Remember the Maine

A week after routing Syracuse, the Western Michigan Broncos rowed into Ryan Field and gave the 'Cats a first-quarter scare.  The offense stagnated and the defense yielded large chunks of yards to a quarterback operating under the pseudonym "Tyler Van Tubbergen."  Fitz pumped his fists to little avail.  Automatic kick machine Jeff Budzien missed a 42-yarder.  The Broncos went up 3-0.  The 'Cats finally scored a touchdown after about 17 grueling minutes.  On the next play, Van Tubbergen found a wide-open receiver streaking down the field for a 75-yard touchdown.  Charlton Heston sunk to his knees in front of the Statue of Liberty.  Mighty Casey took his second strike, looking.  Edvard Munch was hired to paint literally every Northwestern fan at the game.  Things looked grim.
 
 Northwestern fans react to a 10-7 Western Michigan lead

The scare, however, was temporary, and the 'Cats rallied behind Treyvon Green to run up a 24-10 lead at the half.  Green rushed for 158 yards while Kolter added 106 on the ground.  Ibraheim Campbell intercepted another pass, making that 5 straight games dating back to last season.  Campbell has grabbed picks off of tip drills, on overthrown passes, by jumping routes, and through the long con known as the "The Viscount's Rake" which involves hiring a confidant to serve as an opposing team's offensive coordinator who designs plays specifically to go in Campbell's direction and then, in the dead of night, uses counterfeit university documents to rename opposing sports facilities after a fake donor so they have to play their basketball games at the "Ernest P. Worrell Family Arena."  In the summer, Campbell will intern with a consortium of suave international jewel thieves.

In the end, the 'Cats were too much for P.J. Fleck's squad.  The game was never in doubt in the second half, and it's possible that the 'Cats just came out flat in a bad first half that will henceforth be known as the "Van Tubbergen Mutiny."  Fitz prefers not to dwell.  Ever since that horrible football laboratory explosion, he spends his time after games in torn clothes, wandering around Sheridan Road, unable to remember anything about the game except for the fact that he has an undefeated Maine squad coming to Evanston on Saturday.

MAINE EVENT

Maine is Northwestern's only FCS opponent.  The Black Bears are 3-0, including a win against an FBS opponent.  Granted, that team, UMass, is in its second year in the FBS and had come off an opener where massive Wisconsin linemen sat on them for 60 minutes. 
 
UMass plays at Vanderbilt this week, and I plan to go to the game wearing purple 
boxing trunks and scream I WANT VANDERBILT!  DO YOU HEAR ME OLD MAN?  
I DON'T CARE IF THESE CLUBBER LANG REFERENCES ARE GETTING STALE 
AND REDUNDANT

Regardless of their record, Northwestern should beat Maine handily.  But games against the FCS this season are hardly gimmees.  In Week 1, four FCS schools scored upsets, including season-derailing victories by North Dakota State over Kansas State and Eastern Washington over a ranked Oregon State team.  FBS schools pay these teams for record-padding-- after a loss, angry FBS coaches should be forced to remain on the 50-yard line to present their opponents with over-sized novelty checks made out to "I'll See You In Hell."

Northwestern, of course, is no stranger to the FCS home upset.  That is because Northwestern received a grant in 1975 to explore every possible avenue of football-based humiliation.  Circumstances certainly did not favor the 'Cats that year.  The New Hampshire game was the emotional home opener in Fitz's first year as the team attempted to handle the loss of Randy Walker.  New Hampshire also had a ludicrous speed offense coached by none other than Chip Kelly; I assume that most of Kelly's offensive concepts are based on neutralizing Tim McGarigle.

(I should add here that I know McGarigle had graduated before the 2006 season, but I assume Kelly was preparing for him anyway because of a little-known NCAA by-law that said if McGarigle was living on a houseboat reliving the tragic memories of the Sun Bowl, it would be legal for him to suit up for one last season, but only if he initially refused to play and then told the NU coaching staff that this time he was playing by his rules and also because this time it is personal.  There is also an NCAA by-law that says we haven't had a dumb McGarigle joke here for awhile and I'm going to work it in this way even though it makes much more sense to reference his stint as an opposing linebackers' coach for Western Michigan because we don't do things by the book here at BYCTOM.  Go ahead and take away my badge, Chief, but I'm working this one my way.)

MAINE

Maine in the nineteenth century was of course the United States's primary front in a war against rapacious British land-grabs from Canada.  In the 1830s, an area claimed by the U.S. as the northern part of Maine was the subject of a border dispute arising from vague provisions of the Treaty of Ghent.  That treaty attempted to restore the borders to those agreed upon in 1783.  One can only speculate that the Treaty of Ghent did not resolve this issue because delegates became too distracted by the Ghent nightlife, which is how the phrase "like a diplomat at Ghent" became a winking euphemism in nineteenth-century foreign policy circles.

Meanwhile, tensions increased as lumberjacks from New Brunswick began lumber-jacking in the disputed territory.  American and Canadian lumberjacks organized themselves into armed militias.  The Governor of Maine denounced the Canadians as "unruly wood thieves."  Maine land agents were captured.  Sabers were rattled.  A skirmish was interrupted by an unexpected bear attack, as one would expect during nineteenth-century conflicts.    

Finally, British and American diplomats formed a compromise treaty.  According to Wikipedia at least, this compromise involved both sides allegedly hiding maps and accusations that the British forged a map made by Benjamin Franklin to convince Americans to accept the treaty.  I have no idea if that is true, but I'd prefer to assume that all nineteenth-century diplomacy hinged on things that Nicolas Cage would do in one of those movies where the Declaration of Independence is actually a code for a Secret Declaration of Independence that replaced a list of accusations against King George with a number of rhyming clues about a Crown Jewel hidden in one of Alexander Hamilton's wigs that is being held in Teddy Roosevelt's right nostril at Mount Rushmore and there are evil treasure hunters trying to get to it first in order to compromise America's Freedom.
 
Wait a minute, it says here that the American territories were won by the Duke of 
Portland in a crooked horse race and his descendants can use any inhabitant for 
cudgeling practice

The U.S. and Canada remain in dispute over the Machias Seal Island off the coast of Maine.  The territory is referred to as a "grey zone" with both sides attempting to flood the island with lighthouse keepers.  It is also the setting for a movie I'm producing called "The Gray Zone: Bear Puncher," where Liam Neeson exploits the murky international boundaries to guide illegal bear hunting expeditions but of course something goes wrong and Nesson is forced to punch dozens of increasingly-larger bears and, if we get the budget, a gigantic lobster with a granite chin.

