the Hat, Illinois. You'd better be prepared because when Fitz knows there's hat on the line, he's going all out. All out for the hat. For weeks, he's thought of nothing but hat. And now it is upon him. Him and the team. Two coaches. Two teams. One state. One hat. The entire nation is watching, and they only want to know one thing: at the end of the day, who is going home with the hat? Nothing else matters other than the hat.



Hat.

Iowa and Illinois

Another year, another close, exciting, Big Ten Championship-ruining victory over Iowa in what is turning into one of the secretly most exciting rivalries in the Big Ten. For three consecutive years, Iowa's season effectively ended at the hands of Northwestern, including last year's BCS-busting win over a team with national championship ambitions in Iowa City (the game was also notable for the unfortunate injury of Iowa QB and super-patriot Ricky Stanzi whom I fully expect to see ripping up pictures of the late Ayatolla Khomeini or headbutting the Soviet flag in the near future as in this encapsulation of the platonic ideal of American patriotism).

Pat Fitzgerald broadcasts taunts of Northwestern invincibility
on the Kinnick Stadium jumbotron

Instead, Northwestern played its best game of the season, with the defense rallying from another suspect third quarter and Dan Persa doing Dan Persa things such as eluding tacklers, completing accurate passes, accounting for the majority of the entire offensive output, and leading a heroic fourth-quarter drive to win the game. For Iowa, attempting to beat Northwestern recently has become like trying to invade Russia from the West-- tempting, seemingly doable on a giant map filled with tin cavalry units, but ultimately unconquerable.

Pat Fitzgerald's orders to incinerate of Evanston dining and
grocery establishments forces Kirk Ferentz to lead Iowa back
west to resupply in the Quad Cities

For Northwestern fans, the victory has a sour aftertaste. Although it is always satisfying to continue to be a gigantic spear in the side of Iowa, and the Wildcats finally closed out a game against a good program, the win came at the cost of Dan Persa. It's a shame for Persa to get down just as he was attracting national attention as one of the best quarterbacks in the country. Persa set the Big Ten record for completion percentage and also led the team in rushing, making him as invaluable to Northwestern's offense as Giuseppe Garibaldi to the Italian risorgimiento.

Persa faces down Big Ten foes just as Garibaldi such dominating powers as
Napoleon III and the Pope. Of course, Garibaldi had one thing that Persa
lacks: A GREAT BIG, BUSHY BEARD

LAND OF LINCOLN REVISITED

By the mid-nineteenth century, Garibaldi had earned a peerless reputation as a military leader to the extent that none other than Abraham Lincoln had offered him a commission in the Union Army. This article describes the process by which Garibaldi seriously contemplated taking an American command post. The offer came not initially from the State Department, but from a more traditional source of American foreign policy: the self-aggrandizing actions of a rogue American consul based in Belgium. James W. Quiggle approached Garibaldi in 1861, hoping to distinguish himself by bringing the Italian hero to the Union cause. Despite Quiggle's insubordinate actions, Secretary of State Seward and Lincoln remained intrigued by getting Garibaldi on the their side and attempted to take over recruiting efforts and shove Quiggle aside before he could inadvertently damage negotiations such as by parading around European capitals with a sash reading "Garibaldi Assistance Requester USA #1."

Seward calling Quiggle into his office to
dress him down, no doubt letting him
know that the President was on his ass
and threatening to bust him down to
Guatemala consular duty so fast it would
make his head spin

The plan, of course, did not work out. Garibaldi sought to command the entire army and to declare the aim of the war as ending slavery. Lincoln could not at the time do either of those things and Garibaldi would soon be wounded and imprisoned after a failed invasion of Rome, guarded by French troops and the indomitable Swiss Guard. Meanwhile, news of the approach had leaked, leading to British taunts against the President's military prowess. By the time the Emancipation Proclamation sufficiently assured Garibaldi of the war's anti-slavery credentials and he had recovered, the United States no longer felt a pressing need for his services. The Union War effort had come into the hands of generals such as Ulysses Grant. In case you were wondering, Grant biographer Marie Kelsey has put up this impassioned defense of Grant's alcoholism as an apocryphal smear campaign created by jealous rivals in the military and contains more information a person would ever want to know about Ulysses Grant's drinking habits, a goal of gung-ho revisionism:

Here then is a humble and modest man who had but one goal, that of saving the Union. And he accomplished this goal! The debt owned him by this country can never be repaid, except by everlasting honor and respect. That respect can be bestowed by eliminating the "drinking comments" from conversation about Ulysses S. Grant and by eradicating that image from the American consciousness. Grant deserves nothing less. Through the technological marvel of the Internet the U.S. Grant Network is working ceaselessly toward achieving that goal!

A WRIGLEY FIELD DOOM FORTRESS FIELD TRIP

This Lincoln talk brings us to the upcoming game against the University of Illinois in the annual Land of Lincoln Rivalry Showdown. The game has attracted national attention because it is being held at the Purple Confines of Wrigley Field, bringing ESPN's Gameday crew, and attracting a festive, bowl-like atmosphere to add to the traditional overwhelming interest across the Big Ten and all of college football for how this game will play out.

Vandals from the Athletic Department took the Paint the Town
Purple Campaign from several years ago to its logical conclusion

Wrigley Field is my favorite sports venue, so I'm naturally over the moon to see it deployed for Northwestern purposes. Of course, Wrigley is no longer designed for football since the days when it served as the Bears' home stadium before they moved to Soldier Field in 1971. Instead, the east endzone crams up against the padded Ivy, leading to criticism of the field as less than ideal for football, beginning a snowball of warnings about the dangers of the field to the point where one expected a description of how the east endzone wall was now being used to guard Mayan idols from treasure hunters and grave robbers.

Multifarious dangers lurk in the East End Zone

In a bold step, Big Ten officials announced today that the field would only use the West endzone, allowing the East to lay fallow as grass grows on the blood of lesser football teams. This change makes sense; no one wants to see players catching touchdown passes only to be tackled by a brick wall, and the shifting of all play to a single endzone won't really change the complexion of the game much unless you paid for bleacher seats in right field. Obviously, no one consulted noted Wrigley Field safety expert Ozzie Guillen to also make light of terrifying dangers such as crumbling concrete blocks and large aggressive, rodents. If anything, single end zone adds to the carnival-like atmosphere of the game, giving the forbidden end zone an air of menace that curses all players who break its harrowing plane for all eternity with football-related plagues such as fumbilitis, alligator arms, jock itch, and sexual-assault allegations.

THE ACTUAL FOOTBALL GAME: KEEP THE HAT IN EVANSTON

The Illini have continued their struggles under Ron Zook, becoming the first Big Ten team to succumb to the hapless Minnesota Golden Gophers last week. The Illini have looked formidable on defense at times this season and will be looking to contain Evan Watkins, who replaces Persa. One concern about the game is how Watkins will respond to being thrust unexpectedly into action. In the past, Fitzgerald has gone ultra-conservative with back-up quarterbacks. Two years ago, Kafka spent most of the time running the Kafka Smash play instead of passing when he filled in for the injured Bachér (which worked as he broke the Big Ten single game rushing record), and last year Persa rarely threw when he filled in for Kafka, with the notable exception of his TD pass against Iowa. Northwestern has not had much success running the ball this season and has lived by the short passing game, so it will be interesting to see how much they let Watkins air it out.

For Zook, this might be his last stand at the helm of the Illini. For Northwestern, another win would notch another eight win season, improve bowl positioning, and build momentum to ruin Wisconsin's BCS aspirations in the Madison tundra. That is, of course, assuming that both teams survive the death trap of Wrigley Fields ivy, log traps, and gigantic hall of mirrors installed earlier this week to confuse defenses as to who is the real quarterback. Hopefully, Northwestern seizes this rare opportunity as a game of national interest to affirm its status as a program on the rise and keep the hat in Evanston for another year until next year's game at a Schaumberg area Discovery Zone.

Land of Lincoln Trophy Secured

Northwestern captured the first-ever Land of Lincoln trophy to go from technically bowl-eligible to definitively bowl-bound. The game was a sloppy affair, headlined by a combination of timely defensive stops and offenses doing just enough to get in range for an inevitably botched field goal in a clumsy first half that almost certainly confused ESPN classic viewers assuming that the game would be chock full of Victory Rights or special teams miracles or at the very least about to switch to some black and white boxing match from an era when people enjoyed their violent conflict framed by confining rules based on the opinions of a nineteenth century Marquess whose greatest opponent was Oscar Wilde.