JUST MAINE, NOTHING ELSE GOING ON HERE

Northwestern looks like a legitimate challenger for the LEGENDS crown as Nebraska's defense was dismantled by a good UCLA team at home and Michigan was nearly done in by a plucky Akron team supported by the powerful Michigan Suffering Lobby.  Michigan State is undefeated but is planning to play every single eligible man on their roster at quarterback for a snap this season. 

You'll notice this post has not looked past the Maine game.  But the fact is that if Northwestern defeats the Black Bears (in a civilized, un-Neeson-like manner, we presume), they will be 4-0 heading into a bye week before a looming showdown with Ohio State.  And, if Ohio State beats Florida A&M and a tough Wisconsin team that has spent the past week sending threatening telegrams to officials, we could see a showdown between the two unbeaten teams in what we can calmly describe as a GODDAMN FOOTBALL APOCALYPSE 2013 AT RYAN FIELD.  And the Four Horsemen of the Football Apocalypse shall appear: Sack, Fumble, Hamstring Injury, and NCAA Sanctions for Allegedly Selling Your Own Pants.  Lee Corso could potentially put on a Wildcat Hat.  The game will be a sold-out free-for-all with Northwestern fans going all out to claim up to 25% of their own stadium.  Pat Fitzgerald could end the game needing experimental fist replacement surgery.

It's all very exciting, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.  We all know Fitz has nothing but Maine on his mind.  He has contacted the State Department for Grey Zone maps to better understand the Maine mindset.  Next week, he will focus on the bye week by scrutinizing tapes of patio furniture and lawn maintenance equipment.  Let's hope for a quiet week unmarred by bear attacks of the literal and football variety. 

The Least Northwestern of Games

Last Saturday, the 'Cats opened the season at Ryan Field by hosting out-of-conference nemesis Syracuse.  The 'Cats hoped to improve on their first game with the comforts of home: a reasonable time slot instead of playing at some ridiculous midnight moon time, stands full of Wildcat partisans, and an inspiring tarp that stood in for empty seats that opposing teams could look towards and imagine thousands of angry fist claws shouting at them on third down, theoretically.
 
Early speculation remains that the tarp will be deployed at a future Big Ten game-- 
imagine the opposing team feeling comfortable down by the north endzone and 
prepared to go about its business when the tarp is suddenly lifted to reveal a secret 
cache of Northwestern fans in a common football tactic known as the "Trojan Tarp"
(Photo from nusports.com)

Northwestern and Syracuse have played enough over the past few years to create something of a rivalry.  Some Syracuse fans have complained about the officiating in the last game that allowed Northwestern's dramatic comeback; I will never forgive Greg Paulus for his excellent play in a win against Northwestern, and I'm disappointed that Fitz never returned the favor by putting in Juice Thompson or Luka Mirkovic in for a play to show them what it's like and also to accrue a never-used NCAA infraction for attempting to play graduated basketball players in a football game because of spite.

WHAT THE HELL KIND OF WIN WAS THAT?  I WANT MY MONEY BACK

I think as Northwestern fans, we can all be greatly disappointed by the kind of football played by Northwestern the past weekend.  Kain Colter returned to combine with Trevor Siemian into an unstoppable bomb-throwing, scrambling, optioning, quarterbacking monster that I will be referring to as The Colterian.
 
As the old football adage says: if you have two quarterbacks you 
have no quarterbacks unless they are melded into a two-headed 
multi-limbed mutant capable of optioning to itself and coming 
up with the world's most elaborate celebratory handshake

The high-powered offense and an opportunistic defense that snagged another four interceptions allowed the 'Cats to leap out to a 34-7 lead at the half.  I don't know about you, but I watch Northwestern for the adrenaline after last year's Four Quarters of Terror campaign, not to watch them slice up a defense, to watch Dan Vitale and Treyvon Green become stars, and to see the spread offense wreak havoc with an arsenal of receivers who are all named Jones.  There weren't even accusations of Wacky Races skulduggery to have opinions about and no coaches calling the team a disgrace to the concept of college football which is doubly insulting because the NCAA exists and sets a pretty high standard of being an insult to college football. 

I hope the Northwestern football establishment realizes the disappointment of fans who expect to spend the duration of games strapped into their recliners as the Wildcat defense is expected to perform a Reverse Teen Wolf and return to a feeble teenage Michael J. Fox status that allows the other team to start inexplicably executing hail mary passes and Roundtree Catches.  What kind of lunatic who is invested in a college football team wants to see them playing extraordinarily well against an ACC team because of an incredibly entertaining offense that dominates even with Venric Mark out?  I don't ask much from Northwestern football other than a vision of oblivion in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter where I enter an otherworldly plane, an out-of-body experience that is happening because I'm worried that the football team I like might lose.

BRONCO BUSTING

This week, Northwestern will play Western Michigan.  This was not supposed to happen.  It came about because of the Assassination of the Northwestern-Vandebilt Rivalry by the Coward James Franklin.  As you may recall, and given that you are reading like the eighth-most trafficked Northwestern football blog on the internet I'm guessing that you do, Vanderbilt canceled its 2013 and 2014 series against the Wildcats with a variety of low-tech notification methods including a telegraph, a passenger pigeon, a Soviet-era analogue hotline, and a disastrous attempt to send a gorilla-gram with an actual gorilla that just ended in a tragic Nashville-area gorilla rampage presumably because Northwestern kept beating them and James Franklin and the Vanderbilt Athletic Department are yellower-bellied than the Yella Fella Yellawood pitchman who is apparently a powerful football booster at Auburn University.
 
No, thank you, I prefer not to be Coltered, says a 
terrified James Franklin.  I should probably add here 
that I have no idea if Vandy dropped the series because 
they wanted an easier schedule, but I took a vow long 
ago that if I could vaguely accuse an opposing athletic 
program of ducking Northwestern I would react the 
same way that Clubber Lang would because I train 
alone, I blog alone, and I tweet "shut up old man" at 
any geriatric Vanderbilt supporters I can identify 
in cyberspace

Western Michigan is a program in transition.  They are led by 32-year-old first-year head coach P.J. Fleck, who has the square-jawed enthusiasm of a Fitz but has decided that he is obsessed with overwrought boat-paddling metaphors.
Fleck traces the influence of his motivational techniques to Hagar the Horrible

The Broncos have had a rough season so far.  Last week, they were upset by FCS Nicholls State in the Fortress Waldo Stadium (which is perhaps the platonic ideal for a MAC stadium name, with the possible exception of Kelly-Shorts-- much like the Great Fillmore/Arthur Muttonchop Debate, I believe that is best left to the taste of the reader).  Northwestern is expected to prevail here against an inexperienced team whose best days are ahead of it.

It would be a mistake, though, to assume the 'Cats are taking this lightly.  Pat Fitzgerald is more committed to living one game at a time than Vin Diesel is to living one quarter-mile at a time and expressing himself through tank top.  Fitz doesn't care about what happens beyond that; if a government agency were to deploy to his house and tell him that in two weeks, a group of malevolent aliens will invade the Earth and the only way to stop them is by commandeering a spacecraft that can be piloted by high-intensity fist pumps and that Fitz was the only one who could stop the imminent destruction of the planet, I'm fairly sure he would send them away because he wants to take another look at that Western Michigan bunch formation.

HAT UPDATE

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but the Illini had a fairly convincing victory against a Cincinnati team  that had previously laid waste to Purdue University.  This week, they take on a ranked Washington team in Soldier Field.  According to ESPN's Big Ten Blog, "Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas said back in 2011 that he hoped the university would become the 'king of Chicago,'" in the escalating War to Determine Chicago's Big Ten Team.  Jim Phillips then escalated the situation by dressing in regal purple robes in front of a map of the Demesne Kingdom of of Chicagoland with sketches of dragons in Missouri and giants near Peoria.  The desperate attempt of Northwestern and Illinois to capture the Chicago market has been one of the most dramatic turf wars in the Big Ten as they vie against each other and the approximately 99% of Chicagoans who root for the Bears and whatever college they went to.

Meanwhile, Tim Beckman and new offensive coordinator Bill Cubit are planning on extricating themselves from the Big Ten cellar this season.  A win against Washington would not only be a major step in righting the program and establishing the Beck Man Era in Champaign, it would also be a warning shot fired across the bow of Northwestern, a notice that the Beck Men are coming for The Hat.  As we speak, Beckman is doing pull-ups in a dimly-lit corner of the Illini football complex and had #HAT tattooed across both of his sets of knuckles.

A CLOOTS BY ANY OTHER NAME

"However, when the revolution broke out, he changed his name to Anacharsis Cloots and set himself up as a spokesman for the human race."

That is a pretty good sentence, and it is by Hugh Gough in an essay about the French Revolution's effect on Europe (in his edited volume Ireland and the French Revolution).  He is referring, of course, to the Baron de Cloots, a Dutch-Prussian nobleman who got caught up in the revolutionary fervor of 1789 as a way to promote his ideas about a broader revolutionary world state.  Cloots was a close relative of Cornelius De Pauw, a French philosopher who pushed the idea that the New World degenerated all men and beasts who arrive there.  Americans took umbrage to this.  Even ideological enemies Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton could agree that they did not live in an ecological backwater that stunted growth and had cruddy, inferior wildlife.  Jefferson and Madison exchanged notes on weasel measurements in order to counter claims of degeneracy; Jefferson attempted to counter the claims of the Comte de Buffon, the leading degeneracy advocate, with a process that could best be described as "take a look at this moose-- who is degenerate now, Buffon?" 
 
Buffon scoffs at the paltry size of American 
weasels

Cloots got too wrapped up in the Revolution for his own good.  As the Terror folded back on itself, Cloots was unable to see the Revolution carried into universal human principle.  On the other hand, he left a legacy of inspiring historians to craft spectacular sentences, such as this one by William Doyle in the Oxford History of the French Revolution:

"To substantiate the charge of a foreign plot, a clutch of colorful aliens perished with them too, including Clootz, who bade farewell to his beloved human race in front of the biggest crowd ever to surround the guillotine."

WEEK 3 IS HERE, EVERYONE

Western Michigan may not be the most daunting opponent on the schedule, but the Broncos have nothing to lose in Evanston.  Fitzgerald will attempt to guide his team to another rejection of Northwestern football as we know it by winning without trying to kill his fans and without accusations of intrigue.  And then he will take the title of Anacharsis Fitz, Spokesman For All Humanity when he declares "Something something, Our Young Men, Winning, Go 'Cats."

Fistpump.

BYCTOM Grainy Video Footage Edition

Kain Colter went down in a dazed heap several minutes into the game.  Venric Mark spent a lot of time surveying the field from an exercise bike.  Jared Goff emerged from his football pupa and sprouted wings to the tune of a record passing day.  And somehow, the Wildcats prevailed in Berkeley for their first win the season, Pat Fitzgerald's eighth consecutive opening victory, and further movement down the college football rankings.


Northwestern quarterback Trevor Siemian dodged Cal defenders and airplane 
attacks as he stepped in for an injured Kain Colter to lead a new Northwestern 
option offense where the only option is passing all over the place

Fans spent all day waiting for the game, which started on the other side of the International Date Line and had managed to wrap up the first quarter by Labor Day.  Fortunately, the time slot garnered the game a lot of attention for late-night East Coast revelers who wanted something on in the background to drown out the sounds of vomiting.

The Northwestern defense looked at times on their heels against the Bear Raid, but were led by linebacker Collin Ellis.  Ellis plucked two passes out of the air and scampered into the endzone, debuting a scoring method known in the NFL as the Chicago Bear Raid.

Unfortunately, the victory was marred by accusations of gamesmanship, chicanery, and cheatfulness.  Sonny Dykes, who nearly broke the Heston Scale of Incredulity, accused Fitzgerald and the coaching staff of instructing the 'Cats to feign injury in order to gain precious seconds of rest and slow the fast-paced Cal offense. 
 
An angry Sonny Dykes demands a giant globe to place on his 
shoulders so he can demonstrate that, like Atlas, he has to carry 
the burden of alleged timeclock tampering by the Northwestern 
defense
  
SO YOUR FOOTBALL TEAM HAS BEEN ACCUSED OF MALFEASANCE

A few points about the fake injury allegations that we are not going to shy away from as we Embrace Debate:

1. Cal fans are angry, upset, and offended by what they see as a clear case of false injuries.  RING THE CHURCH BELLS, LIGHT OFF FIREWORKS, CALL YOUR GRANDMOTHERS!  You know you have arrived as a football program when opposing fans are accusing your team of cheating, when opposing coaches allegedly claim that your coach has made a mockery of the sport, and when people on the internet call the team gutless, disgraceful, and other words that professional wrestlers use to disparage other professional wrestlers.  Sonny Dykes is sitting in a dark room right now that he has painted purple, hoisting a goblet full of grape soda, and plotting elaborate revenge fantasies against Northwestern.  Northwestern!  Tim Beckman just sent him a Northwestern-hating starter kit from his warehouse full of Northwestern-hating starter kits that have been collecting dust in an unidentified Champaign-area grain silo.