Queensbury lashed out at his son for his relationship with Wilde, who
according to this Wikipedia page, successfully eighty-sixed the Marquess,
foiling his sophisticated plot to pelt him with vegetables during a
performance of The Importance of Being Earnest. Queensbury's reign of terror
against the London literary elite was not confined to personal feuds; he was
also forcibly ejected from a performance of Tennyson's The Promise of May
after loudly denouncing the characterization of an atheist character as
evil

Though the Illinois-Northwestern rivalry rarely has stakes beyond bowl qualification and positioning (this year, Northwestern eliminated the reeling Illini from bowl eligibility while managing to virtually guarantee a bowl for themselves), they did rev up the defensive player name rivalry. Illinois, of course, has probably the greatest football name ever in Illini, Chicago Bears, and My Two Dads legend Dick Butkus as well as a Joe Bevis here or a J Leman there. Northwestern boasts Napoleon Harris, Dwayne Missouri, and Tim McGarigle, who is currently second on the undefeated UFL Florida Tuskers with 22.5 tackles, a sack, a pick, and two forced fumbles as well as 4.6 dead partners successfully avenged. In order to up the ante, Illinois was forced to unleash redshirt freshman defensive tackle Whitney Mercilus, who, according to his Illinois bio, has less mercy than Richard Gere in this forgotten 1980s thriller where he attempts to track down his partner's murderers in New Orleans while fighting villains described by Ebert as "an effete rich Southerner...and a sadistic neo-Nazi vice lord."

Northwestern's human tackling machine McGarigle is relieved to only
be taking on the likes of J.P. Losman and Brooks Bollinger and not gangs
of partner-hating Cajun arch-criminals. The Orlando Sentinel
published a nice article on McGarigle's comeback with the UFL last
month, revealing a unique UFL rule that linebackers cannot blitz
unless they are three yards behind the line of scrimmage, in concert
with four rushing linemen, and have successfully made it to three
Mississippi at what the referee decides is a reasonable cadence

THE LAND OF LINCOLN TROPHY

The possession of the first Land of Lincoln trophy is certainly a boon for Northwestern. On the one hand, the trophy celebrates the in-state rivalry by echoing the slogan found on Illinois license plates and it placates the NCAA by removing any link to Native American bellicosity. On the other hand, the trophy leaves Paul Bunyan's Axe as the only Big Ten trophy capable of being wielded in hand-to-hand combat unless special measures are taken.

Northwestern's athletic department
introduces its new Director of Trophy-based
Mayhem, Skulduggery, and Club Badminton

Improvements in twenty-first century trophy security will hopefully prevent the fate of the original Sweet Sioux trophy, as described in this contemporary press photo:


Illinois fans are notoriously intransigent about the NCAA depriving them of their dated F-Troop-style Chief imagery, so I hope that the most hard-core group of them made a show of protest by dressing up as incredulous bare-headed Lincolns demanding the return of their hat.

ILLINOIS-NORTHWESTERN RIVALRY UPDATE

With this year's game in the books, Northwestern has won six out of the last seven Sweet Lincolns, including four out of five against Zook. The Ron Zook era of Illini football has been fascinating. After a series of stunning recruiting coups, Zook led Illinois to the Rose Bowl in 2007 featuring the seemingly unstoppable tandem of Quarterback Isiah "Juice" Williams who is destined to follow Illinois football protocol and star as "Mr. Juice," the lovable ex-jock neighbor on a high-concept sit-com, and Rashard Mendenhall. Granted, the Illini were eviscerated by USC in Pasadena, but that has become commonplace enough that the Big Ten hosts an annual support group featuring Zook and Tressel sharing their feelings while Joe Paterno stands in the corner whacking at the floor tiles with a folding chair with the manic intensity of the Big Ten recruiting commercial.