2. If the allegations are true, we may be witnessing a transition to Evil Pat Fitzgerald.  That would mean that he lets his hair grow unkempt by moving up a notch on the crew cut safety guard,  and instead of butt bumps and fist pumps, he spends the duration of the game cackling at the opposition like a villain from Mike Tyson's Punch-Out.  Soon, Fitz will replace the team with His Young Men, who shockingly take it two or even three games at a time.  He will refuse to talk to beat reporters unless they refer to him as Fist Pumpgerald.  He will change the team motto to "Whatever is Nefarious."
 
Evil Fitz performs villainy outside Ross-Ade Stadium

Unfortunately for Northwestern fans, there is only one way a program led by Evil Pat Fitzgerald program will develop: he inevitably threatens the Prime Minister of New Zealand, absconds with her on his hydrofoil yacht, and provokes a war between the United States and the British Commonwealth of Nations that ends when America is invaded and grateful citizens celebrate their long-awaited return to the bosom of empire.  With the exception of an Evil Pat Fitzgerald, those are all things that happened in former New Zealand Prime Minister Julius Vogel's 1889 novel Anno Domini 2000, or, Woman's Destiny which presciently predicted several technologies on the horizon but failed to anticipate that Victorian mustache twirling would no longer be in vogue at the dawn of the twenty-first century

3. Dykes's post-game handshake/admonishment with Fitzgerald was greatly disappointing.  Instead of glaring at him, Dykes should have registered his disgust by hitting the turf, clutching his hamstrings, and then rolling around on the ground, much like how Australian comedians protested World Cup diving at the Italian Consulate.

4. No one wants to see injury-faking, diving, flopping, or what FIFA refers to as "simulation" become a major part of college football.  Soccer fans have been complaining about it for years; the NBA has attempted to identify, fine, and publicly shame floppers.  But while I wish players would conform to the letter of the law in all sports, I can't deny that I secretly enjoy flopping in the NBA because instead of pretending they are merely injured, players react like they are Western stuntmen perched precariously on a balcony.

The Assassination of Chris Bosh by the Coward Carlos Boozer

5. Earlier today, ex-Chicago Bear Brian Urlacher revealed that the Bears had a fake injury program where a designated player would go down when a member of the coaching staff pantomimed Olympic diving motions.  No former offensive player has yet come out of the woodwork to report the signal used to let a defensive player charge unmolested into Jay Cutler's solar plexus.

6.  I hope that further Wildcat triumphs are free from controversy unless it is comfortably in the realm of ridiculous, such as by successfully convincing an opposing coach that the forward pass has been outlawed by having students haunt his room dressed as a Christmas Carole version of Walter Camp.

'CUSE ME

Last year, Northwestern traveled to the Syracuse and required a gutsy drive from on-demand folk hero Trevor Siemian to pull out a win.  Things have changed.  The Orange are without head coach Doug Marrone, quarterback Ryan Nassib, and the musty, fetid Carrier Dome which is defended by a moat made of sweat.  The schools have played enough to cultivate a decent non-conference rivalry beyond ESPN personalities that want us to care where they went to journalism school.  Syracuse lost to Penn State in the opener, and playing two Big Ten teams in the preseason has made them an Official Unofficial Associate Honorary Big Ten Member as the Big Ten Network prepares its retrospective on Big Ten Legend Jim Brown. 

Syracuse should test the Northwestern run defense as they return backs Jerome Smith and Pierre-Tyson Gulley.  Kain Colter plans to play, but his status is uncertain.  Venric Mark remains day-to-day with unspecified injuries. Syracuse fans will nonetheless be unexcited to see Siemian.  Some claim that he embellished a late hit that helped keep the final drive alive.  It is also entirely possible that Marrone, who remains in the upstate New York area, will be secretly coaching the game from a windowless Buffalo Bills facility and unknown mustachioed walk-on quarterback "Bryan Bassin" will unexpectedly show up in the second half to fling passes at the depleted Wildcat secondary.     

THE VIEW FROM THE TOP TWENTY

With all of the hoopla surrounding the Northwestern-Cal game, I should only hope that no one can accuse the 'Cats of trickery in a win against Syracuse.  In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and hope that no one in the upcoming contest gets hurt, injured, or shaken up.  The Northwestern Wildcats should win the old fashioned way: with the sudden realization that the opposing quarterback this whole time has been a cleverly-disguised Kain Colter only at the precise moment when he lofts a pass into the arms of Ibraheim Campbell, removes his wig, and disappears into the cheering purple throng at Ryan Field.

Football Season is Here

Last night, thousands of people swarmed to stadiums bathed in light, bands serenaded them with fanfares invariably coming from the classic American 70s jazz rock songbook, the slightly-less-hulking men booted their footballs into graceful parabolas where they fell into the arms of another person who tried desperately to avoid being run over by eleven human steamrollers.  Football!

College football is a bewildering mass of contradictions.  It is rife with the pageantry of dance teams, marching bands that continue to dress like Otto von Bismarck, people who convert recreational vehicles into elaborate mobile meat distribution centers, the South, and an infectious student enthusiasm that can best be described as Gin Lane drunkenness.  It's enough to completely baffle and overwhelm outsiders such as Stephen Fry, who is unable to contemplate a flyover by both military jets and a war damn eagle.

College football is fueled by young people risking their knees and skulls for our amusement, watched over by a keystone police force determined to stop them from selling their signature or their pants while the grizzled, twenty-foot visages of the coaches shill woodenly for a variety of comical local products.

College football is a the engine of innovation as coaches from smaller programs desperately try to score against the NFL behemoths on the rosters of the BCS powerhouses.  In 2013, Northwestern will deploy up to eight quarterbacks simultaneously: A running specialist, a passing specialist, a run-option guy, a pass blocking quarterback, a quarterback who may or may not punt at any time, an all-time quarterback who also gets to play quarterback for the other team, and Kain Colter, who will do all of those things simultaneously.

College football sells itself on tradition, while universities move conferences and abandon century-old rivalries at the drop of a hat in order to vacuum up any visible crumb from an enormous pie.  The Big Ten will have 26 teams next year, at least two Lucrative Conference Championship Games, and a spin-off Big Ten Network 2 which will feature a show where Tim Beckman destroys all of the purple goods in a different retail establishment each week and one where Bucky Badger stares unnervingly into the camera for at least 30 uninterrupted minutes.
 
Big Ten Network 2 goes highbrow in its academic programming

Welcome back.

NORTHWESTERN IS PLAYING FOOTBALL AGAIN

This Saturday, the Wildcats return to the field to take on the Cal Golden Bears.  Cal went 3-9 last year leading to a new direction for the program.  Now, Cal looks to head coach and potential Rocky trainer Sonny Dykes to right the ship.  These teams have some ancient history, as the Wildcats defeated them in the mythical 1949 Rose Bowl although this happened so long ago that I'm not sure the 1949 Rose Bowl wasn't a chariot race that the 'Cats won by engineering one of those evil chariot race contraptions that sliced up the other chariots' wheels while the drivers cackled relentlessly.  Dykes, a disciple of Mike Leach, will brings a variation of his high-powered aerial attack that fans have taken to calling the Bear Raid.

Northwestern's defensive preparations for the Cal game have become 
increasingly sophisticated as game day approaches

Running the show will be a true freshman, Jared Goff.  He'll have to deal with Ibraheim Campbell, Nick VanHoose, Tyler Scott, Chi Chi Ariguzo, and Damien Proby, and the 'Cats will hope to pressure him into early mistakes.  Meanwhile, Cal's defense needs to find ways to shut down the Colter/Siemian/Mark combination.  Both offenses rely on deception to open holes and get receivers open.  By the end of the game, the players will clear off of the field while Dykes and Mick McCall stand at the 50-yard-line in an Offensive Coordinators' Duel, furiously scribbling on white boards until one of them runs out of marker or collapses into exhaustion.

"Pro T Flare D," Dykes incanted

 WHAT ON EARTH IS A SUCCESSFUL NORTHWESTERN SEASON

Northwestern comes into this game ranked #22 in the country.  The football season previews that I have been devouring from the excellent and insightful to the television people vapidly yammering about football to kill airtime have mentioned Northwestern as a team to look out for the in Big Ten.  Venric Mark is on preseason Doak Walker watch lists.  Commentators have expressed sympathy for teams that have been Coltered and those whose Coltering awaits them this season.  Even the Northwestern defense has not been maligned.  This is exciting and terrifying.

One of the things that I've really enjoyed about Northwestern football is that it is generally liberated from insane fan expectations to win a national title every single year. College basketball and football are rare sports in that they allow for small triumphs: Ending an embarrassing national losing streak and throwing goalposts in the lake, beating a storied rival, making it to some benighted bowl game sponsored by a company whose dot-com bona fides have made it defunct before kickoff, actually winning a bowl game, maybe making that basketball tournament that I've been hearing about even if they get run off the court by the Washington Generals who in the future have given NCAA eligibility and been moved to a separate conference with the Globetrotters, only the Globetrotters have been disqualified and have vacated generations of wins because of glitter buckets.

For fans of teams looking up at the traditional powerhouses, college football can seem monotonous and unfair, perennially under the boot heels of Ohio State and Michigan.  But the fact that winning begets winning can also be a source of hope.  There's mercifully no tanking in college sports; otherwise, Northwestern would have been an unstoppable football juggernaut and I would be spending my free time screaming at Paul Finebaum.  And look where the Wildcats are now.

It is no secret that the Wildcats have a very good football team this season.  And it is no secret that the tough schedule, bad luck, or a few unfortunate injuries could derail them short of contention for the LEGENDS title.  Even if they get all the breaks, it will be difficult to top last year's ten victories, plus the bowl game victory that caused Pat Fitzgerald to parade around the severed head of a plush monkey doll like a medieval warlord.

Patfitz Khan exhorts Our Young Horde to plunder one village at a time

There has been no football played yet.  The Wildcats have yet to thrill us with an overtime victory or shatter us with one of those fourth quarters.  On the eve of this football season then, we should enjoy what this season will bring: purple-clad fans attempting to intimidate people with fist-claws, Venric Mark and Kain Colter incinerating hapless defenders, interceptions and fumbles, Dave Eanet highlights, and at least four solid months of mocking Tim Beckman anonymously on the internet.  Football!

A Football Is Coming

It has been an agonizing eight months since the Wildcats' triumph over the Mississippi State Bulldogs in the Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl in Jacksonville.  Since Northwestern's triumph over more than 60 years of post-season futility, regular-season futility, general football-related futility, and athletic futility so futile that it occasionally resembled some sort of performance art, the Wildcat basketball team stared into the depths of a post-Shurna world, Coach Carmody was granted his sarcastic stomping around the sidelines with his palms upturned papers, the Bulls somehow won a playoff series with their entire offense geared around Nate Robinson, the Hawks won a Stanley Cup involving nearly enough sudden-death overtime minutes to match the entire lockout-shortened season, the Cubs and White Sox continued to insult the sport of baseball, the United States won a Gold Cup, and this sentence was conceived, gestated, and finally burst forth onto the internet in a brazen assault against anything a rational person would ever consider reading.
 
Yes, winning a Stanley Cup was amazing, but what Chicago 
sports fan did not enjoy the budding rivalry between Bulls 
miniature bench gunners?  I'm surprised John Lucas III did not 
somehow hit either one of these persons with a folding chair at 
some point

Meanwhile, the 'Cats are scant weeks from a visit to Berkeley with a high profile matchup against Cal carrying the exhilarating and terrifying burden of expectations.

COACH COLLINS, NORTHWESTERN BASKETBALL, AND OUR YOUNG MEN

The football team's win was quickly overshadowed by the firing of Bill Carmody and subsequent hiring of Chris Collins.  With Collins, the 'Cats have another high-profile, young and energetic coach who seeks to do the impossible and bring a tourney berth to Evanston.  Like Pat Fitzgerald, Chris Collins also seems to have undergone some Clockwork Orange procedure that has robbed him of the ability to communicate in anything other than high-intensity coach speak about Northwestern Excellence and Our Young Men, and Building the Program.  Personally, I would prefer a brasher approach that would involve him aggressively making a lay-up in Bo Ryan's face or recreating his 2 Legit 2 Quit performance at press conferences, which is no doubt a way to inspire champions.  After all, MC Hammer did not take over the rap world by talking about taking things one rap at a time but by implicitly threatening his audience with some sort of bodily or emotional harm.
 
Intimidation personified

The danger, of course, is that adding an additional young, energetic head coach could cause some sort of problem with the university's general humors situation.  If, and this is only a terrifying hypothetical, so please do not go cowering into your shelter yet, Collins embraces the fist pump, the result could throw the entire Earth off of its rotational axis unless some soccer team in a corresponding Southern Hemisphere locale is able to locate two young coaches who celebrate with David Lee Roth kicks aimed at the horizon.

 
If these fists are a-shakin', the Earth may start a-quakin'

Collins faces a tall task ahead of him.  He'll be aided by the return of stalwarts Drew Crawford, Dave Sobolewski, and another year from JerShon Cobb.  Despite this talent, he's clearly building for the future when Northwestern takes its rightful place as a potential top-68 team that plays one or more games than they usually play.