I apologize for going back to COME TO PENN STATE well, but it's been two
years and that commercial still gets me every time and I can't help but
think that that is how JoePa is all of the time with that crazed look in his
eyes keeping the entire town of State College under a blanket of fear by
popping out at people unexpectedly and urging them to come to Penn
State or slowly lowering himself down from a dorm room ceiling as
an unsuspecting Freshman moves in only to turn around and I can't even
imagine the terror

For those of us who woke up this morning or perhaps earlier in the week and thought that we needed more Ron Zook in our lives, the Illini helpfully provide us with coachronzook.com, a clearinghouse for all things Zook-related (incidentally I always enjoy when a coach's name is prominently featured in a team's website like this-- see also mackbrown-texasfootball.com for another example-- given the turnaround of fired and sleazily escaping coaches and I wonder if we're in for the digital equivalent of what happened to "Gary Barnett's Restaurant" at the Evanston Omni). Of particular interest is "A Day with The Zooker", which follows the Coach from his early morning arrival at his office and treats viewers to his philosphies on paperwork (if it doesn't get done at night, he'll finish up in the morning), meeting prowess, favorite lunch, film study, press conference technique, and climaxes with a practice carefully edited for scenes of him shouting generic encouragement to players, baffling them with Stevie Nicks references, and yelling his catch-phrase "just gimme a crumb" repeatedly. More than anything "A day with the Zooker" reinforces beyond its more ambitious literary themes about urban alienation in a post-modern society the notion of a major-program head coach hired for his prowess in finding and motivating young people into smashing other people into the ground so that other people can run past them is placed at the head of a large unwieldy ship of bureaucracy, NCAA regulations, and insatiable media types when they yearn to bust free from the confines of the university and run into a field singing their song of liberty: "just gimme a crumb, I don't want a whole meal."

Fitz brings his trademark exuberance to all phases of the
college head coaching job, shown here itemizing receipts
for his players' road per diem

SCONNY SHOWDOWN LOOMING

Much like the border crossing into Wisconsin on I-94 is fraught with an endless parade of shops selling cheese and pornography, the game with Wisconsin next week is fraught with danger. The Wildcats will be trying to end the regular season on a high note with a victory over another ranked opponent on Senior Day. There is no trophy at stake until the schools meet to enshrine the interaction between the State of Wisconsin and the Greater Chicagoland Metropolitan Area by depicting a traffic conflagration in the left lane of a two lane highway near Door County.

Victory in Iowa

With a season of high expectations turning into a season of nervous plank-pacing, Northwestern waltzed into Iowa City and managed to ruin Iowa's perfect season.

A team learns from its coach as the entire team unholsters its fists like 85
Judd Nelsons.

The Wildcats got a gutty performance from an injured Kafka unable to unleash the Kafka Smash play, but sticking in the pocket knowing that if it broke down he would be forced to let an Iowa defensive lineman run into him while running very fast for some horrible reason. On the other hand, Northwestern reached into its bag of tricks on the lone offensive TD by having quarterback Dan Persa pass the ball, the type of innovation that fuels Northwestern's "spread offense."

The idea of a quarterback passing started in the first football game when Yale
quarterback Walter Camp allegedly attempted one only to have its legality
decided by coin flip. The referee did sanction Camp's muttonchops by ruling
"what the hell, it's the nineteenth century." Passing did not return until
1906, after a brutal attack on football by college administrators such as
University of Chicago Divinity Dean Shailer Matthews, who argued in this
New York Times article that "Football to-day is a social obsession-- a boy-killing,
education prostituting, gladiatorial sport. It teaches virility and courage, but
so does war. I do not know what should take its place, but the new game should
not require the services of a physician, the maintenance of a hospital, and the
celebration of funerals."

Despite a shaky start, the defense locked down Iowa's offense aided by the unfortunate injury of Ricky Stanzi, whose season shared the volatile mix of success and grotesque incompetence of Rex Grossman's 2005 season with the Bears and Jackie Chan's take on the drunken master, whose erratic kung-fu baffled both opponents and audiences attempting to find any semblance of a plot in a Jackie Chan movie from before, say, 1995. Losing Stanzi seemed to suck the air out of the Iowa offense under the somewhat overwhelmed freshman Vandenberg, who threw a pick on his first pass and went 9-27 for the game while being harried by an inspired Northwestern d-line picked up by a resurgent Wootton who may finally be shaking off the lingering effects of offseason knee surgery and a troublesome ankle.

The Wildcat victory was only part of a glorious football weekend as Michigan lost to Purdue and Navy again got the better end of Notre Dame, which got Fitz fired up enough to start taking some shots at the Irish in the media. Fitz then piloted a giant fist-shaped blimp over South Bend for six hours, bombarding the town with scrolling taunts about 1995 and the sound of mechanized cackling.