WHAT IS THE BOUNCE-BALL MADNESS?  FOOTBALL IS HERE

And so it is.  The 'Cats return with as much preseason hype as the ill-fated 2001 team.  Fitz's squad lost some stalwarts on the offensive line and on the defense, but returns the bulk of one of the most successful teams in school history.  The dynamic tandem of Kain Colter and Venric Mark are back, with Trevor Siemian lurking in the shadows as someone willing to do the unthinkable and pass the ball in an ungentlemanly rebuke to Northwestern's Jazz Age rushing attack.   Dan Vitale only got better and will potentially rumble for many yards, although I have to consult my AP Football Cliches Style Manual to see if superbacks count as a position where players rumble for yardage along with fullbacks, tight ends, and terrified linemen with eyes the size of serving platters.
 
A definitive moment in the history of football rumbling that 
does not involve "William" The Refrigerator Perry

The defense returns Tyler Scott, who was second in the Big Ten in sacks, linebacking revelation Chi Chi Ariguzo and ball-hawk Damian Proby, and a legitimately intimidating secondary that includes Ibraheim Campbell and Nick VanHoose.  The return of these talented players and others who will no doubt make their mark in 2013 has not settled the important strategic issue of how many heart attacks Pat Fitzgerald plans to give me in the fourth quarter of football games this season.  While certified 'Cat-killer Matt McGloin has gone off to ply his dark arts in the NFL, Devin Gardner and Tyler Martinez have hopes to rob my scalp of its hair, and Braxton Miller is bench-pressing garbage trucks and throwing footballs through the entire Get Smart doorway apparatus.  Last year's defense was monstrous against the run; this season, perhaps they can strike fear into opposing quarterbacks beyond the usual taunts, japes, and threats to grind their bread through some obscure bone-based mechanism.
 
Good gravy, the Athletic Department is literally using 
this image on the banner of the official Northwestern 
Football Website.  I fear that Pat Fitzgerald may be slowly 
turning into a Mario Brother

PLEASE PASS THE BISCUITS 

In 1938, flour salesman Wilbert Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel decided that Texas's corrupt, venal, inefficient, and exclusionary political culture was lacking something.  It lacked an unqualified radio host in the governor's mansion devoted to playing the greatest hits of Texas swing and shilling for Hillbilly Flour.  Therefore, he started one of the most incomprehensible political runs in the history of the United States that took him from Austin to the United States Senate.  The ascent of Pappy O'Daniel is wonderfully chronicled in Please Pass the Biscuits, Pappy: Pictures of Governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel by Bill Crawford and John Anderson, which combines an entertaining narrative of O'Daniel's career with a wealth of incredible photographs of O'Daniel glad-handing hundreds of persons and inanimate objects. 
 
Pappy O'Daniel enjoys the spoils of victory

O'Daniel, who inspired the identically-named radio enthusiast facing down a challenge from a broom-wielding opponent in O Brother Where Art Thou, rose as a marketing executive with the Light Crust Flour Company.  In the early 1930s, he found a goldmine in radio advertising by starting a program that featured music interspersed by his own folksy musings about a wide array of topics, many of which alluded to the benefits of Light Crust flour.  More importantly, he hitched his wagon to Bob Wills, the King of Texas Swing, who called his band the Light Crust Doughboys and made O'Daniel's show a sensation across the state.   Eventually, O'Daniel and Wills had a falling out, but O'Daniel hired a new band that emulated Wills's sound, right down to his signature yelping.  By the mid-30s, O'Daniel started his own flour company, Hillbilly Flour, and his own band, the Hillbilly Boys.

Because we live in the twenty-first century, you don't need to go to a specialized library or even put on pants to hear an example of O'Daniel at the height of his powers, selling flour and sweet fiddle licks across the oil fields and prairies because someone has put them on the internet.   In addition to selling flour, O'Daniel wrote songs, including the ballad "Beautiful Texas" and the Hillbilly Boys theme song, which is the catchiest flour jingle ever created by human endeavor.

The original nature of O'Daniel's run for governor is not clear and was probably partially conceived as a stunt to sell more flour.  But O'Daniel packed people into his rallies, which were essentially massive open-air concerts.  He campaigned on some promises for pensions and with a platform of the Ten Commandments, apparently prepared to lose the wife-coveting and graven-idol lobbies that had were sweeping through 1930s Texas with wild campaign promises to build graven idols of neighbors' wives.

Somehow, O'Daniel swept into victory in the Democratic Primary, which all but assured victory in the general election.  While in office, he continued to put out his weekly radio show from the Governor's Mansion, a move unprecedented until Jesse "The Body" Ventura commentated on XFL Football Games while still serving as governor of Minnesota.  Naturally, he swept to reelection in 1940, presumably because other candidates had crappier fiddle players.
   
Pappy O'Daniel seemed to subscribe to the Le Petomane School of 
Western Governing

By then, however, his ambitions had become grander.  In 1941, Senator Morris Shepherd died as did the aged son of Sam Houston that O'Daniel sent to replace him.  Pappy O'Daniel intended to claim the seat for himself.  At a special election, O'Daniel joined a slate of colorful candidates that included the barrel-clad, the bellicose, and Lyndon Baines Johnson (Crawford and Anderson compare this to the 2003 California recall election).  He defeated LBJ by less than 2,000 votes by somehow out-corrupting him, the only man to ever defeat Johnson in an election.  Once in the Senate, O'Daniel sunk into relative obscurity as he became increasingly devoted to ferreting out communists in the American government, as was the style at the time. 

O FOOTBALL 

It's time to watch our lads in purple helmets smash into other gentlemen in different colored helmets, time to live in a world where Northwestern football is actually seen not only as decent but good, time to watch the NCAA fall all over itself in comical fits of hypocrisy, time to watch the Big Ten absorb insults as to the quality of its football, and time to savor the final year of LEGENDS and LEADERS and a conference bereft of Rutgers and Maryland.  To be honest, I'm baffled as to what to expect and still overwhelmed from the bowl win.  The logical next step is to keep the streak improbably going to Indianapolis, to Pasadena, and in the service of fine flour products for the entire family.

Northwestern Basketball Coaching Search

They're all gathered from 'round the globe, in their purple regalia and their academic hats and their business-casual khakis.  The Northwestern faithful are huddled together at the Rebeca Crown Center waiting for the signs of a decision: black smoke means no decision has been made, purple smoke means a new coach, red smoke means they've found an occasion to use that smoke machine that the University Police seized from the raid on an off-campus Dillo Day party, and white smoke indicates an overextended, overwrought, and clumsy comparison between hiring a new basketball coach and picking a pope.
 
In my defense, how often do you get to make topical Pope Smoke 
references?  Unless we can convince Hollywood to get a lot more 
secretive and ostentatious about how they choose the new host of 
Family Feud.

Bill Carmody, who served for thirteen years as the head coach of Northwestern, was fired after a depleted, injury-riddled squad did what every single Northwestern did in the history of the program and missed the NCAA tournament.  For thirteen years, Carmody's teams have tormented Big Ten opponents with barrages of three pointers, backdoor layups, and relentless Balkan trashtalk.  Now, the 'Cats will have to find a new identity that will hopefully lead them to the promised land, when the name "Northwestern" appears on Selection Sunday without that ugly, disappointing State appendage-- I'm convinced that Northwestern State University is a guy with a telephone in an empty office in Natchitoches, Louisiana that finds a dozen dudes to put into the tournament as an ongoing prank on Northwestern's futile morass of basketball ineptitude.

THE BILL CARMODY ERA

It has been so long between BYCTOM posts that there is an unpublished draft pondering whether or not to fire Carmody.  And I had come down on it as a mistake.  This has nothing to do with basketball and everything to do with a concern about unbalancing the humors in Northwestern's coaching.  Bill Carmody served as a crucial balance to Pat Fitzgerald.  Carmody complemented Fitz's square-jawed,  crew-cut, fist-pump enthusiasm with his dour, sarcastic, miserablist sideline demeanor.  Fitz coaches the football team like it's a violent Boy Scout jamboree; Carmody comported himself like the basketball version of Sisyphus, forever trying to push a rock from the former Yugoslavia up the hill of the Big Ten basketball juggernaut.  What would happen if Northwestern hires another young, enthusiastic coach?  I don't want to alarm anyone, but I've done the research and it's entirely possible that the entire campus can be seized by a rash of spontaneous butt bumps, inability to function at any rate other than one game at a time, and the fist pumps, I can't even imagine the fist pumps.
 
A thoroughly scientific rendering of the Fitz/Carmody dynamic, 
which now may be seriously compromised

As much as Bill Carmody's teams have frustrated NU fans, they also reached unprecedented heights.  Even in dismal years, they provided memorable moments with his motley crew of overlooked locals and international findings.  Who can forget when Northwestern downed Iowa 40-39 in what was later prosecuted in the International Basketball Court as a crime against the sport, or that time the Wildcats trampled upon the hopes and dreams of Rick Rickert in the Big Ten Tournament, which sort of seemed like a big deal at the time for some reason?  Carmody led the 'Cats to numerous wins in dubious preseason tournaments held in unused Kumite arenas and three NITs, the only tournament that pauses for media timeouts and to allow shattered NCAA Tournament bubble teams to weep in the arms  of loved ones.  
 
A college basketball coach accepts an NIT bid

That progress was the essential Bill Carmody conundrum.  Fans braying for his head on a stick could seem unreasonably impatient with a historically woeful program, but it was also possible to wonder whether Carmody could ever get the 'Cats over the hump.  There is no sense in belaboring the debate.  Northwestern's administration has made its decision.  A new coach gets to stride into Welsh-Ryan arena and announce that he will be the one to break through the Tourney barrier, to compete in the Big Ten, and to be astonished that yes, that is actually where Northwestern plays its college basketball games.

NORTHWESTERN IS A FOOTBALL SCHOOL, HERE IS FOOTBALL STUFF

On a less depressing note, the 2013 Gator Bowl Champion Northwestern Wildcats return to the field to prepare for a season with dreams of Indianapolis in their eyes.  They'll be playing in the newly-named "West" division with all of the LEGENDS as well as Tim Beckman's Northwestern-hating Illinois team and one of Indiana or Purdue.  While many people are dancing upon the noble graves of the LEGENDS and LEADERS division names and the return to sane, cardinal direction-based titles, I'm extremely concerned.  Jim Delany has been defeated, which portends a new round of megalomaniacal pronouncements.  I expect that a cape-wearing Delany will mandate that Big Ten coaches stalk the sideline in full academic regalia in order to emphasize the conference's academic credentials, he will start replacing all positive adjectives in official press conferences with the words "legendary" or "leaderous," and he will purchase hour-long blocks of late-night programming on rival conferences' television networks that consist of him cackling on a golden throne and end with ominous threats of Big Ten expansion.
 
Scene from"You're Next, Missouri," set to air from 2-3 
AM on the SEC Network

Northwestern has struck a deal to make a return to Wrigley Field after the Cubs finish renovations.  The future Wrigley games will utterly fail if the renovations allow the full use of all available endzones.  I refuse to count any touchdown that is scored in the designated "bad endzone," and any player who breaks the plane should be followed around by a group of robed malcontents who will pester him constantly with spooky endzone chants for the duration of the season.  I've made my feelings clear to Northwestern and Cubs management by sending a literary letter that metaphorically describes the forbidden endzone as the former Soviet Union and scoring in it as taking my brain waves and using them to power a 30-foot mechanized Bukharin, so I'm sure they are taking the suggestions very seriously.

THIS IS MADNESS

As the nation full of college sports fans watch the empty, hollow, spectacle of March Madness, I'll be defiantly watching my reel-to-reel tapes of Tavaras Hardy, Jitim Young, Vedran Vukusic, Mohammed Hachad, Juice Thompson, John Shurna, and all of the rest of the Carmody-era Wildcats and pondering the future.  Unfortunately, the athletic department has refused to issue vague riddles and rhymes that will gradually reveal the identity of the new basketball coach, so there's nothing to do but sit tight and wait.  I look forward to cheering for Carmody wherever he ends up next, although I'd prefer not to see Northwestern victimized by backdoor cuts and the 1-3-1 zone defense anytime soon.  More importantly, I look forward to a basketball season less marred by suspensions and injuries that will see Northwestern return to the postseason, even if its not the glory of the Dance.  Perhaps we'll all meet back here next march, filled with insincere NIT braggadocio, ill thoughts about the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, and a new coach ready to launch Northwestern to the stratosphere of being the 68th-best basketball team in the nation.   

It Has Been Zero Years since Northwestern Last Won a Bowl Game

Sometimes, you win football games.  Sometimes, you lose football games.  And sometimes, you eradicate a bowl drought nearly old enough to qualify for social security by jubilantly tearing a stuffed monkey asunder in a locker room and then bringing its severed head to a press conference because Northwestern finally won a damn bowl game.