VICTORY OVER IOWA A COUP

Perhaps the only person who had a better week than Fitz was Simon Mann, the ex-SAS commando who led an ill-advised coup attempt to sieze Equatorial Guinea's oil supply and then ended up on a festive tour of third world prisons, an event of crucial interest to BYCTOM. Mann, originally arrested in Zimbabwe, was extradited to Equatorial Guinea's infamous Black Beach prison, where rumor has it that the government looks down harshly upon people who assemble inept mercenary forces in an attempt to violently overthrow it and install a puppet regime that will give them control over the country's lucrative oil resources. According to this excellent Times article, Mann came out of Black Beach looking better than one would expect after enjoying steaks and fine wines. Overall however, the mercenaries did not take to captivity, as the article relates:

“I thought these guys were tough guys,” one South African source said last week. “Yet they were all squealing like canaries. They really rather let down the names of mercenaries.”

The only phrase perhaps more apt at describing Mann's hopeles coup
attempt than "they really rather let down the names of mercenaries"
is "if Matrix were here, he'd laugh too."

Mann came out of prison in good spirits, beardless, and promising vengeance on his foes, vowing that those who abandoned him can expect an "ice-axe between the eyes" in a startlingly Stalin-esque embrace of both vengeance and ice axes. The only thing more chilling would be the involvement of a shirtless Tom Berenger believing that he is making a sequel to Dogs of War or Major League IV (not even Tom Berenger at his most shirtless could believe that anyone was making another Sniper movie.)

Berenger succeeds where Mann failed in Dogs of War, although it is worth noting
that Walken is surprisingly unconvincing as a soldier as he runs through the
fictional Equatorial Guinea as if he is filming part of a Fatboy Slim video,
therefore proving that Christopher Walken should not be a soldier unless the
order to kill comes from the disturbing demons that live in his psyche and
spacious forehead

One target may be Sir Mark Thatcher who became involved in helping the plotters secure a helicopter and an associate that was even by the loose standards of those involved, a complete disgrace to any sort of international intrigue and black-sheep children. Thatcher's almost comical attempt to play everyone against each other despite fumbling his cloak-and-dagger schemes more ineptly than could be imagined by the broadest, Frenchest farce has left him few friends in the mercenary world and exile from South Africa. Easily ensnared in the coup's paper trail, the South African anti-corruption team known as The Scorpions arrested him and he immediately attempted to betray his co-conspirators in an outcome that can be described as less than executive. Thatcher probably should have known better than to mess with the Scorpions, who were enjoying a brief window as the world's most dangerous organization of Scorpions between waning twenty-first century Mortal Kombat popularity and the German rock band's inevitable resurgence in 2009 to stick it one more time to the late Erich Honecker. Though the Times speculates that Mann could testify against Thatcher as the main financier, likely nothing will happen to Mann other than staring vacuously into his Spanish compound, bumping into things, and becoming involved in a dangerous network of white van schemes and multi-level marketing promotions that ultimately involve a penniless Thatcher stumbling into Parliament with a catalogue of upmarket knives.

Thatcher instinctively strikes a beatific pose looking optimistically
towards a sunny future

LINCOLN LOOMING

Like Thatcher, Northwestern will find itself in the sights of a jilted enemy in traditional rival Illinois on Saturday. What looked like the surest Big Ten win a few weeks ago now looks more difficult as the Illini have been frisky, winning their last two and energized by the desire to seize the first Land of Lincoln Trophy in this red-hot rivalry that is no longer predictably played at the end of the season when rivals have a chance to spoil each others' seasons or play for championships but more intriguingly at some random point that the Big Ten promises will be "some time during football season" as a way to add even more intensity to this contest.

The Land of Lincoln Trophy is part of an NCAA initiative for all rivalry trophies to be
entirely hat-based by 2034

Northwestern, though technically bowl-eligible, needs another victory to ensure itself of a post-season berth and keep alive the possibility of an eight win season. Let's hope Mick McCall is working on new wrinkles such as the T-formation or the Bloodless Coup which involves Sir Mark Thatcher accidentally lighting himself on fire and running about the stadium unable to express his predicament while a Northwestern takes advantage of the chaos and calmly strides into the end zone.