Not too many coaches deliver a sincere address about the hard work and tenacity of their football 
players with the remains of a monkey toy sitting on the table like the head of Alfredo Garcia

With the victory, Northwestern's seniors became the school's winningest class, the Wildcats claimed their third season with 10 victories, and Coach Fitz won his fiftieth game, more than any other head coach.  Emotions flew high after the win.  Fitz broke down; even his rote "our young men" speeches went from banal, rote coach-speak to inspiring rote coach-speak as you can hear the weight of Northwestern's abysmal football history lifted off of his shoulders.

THE HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN BOWL LOSSES

The burden of history continued to weigh on Northwestern football fans with each passing year.  For much of the drought, bowls were relatively few and far between, and Northwestern  lost most of their games anyway.  The 1949 Rose Bowl seemed impossibly distant.  The last time Northwestern won a bowl game, Harry Truman demanded satisfaction from Hirohito in a musket duel and the United States was a breakaway dukedom in the Holy Roman Empire. 

Harrold of Truman, Archduke of Missouri, Pomerania, and 
Lower Silesia, undermined a strategic marriage of his 
arch-rival Dewey into a powerful Canadian Habsburgh family 
by revealing Dewey's ungainly way with the tea service.  He 
then posed for a portrait with an announcement prematurely 
announcing  Dewey's ruined nuptials filled with those f-looking 
s letters and then Northwestern won a bowl game

For a long time, Northwestern fans had been content merely to make it to the postseason, but the bowl losses had begun to pile up into an astounding collection of happenings.  From the perspective of today, it almost seemed like those bowl losses happened to make yesterday's win even sweeter; that is the only way I can describe what happened in the Sun Bowl, the Outback Bowl, and the Second Alamo Bowl without the use of hostile occult forces because the Lakefill was built on some sort of ancient Mer-Man burial ground with a very specific grudge against mid-tier bowl victories.

HEY THERE WAS AN ACTUAL GAME THAT HAPPENED

The game certainly played to the complete opposite of my expectations.  Northwestern's defense locked down Mississippi State's passing attack and the offense relied on timely passes to march down the field as they struggled with the Bulldog run defense.  The 'Cats certainly benefited from a tough day for Mississippi State quarterback Tyler Russell, who coughed up four interceptions, including an opening pick-six into the waiting arms of Quentin Williams.  He was not helped by the excellent play of the Wildcat secondary, who kept MSU's ace receiver Chad Bumphis in check with only 18 yards.  On offense, Trevor Siemian came off the bench to deliver an unexpected rushing touchdown and the play of the game on an elusive third-down completion to keep a drive alive.  The Bulldogs limited Colter and Mark, but Colter sealed the game with a 31-yard scramble to set up a Tyris Jones touchdown.  Freshman superback Dan Vitale continued his late-season surge by leading all receivers with 82 yards.  Mississippi State also helped out with several costly penalties, including a penalty for attempting to use 1.5 defenses, and another sideline interference penalty that was nowhere near as funny as the Beckman flag-clobber.

The game, though, remained in doubt.  The Bulldogs battled back from an early deficit and, at times, looked like they might take over the game on the ground.  When they got within a touchdown in the fourth quarter, Northwestern fans instinctively began to strap into their safety seats, put on their mittens, and have their man-servants prepare their purple-plated heart paddle machines.  To their credit, Mississippi State refused to give up even after a barrage of turnovers.  Fortunately, Northwestern rallied, added an insurance touchdown, and refused to budge in the final minutes, and I am just now nearly able to chew solid food.

To be honest, I did not know much about Mississippi State before the game.  Northwestern fans were introduced to the Starkville tradition of constantly ringing cowbells for several consecutive hours.  Far be it for me to disparage the tradition as a person who has encouraged the defense by yelling and making fist-claws.  I'm also thankful that Bulldog fans don't traditionally file their collective nails on third downs, make mewling late-night alley cat noises, or endlessly holler out Snow's "Informer" off the top of their heads for the duration of the game, which would result in a muddled staccato mishmash except on the words "informer" and "licky boom boom down."

Please don't give Purdue any ideas

As someone who could not make it to Jacksonville and watched the game on television, I can only add that the only thing that would have made this historic day for Northwestern more enjoyable would be more delightful banter between the race car guy and the inflatable knight.

THE GATOR BOWL IN CONTEXT

Northwestern's win was a lone bright spot in a disappointing day for the Big Ten.  Michigan and Nebraska lost close games to SEC foes, while Stanford prevailed over Wisconsin in the giant man running into each otherest game of the day.  Purdue disappeared in the wilderness.  The crappy Big Ten showing was certainly affected by Penn State and Ohio State's bowl bans, which led to unfavorable match-ups against unsporting athletic conferences that refused to suspend two of their top-ranked schools from bowl play out of gentlemanly honor. 

Bowl season is reserved for ridiculous inter-conference opprobrium that affects rooting interests.  Though Northwestern took care of business against an SEC opponent, New Year's Day brought grim tidings to the Big Ten as a whole.  Michigan State was the only other Big Ten team to win a bowl game what can only be described as satisfying reverse choke that helped undo some of the heartbreak from the past season.  The rest of the conference has caused a whole lot of internet consternation about the Big Ten's inferiority to other conferences, particularly by swaggering SEC partisans.

The conference argument is specious and ridiculous, born out of the inherent politicking inherent in college football's arbitrary ranking system.  While the Big Ten certainly had a down year, its top teams did not seem overwhelmingly over-matched in their games.  More importantly, it is impossible to calculate the strength of the ever-growing Big Ten; teams playing Big Ten opponents cannot be entirely sure that they will not somehow end the game in the Big Ten in a new division called the Lions or the Land Barons or Los Locos Kick Your Balls into Outer Space.    
 
Scientific simulation of Conference Realignment

Nonsensical conference arguments also mean that we're supposed to support our fellow Big Ten teams in bowls, even though I have spent the last several months whipping myself into a fury of pointless sports hatred directed against their programs.  No conference argument was going to deny me the hollow satisfaction of Michigan getting Roy Roundtreed or Nebraska coming up short.  How am I supposed to cope with bowl season without feasting on their fans' mild disappointment?

IN CASE YOU FORGOT, NORTHWESTERN WON THE GATOR BOWL

I honestly have no idea what else to say about this happy moment in Northwestern bowl game history.  I'm thrilled for Coach Fitz and the players, who turned around a season many of us thought would be a disappointment into one of the most gratifying in the history of the program.  Watching Northwestern's years of impossibly heartbreaking bowl losses are a reminder that a single game is not an indictment of a team's character, but the result of the unpredictable bouncing of an oblong ball and (in my theory), the curse of a vengeful group of supernatural mermen.  Even so, it is much more fun when the team wins and then parades around a stuffed monkey carcass.  Happy new year, Wildcat fans.  Let's all hope the basketball team does well enough to make us suffer through another Selection Sunday.